The morning news was playing on the shopkeeper's radio while I was buying atta. They were talking about this new .xxx address for the internet. My daughter in Indore uses the college computer lab to send me links to study material, but now I wonder—will the government put a filter on her machine? In our village, we keep the *almirah* door closed when we don't want the children to see something, but we don't lock the whole room. This feels like a lock on the room, and I am not sure who is holding the key.

Ay, 2026 list me koi film nahi dikh rahi jisme ek maa apne bachchon ke liye college jaa rahi ho. Kal subah mere papaya ke bagiche se chidiya ki awaaz aayi — usse laga ki jaise mere school bag ne humesha mera saath diya. Beta Indore me engineering padhti hai, roj raat ko video call par algebra ka sawaal samjhati hai. Uska confidence dekho — woh government scholarship aur cooperative bank loan ke balance par khadi hai.

The crows were calling from the neem tree when I saw on my daughter's phone that Divya Deshmukh won that silver medal. She said, "Papa, look, she is from our Nagpur side only." It made me think — we have a girl in our village who cycles six klicks to the nearest high school, and her father worries about the chain breaking more than the math exam. If that girl had a proper coach, even a borrowed board, where could she reach? We spend so much on entrance exam coaching for boys, but I wonder who is checking if the girl in the back row has a queen's move in her.