‘I bought you this, er, alarm clock, Inaya,’ he said. ‘So that you can wake up in time for sehri . . . you know, given that the rozas will be starting.’

Inaya reached out and took the clock from him. It was shaped like an old-fashioned radio.

‘It was the only design the shop had left,’ mumbled her father. ‘Big rush for alarm clocks these days.’

‘It’s like the radio Ammi would listen to. I like it. Thanks, Abba.’

Her father looked at her as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure where to begin. Their conversations had always been stilted, stopping and starting without getting anywhere on most occasions. ‘So, how’s your schoolwork going?’ he said finally.

‘It’s fine, Abba,’ Inaya replied, avoiding his gaze.

‘You know, there are two kinds of people, Inaya,’ continued her father, looking at a fixed point on the wall behind her. ‘There are some who work hard in school and then for the rest of their life, they have a good time because of that hard work. And then, there are those who have too much of a good time in school and for the rest of their life, they have a hard time because of that.’

‘Yes, Abba,’ said Inaya mechanically, having heard this lecture so many times that she could recite it backwards and in her sleep.

‘And your, er, cricket?’ he asked, awkwardly, still not used to the idea of his daughter playing a sport that, to his mind, was reserved for boys or men.

Inaya was stumped. Should she say it was going well or just lie again? She decided on the safer option.

‘I hardly get time for it because of all the homework, Abba.’

Her father nodded, although he didn’t look entirely convinced.

‘Anyway, I just wanted to, you know, give you that clock,’ he said. ‘Dinner will be ready soon . . . So come down.’

‘Yes, Abba,’ said Inaya. As soon as her father left, Inaya ducked under the bed and pulled out the poster she had kicked underneath. ‘So sorry for doing that to you, Jhulan,’ she whispered, as she gently smoothed out the creases. She held it admiringly, captivated by Jhulan Goswami’s look of triumph on having clean bowled the batter.

Inaya looked at the posters on her walls. One was a map of the world and the other was of the planets in the solar system. Inaya carefully raised the solar system poster off the wall. From beneath it peeped out a poster of Sana Mir, captain of Pakistan’s women’s cricket team, hitting a mighty six. Inaya looked at it in awe and practised her own hook shot, before covering the poster of her hero with the solar system again.

Then she unpeeled the second poster, and in its place, put up the poster of Jhulan Goswami. A moment later, picturing her father’s reaction to seeing her wall plastered with a cricketer, who was female and Indian, Inaya carefully covered it with the world map.