The underground cellar had been magically restocked to the brim – all 35,000 litres of wines and rare whiskey it could hold – even as Abhimanyu had tried his best, by God, to empty it out. ‘It’s time for Japan,’ he said to himself and walked to the far end, climbed up nearly full forty feet of intricate movable stairs and grabbed an obscure bottle, labelled in a language he couldn’t read. One his way down, he picked up a few bottles of red wine. He’d developed some kind of routine when it came to wine. He’d finish a bottle or two in a few hours and with sleep still eluding him, he’d smash them against the stone walls of his room. Feeling buoyant at the prospect of getting drunk and defeating misery, he sauntered into his quarters, picking up an empty bottle from the floor and used it as a microphone as he began a mock commentary of a cricket match.

‘Abhimanyu for the win, off he goes for a career-defining spell,’ he announced and ran across the hall looking like a pale shade of the menacing bowler he used to be. He jumped half the length he was capable of in his prime, and landed on the wrong foot, his arms slinging forward, hurtling the bottle with all his might towards a pillar he was aiming at. The bottle flew across the room, missed the pillar and crashed into hundreds of little pieces of glass on the floor.

‘Wide!’ he imitated an umpire’s call and began to look for the wine bottle opener when he heard a strange sound. Somebody was singing.

‘Safar mein saath to doongi, meel ka paththar hi sahi,
Tumhe apni masti mein yuhi, dur se dekha to karungi.’

At first, he thought he was dreaming. The voice, it drew the picture in his head – a lonely milestone by an empty highway that read ‘RANAKPOUR 8’. But as the song went on, he realized it wasn’t a dream. Meera’s voice was calling out to him. He ran out of his room in the direction of the sound, his feet hurrying him downstairs – the song seemed to be coming from Ajay Singh’s quarters. Unable to locate a sentry, he pushed open the door. The housekeeper cleaning up was startled at his entry and rushed to turn off the radio.

‘Don’t,’ he signaled her to step away.

‘Huzoor, I am extremely sorry to have turned on the radio without permission. This won’t happen again.’