As Indian markets reopen after a holiday pause, they find themselves at the intersection of three converging pressures: oil prices that strike at the heart of an import-dependent economy, geopolitical fires rekindled across the Middle East, and a Federal Reserve poised to raise interest rates for the first time in over three years. The modest optimism telegraphed by futures contracts is less a signal of confidence than a holding pattern — markets breathing shallowly while the world's larger forces arrange themselves. In such moments, the small numbers on a screen carry the weight of much large