The Big Drop. India’s largest open Hold’em tournament. Nine hundred poker enthusiasts, both amateur and pro, would flock to a riverboat casino in Goa to duke it out for the title. The prize pool of four crore rupees was attractive, but money was only one of the reasons Eram was in it. It wasn’t even the most important reason.

He reluctantly thought about going for a run. The Baron would have approved. A legend of the sport, Tom ‘The Red Baron’ Ferguson was Eram’s hero. He had read all his books, watched every available video interview of the guy. The Baron was big on physical fitness. You’re just sitting around on your arse, true, he said, but if you think you can stay focused for eight, nine, ten hours straight without being in some sort of shape, boy, you’re whistling in the wind. Whenever he was in doubt, Eram always asked himself: what would the Baron do?

In this case, the Baron would go for a run. Eram pulled on his trainers.

He was almost out the door when he heard muffled shouting coming from his father’s bedroom. He knocked on the door. ‘Pa?’

Silence. But when Eram tried to push the door open, it slammed shut as if a meaty shoulder had been thrown against it from inside.

‘No!’ His father’s voice was shrill with panic. ‘Keep away from me.’

‘It’s me, Pa. Let me in.’

‘Help! Stay away, bastard. Eram! Eram!’

Quite a few of Eram’s interactions with his father felt to him like the theatre of the absurd, but this here was farce on a whole other level. Minutes passed, Eram pushing on one side of the door, his father pushing from the other. Then, all of a sudden, the resistance from inside ended and Eram stumbled into the room.

His father, Faizl, was fifty-two years old and usually a man with style to spare. At the moment, however, his hair was in disarray and the buttons of his pyjama shirt were done up in mismatched holes. He was sucking in great gulps of air.

‘You okay, Pa?’ Eram asked. ‘It sounded like you were wrestling a bear in here.’

‘Bear,’ Faizl said. His right hand was describing aimless and involuntary circles in the air and he looked around the room as if for immediate signs of a large, furry mammal. ‘Someone was at my door, trying to get in. It wasn’t a bear. A man, I think, or two men.’

‘It’s okay. You had a bad dream.’

That irritated Faizl. ‘I have a doctorate in economics,’ he said, salty as hell. ‘I believe I know the difference between a dream and . . . and whatever this was.’

Eram didn’t really see how the laws of supply and demand had anything to do with having a nightmare. He redid the buttons of Faizl’s pyjama shirt and patted the hair on his head into some semblance of civilization. All the while the old man kept adding details, fleshing out his near-death experience.