March in Pune means the cold is done.
It doesn't ease out, it just stops.
Four days into March and it's thirty-six degrees by eleven in the morning and the school pitch is the colour and hardness of a clay pot left in an oven.
I loved it. I had always loved it.
My original career ran on the understanding that these conditions were advantages the dry heat, the rough ball, the turning track in the afternoon but only if you actually understood them. The knowledge was all here. The body was still learning to keep up.
Six weeks into the academy. Nair had moved me to the intermediate group without explaining why. Nobody pushed back. After the first two sessions, my age had stopped being the most interesting thing about me.
The March inter-school tournament: eight schools, six matches over three weekends. Winner to the divisional stage.
'In my first life, School No. 7 didn't win this tournament until I was twelve.'
'I have two years to fix that. And somewhere in this tournament — if I perform — I get my first Template.'
◆ ◆ ◆
Match one. School No. 11. We batted first.
Their bowling was decent. The challenge at this age is inconsistency — never quite knowing if the next ball will be on your stumps or a foot outside leg.
I came in at three with the score thirty-one for one. Nikhil out for twenty-two, caught going for something brave and wrong.
Six overs left. Sixty-odd would be enough.
I won't go through every ball.
Short version: I batted. On pure base ability, no Templates, just everything I genuinely knew. The judgment was there. The body was still slightly behind, but the judgment was there.
With four overs left I was on forty-eight.
With one over left — fifty-seven. Twelve needed.
Their last-over bowler was the tallest boy, about fourteen, medium pace. First ball — full, straight — I drove it for two. Second — short — I pulled it, four. Third — a full toss. I hit it as hard as this body could, over mid-on, four.
Sixty-two not out. Last ball of the innings.
I stood at the crease while the fielders walked in.
My partner Dhruv was already shouting. Nikhil was somehow on the field from the boundary.
And in the corner of my vision — something I had been waiting for since January first.
The wheel.
Golden, spinning slowly, real and crisp and completely invisible to everyone else around me. Six segments — bronze, silver, gold, diamond, bronze, silver. It turned for five full seconds, slowing the way a real wheel slows, clicking through the last positions —
[System: DING. First milestone — competitive fifty (62 not out). Lucky Wheel spinning. Result: GOLD tier. Template incoming. Processing...]
I stood completely still.
'Gold. First spin and it's Gold.'
The wheel stopped on the gold segment. The golden panel expanded in my vision, filling the right side of my sight like a window opening — and then the Template card appeared.
===========================
[E] TEMPLATE UNLOCKED
[Rahul Dravid — Batting — Right-hand bat, Technical Foundation]
[ STAT]
[VALUE]
[Defence Rating
[99 / 100]
[ Front-foot play]
[97 / 100]
[Concentration]
[98 / 100]
Leave ability]
[96 / 100]
[Patience index]
[99 / 100]
[Technique purity]
[98 / 100]
PASSIVE ABILITIES
[▸ The Wall — Difficulty of getting out on a good wicket reduced significantly.]
[ ▸ Dead Bat — Perfect defensive technique; edges fall short or stop instantly.]
[ ▸ Occupation Mode — Activates when team is in crisis; defence sharpens automatically.]
[ ▸ Mental Reset — After a false shot, technique self-corrects on next delivery.]
[ ▸ Leave Instinct — Know instantly whether to leave a ball outside off stump.]
===========================
"Rank E — the foundation of this Template only. Earn more and this card will evolve."
[System: Template acquired: Rahul Dravid [E — Batting].
[This is rank E — lowest tier. You now hold the most basic version of Dravid's technical foundation. ]
[To evolve this Template to D, C, B, A, S, and ultimately SS, you must earn higher-tier Dravid Template drops from the Wheel. ]
[Equipping this Template does not make you Dravid. It gives you the base of what made him exceptional. The rest is still yours to build. Template equipped automatically. Check your stance.]
'Rahul Dravid.'
'Rank E.'
'Even rank E Dravid is... let me feel this.'
I rolled my shoulders. Adjusted my stance slightly, nothing dramatic. The weight distribution just — settled. Something in the base of my feet. A quietness in my hands.
Like a small thing clicked into place.
