When he did sit, Abhimanyu would nervously shift this way and that, trying to fit his tall frame into a small chair or couch. He would look up and find blank walls bereft of any family history – no photo frames reminding the occupiers of the room of their lineage, no insignia to signify their pride; just plain walls that left Abhimanyu to paint his own inaccurate pictures of the family’s untold history.

Despite all his discomfort and confusion, Meera’s riyaz, even her mere presence somewhere in the house, was enough for him to feel at home. With every visit, his heart would beat in anticipation as he wondered whether she’d be home or not. It would sink when he would realize that she was out, and soar whenever she would walk in, unannounced.

For Meera, the lanky figure dressed in expensive clothes perched uncomfortably on the small couch in their living room was nothing but a nuisance. Born and raised in Bombay, the city girl did not revere royalty. Why should she, she asked herself. Her history books had told her all she needed to know about them, and she’d attributed each and every stereotype of the entitled, fruit-munching, good-for-nothing, back-stabbing royals to Abhimanyu Singh of Ranakpour – the only prince she had ever seen in the flesh.

Everything about him, from the way he talked using big, stiff words and his formal greetings to his peculiar body language, rubbed her the wrong way. Most of all, she considered Abhimanyu a bad influence on Kamal. It was Abhimanyu who was to blame for her brother’s unwillingness to leave the field to get medicine for their mother. If Kamal was a bum to start with, Abhimanyu’s company had just made him worse. Jobs he had previously held for a few months now lasted only a few weeks due to his frequent matches at Abhimanyu’s club. In Meera’s mind, all of Kamal’s shortcomings, past and present, were a result of this prince dragging her brother into a sport that was ruining their family’s earning potential.

One evening, Kamal came home and announced that he had quit his highly respectable desk job at a trading company that Veena had helped him secure by requesting a favour from a friend who worked there. Kamal had held this job for a grand total of three days – a new record.

He whined that he had to work long hours for little pay, and that he had quit so that he could find something much better, but Meera was convinced that he just wanted the time to play yet another stupid tournament organized by Abhimanyu. ‘You complain of long hours at the job, but you’re happy to play cricket day and night. No long hours there, huh?’ She looked at Veena, her eyes silently telling her sister to not believe his excuses. ‘What do you know about work? And anyway, I am talking to Veena,’ Kamal shot back. The argument was reaching its boiling point when Abhimanyu showed up as per his ‘appointment,’ clueless about the battlefield he was walking into. Veena was relieved to see him, as she didn’t want the shouting siblings to wake up their mother.