Dawn came over the Shamshabad estate before the city of Hyderabad was awake.
It was the morning of Raksha Bandhan.
The corridors of the farmhouse smelled of burning camphor and sandalwood incense. From the kitchen came ghee, roasting gram flour, and cardamom. Fresh boondi laddu and mysore pak were on the stove for the festival.
In the marble prayer room, the family gathered for the early pooja.
The carved wooden doors stood open. Marigolds and white jasmine had been strung over the silver idols. Brass diyas burned, and the light moved across the floor.
They were dressed for it.
Vikram Deva wore a white silk pancha with a gold zari border. Beside him, Sesikala wore a burgundy Kanjeevaram. The silk took the colour of the lamps.
Siddanth Deva sat cross-legged on a woven mat. The Devil of Cricket was not in this room. He was a son and a father, in an ivory silk kurta, hands folded, eyes closed, with the chant going on around him.
Krithika sat beside him in a peach Banarasi saree, a jasmine gajra in her braid. She held a small silver bell and rang it in time with the prayer.
The children, loud on other mornings, were quiet.
Rishi sat beside his father in a small white silk kurta and a tiny pancha, dressed like him. His eyes stayed on the cotton wicks.
Aadhya wore a pink and gold pattu pavadai. Her gold bangles clicked softly when she pressed her palms together.
Ronny lay near the doorway, eleven years old now, head on his paws, the quiet of the room settling over him as well.
Vikram and Sesikala led the Sanskrit mantras, asking for health, protection, and prosperity for the house. When the aarti was finished, the brass bell rang through the farmhouse, and the morning rites were done.
The pooja was over. The rest of Raksha Bandhan could be loud.
They moved from the prayer room into the living room. The curtains were drawn back. Morning sun fell on the teak coffee table.
Aadhya could not keep still.
Krithika put a silver thali in her hands. On it were four rakhis, a small cup of wet red kumkum, a few grains of raw rice, a tiny brass diya, and a bowl of the sweets just made.
"Hold it with both hands, sweetie," Krithika said, and walked her to the middle of the room.
Rishi sat on the edge of the sofa, back straight, hands on his knees, waiting for his sister.
Aadhya marched up. She took the job as hers.
She set the plate down. She dipped her right ring finger into the kumkum and put it on his forehead. She did not measure it.
The dot was large, a little off to one side, and smeared toward the bridge of his nose.
Rishi blinked. The paste tickled. He did not wipe it. "The bindi is not centered."
"It looks perfect!" Aadhya said, and ignored him.
She picked up the first rakhi, a bright thread with Ironman helmet in the centre. With Krithika's hands over hers, she tied it on Rishi's right wrist. Then she pushed a piece of boondi laddu into his mouth.
Rishi chewed, swallowed, and reached into the paper bag beside him on the sofa.
He took out a Cadbury Celebrations box and gave it to her with a formal nod.
"Happy Raksha Bandhan, Aadhya," he said.
Aadhya saw a box of chocolate.
"THANK YOU!" she shouted, and hugged it to her chest. "You are the best brother!"
The adults laughed at the pair of them.
She was not finished.
She turned to her father, leaning in the doorway with his coffee.
"Nana! Sit down!" she said, and pointed at the sofa. "It is your turn!"
Deva set the cup down and walked over. He sat on the rug, cross-legged, in front of his daughter, and held out his right wrist.
"I am ready."
She repeated it. A large dot of kumkum over the line already on his forehead. A red and gold thread on his wrist. A piece of laddu, held up until he ate it. She looked proud of the work.
"My turn," Deva said.
He reached behind the sofa. Not a jewellery box, and not a toy from a shelf.
A black case. He unzipped it and took out a new junior tennis racket. The frame was neon pink and black.
Aadhya gasped and dropped the chocolate box on the carpet.
She grabbed the handle. "It is so light, Nana!"
She took a wide stance in the middle of the living room and, with no warning, swung a two-handed backhand. The frame cut the air and stopped inches from an old porcelain vase on the side table.
"Outside!" Krithika said, and caught her by the shoulders. "Take the racket out now, before you break the house!"
Deva laughed until his shoulders shook. Aadhya marched onto the veranda and swung at balls that were not there.
She ran back in two minutes later. One duty left.
She went to her grandfather. Vikram sat in an armchair and gave her his wrist. She tied the last of the men's rakhis and put the kumkum on.
