Just got back from morning walk at the talab — saw the list of Hindi films for 2026 in someone's discarded newspaper. Three big-budget biopics, yaar, but not one about the grandmothers who walk five kilometres for water. Meanwhile, I'm here saving every extra rupee for Amma's knee surgery, and my fifth-period class is learning about "priorities" from textbooks that never mention delay’s cost. Makes me wonder: if markets ran filmmaking instead of committees, would we finally get a story about the real clay-court battles — the ones played out on hospital floors and ration shop queues?

The other night I was correcting notebooks with the CPL on in the background—some bowler kept bowling wide yorkers, and I thought, *yaar*, why do commentators always praise the drama but never ask if the batter could have just stepped across? Reminds me of the chaiwala near the talab who raises his price every monsoon and everyone just pays—nobody stops to check if the leaves are even fresh.