It was subtle. That was the thing nobody tells you about Dravid's ability — it doesn't announce itself. It just makes the basics feel permanent.
The front-foot defence, the straight bat, the way your eyes stay level through the shot. It feels like something you always knew. Like it was already yours.
'Rank E. The lowest version of this Template.'
'But it's real. I can feel it.'
'SS would be... I don't even want to think about SS yet.'
Dhruv was hugging me. Nikhil was shouting. Three teammates were doing something that could loosely be described as a celebration.
I let it happen. I was there for it. And at the same time, some part of me was standing slightly outside, watching eleven-year-olds lose their minds over a school match, and feeling something warm that I hadn't expected.
'Before the IPL. Before the Tests. Before any of it. Just this. A hot afternoon, a small win, and my first Template just clicked in.'
'I missed this.'
Nair was at the boundary. He waited for the noise to come down. Then walked out onto the pitch. Looked at me, then at the cracked Cosco.
"That last over," he said.
"Yeah."
"The drive off the first ball. Your weight was already moving before he released it."
I said nothing.
"That's not a thing a ten-year-old learns from watching TV."
I looked at him. He looked at me.
'Tell him something that's true but not the whole truth.'
"I just watch the shoulder, sir. When it dips a certain way, the ball is always full."
He was quiet for a second. Then he opened the notebook. Wrote. Closed it.
"Double sessions next week," he said, and walked off.
Nikhil appeared immediately.
"What did he say?"
"Double sessions."
"That's actually good though — he only does that to people he —"
"I know."
"How do you know? You've been here six weeks."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. "Heard it from someone."
He stared at me. Let it go.
◆ ◆ ◆
I went home and found the cash.
The System's mechanism — I had decided not to examine it closely. An envelope in my bag, front pocket. Twenty notes, five hundred each.
I sat on the floor of my room and thought.
Option one: give it to my father. Found money story. Problem: he once found five hundred rupees on his bus and walked it to the lost property office. The depot manager put it in a drawer. My father felt good about this.
'Any found-money story ends at the police station.'
Option two: keep it all. Problem: twenty thousand rupees in a ten-year-old's room gets found. My mother cleaned this room.
I took fifteen thousand and wrapped it in paper. Wrote on it:
For the academy. Please don't ask.
Put it in the tin box with the ration card. My mother would find it. She'd ask my father. He'd be confused. She'd assume it was him. He'd not deny it because denying it would mean admitting he didn't know where money in his own house came from. They'd argue softly for two days and then accept it.
Not a perfect plan. A plan.
The rest went in my geometry notebook.
◆ ◆ ◆
I lay down and looked at the ceiling.
Listened to my parents in the kitchen. Not the words. Just the sound — two people who had been talking to each other so long that conversation and silence were the same.
Then my mother laughed at something my father said.
Small laugh. Private. Not for anyone else.
I had not heard that sound in five years.
After she died in 2019, I didn't know what I was missing until one evening in Cape Town, before a Test match, I heard a woman laughing on the other side of a hotel wall and I just sat there. Couldn't name it at first. Then I could.
That sound. That exact kind.
And here it was again. Completely ordinary. Available.
'Yeah.'
The golden panel blinked gently in the corner of my vision.
[System: Host status — Age: 10. Date: March 2004. ]
[Templates equipped: Rahul Dravid [E — Batting].
[Cash: ₹5,000.]
[ Season: 3 matches, 3 wins. Lucky Wheel: 1 spin, Gold tier, Template drop.]
[Upcoming: 3 district matches, double academy sessions, bat situation still unresolved. ]
[Note: the Dravid Template at rank E is a beginning, not a destination. Win more. Earn the wheel. Evolve it. SS is a long way away. Start tomorrow.]
'Rahul Dravid. Rank E.'
'SS is where I need to get it.'
'Long way.'
The kitchen went quiet. My father's footsteps going to bed. The light under the door going out.
Tomorrow: double sessions with Nair. Three district matches still to go. Somewhere in Mumbai, Virat Kohli was eleven years old and sleeping. Sachin Tendulkar had his first [SS] Template and had probably never thought of it that way.
One win at a time.
I made a note to fix the bat first.