He reached into the pocket of his white silk pancha, took out ₹5000 in notes, and closed her fingers around it.
"Happy Rakhi, bujji," he said, and tapped her nose. "Straight into the piggy bank. No candy."
"I am going to buy more tennis balls!" Aadhya said, the notes in one fist and the racket in the other.
Then she turned and looked toward the doorway.
"Ronny!" she called.
He lifted his head. She went to him with the last rakhi on the thali—a big one she had chosen herself, thick red and gold thread with a bright bead in the centre.
She knelt, looped it carefully around his neck, and tied it. He stayed still for her.
"Happy Raksha Bandhan," she told him, and pressed a tiny bit of laddu near his mouth. He took it.
Deva was still on the rug.
"Come here," he said.
She came with the racket. He put his hand on her head.
"The thread does not make me your father," he said. "I already am. If you are in trouble, you call. If a serve is too quick, you tell me after, and we take it in the nets. You will not be left to sort it with no one at the other end."
She nodded the way she nodded at a line call. "Go and take your Grandparents blessing."
Aadhya put the racket down, took Rishi by the free hand, and they touched Vikram's feet, then Sesikala's. His palm came down on each head. Hers did too, and a piece of laddu went into Aadhya's hand on the way up. The piggy-bank rule survived everything except a grandmother.
Deva stood. People waited on him in other rooms. Here he bent and touched his father's feet, then his mother's. Krithika followed, saree gathered in one hand. Vikram left his hand on his son's head a little longer than on the children.
Sesikala would not let the wrist go unphotographed.
She sat them on the sofa. She and Vikram in the middle. Deva and Krithika on either side. The children on the carpet in front, threads turned outward.
Ronny had followed and settled near Aadhya's feet, the big rakhi resting against his fur.
Aadhya would not drop the racket, so it stood between her and Rishi. The chocolate box was in her lap. Rishi rotated the superhero until it faced the phone. Kumkum, rice, and a crumb of mysore pak were all in the picture. Krithika took three. Aadhya checked them, decided the bangles were hiding, and made them sit again.
Then the house went to eat.
Tamarind rice. Ghee rice. Curd. A dry bean curry. Gongura pachadi. Appadams. The laddu and the mysore pak at the far end, and semiya payasam, because Sesikala had asked for it the night before. Banana leaves for the children. Aadhya had ruled that plates were for days with no thread.
"Rice first," Sesikala said, before the laddu plate could lose a piece.
"Laddu is also lunch," Aadhya said.
"Rice, then laddu."
She ate the tamarind rice as if it had delayed a match. Rishi went in order: rice, curry, curd, a little payasam, and then he stopped, because that was a full plate in his head. Deva took a second helping of the ghee rice.
In the afternoon the silk was changed. The rakhis stayed. Deva put on a house shirt and, when Krithika asked if the thread itched, left it where Aadhya had tied it.
On the back lawn Aadhya wanted a hitter, a fielder, and an audience. Rishi was given all three jobs.
Ronny found a patch of shade nearby and watched.
"You roll. I hit," she said.
"Not at this wrist," he said. "This hand stays up."
He rolled the ball with his left. She hit it back. Deva sat on the step with buttermilk and did not coach until she asked.
"It is bouncing small."
"Get lower," he said. "Like a keeper. You don't stand up and hope the ball finds you."
She got lower. The next one came off the middle and ran into the hedge. Rishi looked at the hedge, then at his wrist, then at his father.
"I'll fetch it," Deva said. "Hand stays up. That's the field."
He came back with the ball and a leaf in his hair. Aadhya called it fifteen-love. No one had served. Rishi let the score stand.
Krithika and Sesikala used that hour for the part of the day that is not for the camera. Small steel boxes. Laddu, mysore pak, and payasam where the box could hold it. One for the cooks who had been at the stove since dark. One for the gardener. One for the men at the gate, who would not enter the prayer room, and who had daughters in other houses. Krithika carried them herself. On that day the women of the house did the giving.
She came back to Aadhya on the step, damp-haired.
"Rishi protected me," Aadhya said. "The ball went in the bush and Nana did the running. I am hungry."
"You ate."
"That was lunch. This is for the running."
Sesikala allowed the kitchen floor once in the year. Three spoons in the last of the semiya. Siddanth, Aadhya, Rishi. Vikram had gone for a nap.
