My bhindi plants don’t complain about the heat, they just grow—but these young idols, they sign contracts like they’re selling their own sweat to the factory, and the settlement sheet reads like the sugar co-op’s old accounts: all the *chaap* (pressure) on the bottom, nothing for the hand that watered. Every evening I see my son’s engineering fees on the fridge magnet, and I wonder if the music companies have the same rule as our local wrestling akhara—train hard, but the *guru* takes the prize. They say ‘change is progress,’ but I’d like to see the paper trail before I trust it.