And then, completely against the run of play, just when everyone thought Abhimanyu would see it through, came the delivery. To this day, no one conclusively remembers who the bowler was. Bhimji Gaekwad was once quoted as saying that all he could remember from that day was the stomach-churning, loud thwack! – a sound that travelled all the way to the grandstand when the ball met Abhimanyu’s skull. The prince who was hitting perfectly-timed shots till then had let his arms down to a rising bodyline delivery. Maybe the ball came in at an awkward height where he could not decide whether to duck or hook; maybe it bounced unevenly and betrayed his judgment; or maybe he had just lost interest. We will never know. In any case, the ball hit his right temple, and Abhimanyu fell to the ground almost instantly. These were the days where cricket was played without helmets. The players rushed to the pitch to attend to him, and had initially thought that the pool of blood on the batting crease was the result of a gash on the batsman’s head – an injury that would require no more than a few stitches. But to their surprise, Abhimanyu’s head was clean as a whistle, without even a bump, let alone a wound. To their horror, they found that all that blood had trickled out from his right eye. Each and every player on the ground screamed for help. Royal servants rushed to the pitch with a stretcher and whisked the prince away. Their once infallible giant now lay lifeless, leaving a trail of blood on the royal grounds. Meera, who had come to Ranakpour with dreams of starting a life with her beloved prince, could do nothing but watch the gruesome scene from the sidelines. She was devastated that she could not even openly cry out his name lest she give away the nature of their relationship, the actual fate of which she did not know. That first night in Ranakpour, where they stood under the stars as one, was gone in an instant as she stared down at the lifeless prince, alone among a crowd of onlookers by the sidelines.

Chapter 11

It’s ironic how the true reputation of a hospital is established by how many famous people breathed their last in its beds. For every mortal that received treatment and walked out of their doors after cheating death, Breach Candy Hospital Trust also boasted a reputation of being a veritable institution where prominent people came to die. From industrialists and business tycoons to celebrities, artists, politicians, people from the uppermost echelons of India, fought for their dear lives and succumbed to their illness or injuries; while reporters with cameras and dictaphones, and later concerned citizens with their camera phones, lined up outside the gates of the pristine white building, eagerly awaiting news. It was a morbid affair, but Abhimanyu lovingly called Breach Candy his second home, and its staff his extended family, he had become a regular fixture at the famed building in his twilight years. Before the Alzheimer’s robbed him of his memory, he knew everyone by their names and everyone in the hospital knew his preferences and pet peeves. Nurses and doctors would sneak in home cooked-food as he’d zestfully feast upon idli-sambhar and modak while his hospital meal would remain untouched. Why order that awful, barely edible fare from the Seagull Dispensary – his name for the Seagull Café situated at the ground floor – when I can smuggle in cuisines from every corner of India, he would say, chuckling.