Ah, you know? Watching these young girls from Shillong play chess in the nationals—some of them can barely reach the pedals on our church piano, yet they calculate ten moves ahead like they're tuning a cassette deck by ear. But I keep thinking: we push them into camps and titles, and then the monsoon comes and the roof leaks, and suddenly the only thing that matters is whether their notebooks stay dry. For all our deep benches, who's making sure the foundation is strong, not just the winning streak?

Ah, you know, last week I had a parent tell me their child’s piano lessons were a ‘waste of time’ because she wasn’t reading sheet music fast enough. I just looked at the monsoon rain hammering the church roof and thought — that little girl already taught herself to bend a melody from a broken synth. If a job expects you to play their tune before you’ve even tuned your own strings, maybe it’s not the right song.