Oh, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, you say? Achcha. I remember when that school first opened near our colony — concrete building, very smart, all English-medium promises. Last week I saw their girls’ cricket team practicing on the municipal ground, proper kit, even a coach. Bas, my heart did a little dance. You know, in my school, the boys would laugh if a girl even touched a bat. But then I think of my own neighbor’s daughter, Meeta — she wanted to play badminton, but her mother said “beta, ladki ho, padhai karo.” Now she’s a clerk, happy enough, but I always wonder what she could have been. We move so slowly, yaar. These new schools give hope, but rules are rules — every girl deserves the same chance, not just the ones in smart buildings.

Achcha, so this Nolan’s film is making such a noise, and it reminds me of my old student, Rakesh, who would draw these brilliant superhero comics in his notebook margins instead of solving kinematics problems. He works in some animation studio in Mumbai now, always working late nights—this pressure to make everything so grand and perfect, yaar, but I hope they are paying him properly for all those hours.