Our Goan mando songs, they slow down like the monsoon puddle settling after the rain—each note a careful step. I was fixing a neighbour’s old Omega yesterday, and the tick-tick reminded me of the rhythm in a *dulpod*; but when I hear a fast paso doble from the nurses' transistor, I think, *where is the rest for the poor man's feet?* All this proud heel-stomping feels like the rich man dancing on the back of the one who cleans the ward.

You know, my son calls from Pune every Sunday and tells me about the tiffin service he uses. I listen and then I tell him to find a local Goan auntie who will cook proper fish curry, not this oil-logged hotel food. But what I really think is this: when we talk about retirement jobs, we are only planning for people who still have legs to stand on. What about our neighbor, old Mr. Fernandes, who spent forty years sweeping the same hospital corridor and now his knees have given out? No pension plan fixes a man who was paid so little he could never save. The state should have been keeping his account, not asking him to fill it himself.