Coach Prakash Nair's academy was behind the civil hospital, in a building that used to be a warehouse and had never fully committed to the change.
Two nets. One concrete pitch with a known crack at the seven-metre mark. A whiteboard that said DISCIPLINE BEFORE TALENT in red marker so old it had faded to pink.
No air conditioning. One ceiling fan. Shared pads that smelled of fifteen years of other people's effort.
I loved it.
In my first life I came here at thirteen. Nair was already past his best as a coach by then. Now he was mid-forties, sharp, still in his prime, and I was ten years old with zero Templates and more technical knowledge in my head than any ten-year-old had a right to.
The academy was two hundred rupees a month.
My father went quiet when he heard. That particular quiet — the one that meant he was doing arithmetic he already knew the answer to.
"I want to go to Nair sir's academy," I said on the walk home.
"Hmm."
"It's two hundred a month."
"Hmm."
"I know that's —"
"It's not a lot," he said.
I stopped walking.
He kept going two steps, noticed, turned.
"Dad. Two hundred rupees is —"
"I know what two hundred rupees is. Don't explain money to me."
"I'm not —"
"I'll talk to your mother," he said. And turned back to the road.
'He's going to skip lunch. Every day. Forty rupees a day. Three months of that covers the academy fees and he'll never mention it once.'
I walked the rest of the way home without saying anything.
◆ ◆ ◆
First Saturday of February. Six-thirty in the morning.
Eleven other boys.
A thirteen-year-old in the second net who had the relaxed ease of someone who'd stopped trying to impress the coach months ago. Two brothers who held the bat identically. A left-hander about my age with a clean natural backlift.
Nair stood at the edge of the first net.
Short. Compact. That permanently-slightly-unimpressed expression — I had forgotten it until I saw it again now. He watched everyone warm up with the look of a man who was paying full attention while appearing to pay none.
I did my warm-up. Shoulder rotations, footwork drills, ten minutes of proper shadow batting. The kind of pre-session routine that gets trained into you at professional level and stays in your body.
Nair said nothing through all of it.
I went to the first net. Took my stance.
"Left elbow," he said.
I adjusted. He was right.
The senior boy bowled. Medium pace, decent line, full length. I drove it straight.
Nair circled to the off side. "Again," he said to the bowler.
Seven more deliveries. Six clean. The seventh was a good off-cutter I mistimed and edged.
Nair caught it one-handed. Without looking up from the notebook he'd just opened.
He wrote something.
"How long have you been playing?"
"Since I was small, sir."
I heard it immediately.
'You are small. You are literally ten years old right now.'
"Who coached you?"
"Nobody. My father shows me things. I watch a lot of cricket on TV."
He looked up. That face that rarely moved did a small thing — not impressed yet, but in the vicinity. Something revised.
"That off-cutter beat you."
"Yes, sir."
"You moved into it. Go back next time."
"I will, sir."
One more thing written. Notebook closed. He went to the second net where the thirteen-year-old was sweeping a ball that was nowhere near short enough to sweep.
'What did he write?'
I found out fifteen years later, at the 2019 Champions Trophy dinner. He showed me the page with a slightly embarrassed expression.
New boy. Age 10. Grip: adult. Feet: adult. Eyes older than the rest of him.
Underlined: Watch this one.