At dusk they lit the diyas again. Not a second pooja. A minute in the prayer room, hands together, because Sesikala did not end a festival at a steel vessel. Aadhya wore the bangles for that minute and took them off in the corridor. The rakhis were still on. Rishi checked his knot. Deva did not. He would wear it until the thread decided to go. Ronny's big rakhi stayed where Aadhya had tied it.
---
The quiet of Wednesday in that house did not survive Thursday morning.
At 10:00 AM the YouTube channel of the Nexus Sports Foundation went live.
The account had more than five million subscribers.
No press note. No trailer. The files went up, and phones across the country started ringing with the notification.
Video 1: The Champions' Welcome (The Feast)
The first video ran twelve minutes. It opened on a drone over the banyan trees at Shamshabad.
It was not a shaky clip. The colour was warm. The sound kept the gravel under the tyres, the birds, and the leaves.
It showed the twenty-three Olympic medalists and their families arriving. The buses came up the drive.
People stopped at the doors.
Siddanth Deva was in a white linen kurta.
He walked down the steps, past any formal line, and hugged Pawan Kumar. Krithika, Sesikala, and Vikram greeted the athletes' mothers with folded hands.
The picture opened onto the shamiyana on the lawn, saffron and green cloth in the wind, poles wrapped in marigold.
No VIP table. No chart of names.
Deva sat cross-legged on a Kashmiri cushion and ate Hyderabadi mutton biryani. A billionaire, on the floor.
Arjun Reddy was in the frames, joking with the shooters. Aadhya was in them too, staring at the gold medals, not stepping back.
The man from the crease was on the floor with the families.
Video 2: Talk with the Devil (Episode 1)
The second video was the talk.
The thumbnail showed Deva in sofa, amber light on him, the athletes in the shadow around the circle.
The title read: Talk with the Devil - The Paris Conquerors (Inaugural Episode).
Three hours. No script.
Sofas in a circle. Deva asked, and then he stayed out of the shot they were playing. A set batter does not need the non-striker calling the stroke.
Sanjali wept. She talked about Nexus scouts picking her because of talent.
Pawan Kumar cried. The hunger of a long session on the mat, and a meal of dry roti and onions after it. Torn wrestling shoes. Then the Nexus centre, a salary, and a pair of shoes that held.
The anger stayed in. The delay stayed in. What the foundation had paid for stayed in beside it.
In the last half hour the questions turned.
Neeraj Chopra leaned forward and asked about the 2011 World Cup final.
The light stayed with the India captain. He sat back and took the room to the Wankhede.
He told them what it is to take guard after Sachin Tendulkar is out. A billion people on the one innings. The ground gone quiet. You feel it in the handle. You hear the field. You hear the bowlers' spikes on the turf.
He told them about the cramps in the heat. Not looking at the scoreboard. Seeing the overs out with Virat Kohli. Then taking the Sri Lanka attack on, and a century in a World Cup final.
"That is what it feels like," he said. "It frightens you. It hurts. And when you get through it, there is nothing in the game like it."
He looked into the lens to close. This had been the first sitting, all of them together. Episodes with each athlete, one by one, would follow, long enough for the full story. The screen went to black, and the gold mark of the Nexus Sports Foundation came up.
---
Inside three hours both videos were past ten million views.
The week before had been a fight of memes about cash rewards and cardboard cheques. That dropped.
@CricketNerd_IND: I am two hours into this podcast and I am sobbing. Sanjali talking about bamboo arrows in the dirt. The system failed her. Thank god for Nexus and Siddanth Deva. 😭🏹🇮🇳
@OlympicFanatic_IN: Seeing Siddanth Deva on the floor, eating biryani off a steel plate with Pawan Kumar. He did not forget the house he came from. 🙏❤️
@TeluguBidda_99: ANNA IS THE HOST. He does not cut them off. He listens. And when he started on the 2011 World Cup final, the hair stood up. The Devil telling that innings. 🔥👑
@Sonia_Styles12: The light, the room, the cameras. Nexus did not play at this. It looks like a proper film. 🎥👏
@SportsJournalist_IN: This will change how Indian sport is heard. The athletes went past the usual press and spoke straight to the young ones. Deva has gone around the media. 📝
@WrestlingFan_Haryana: Pawan Kumar crying about wrestling in torn shoes broke my heart. The federations should be ashamed. Nexus gave these players their dignity back. 🤼♂️💔
@Virat_Army_Delhi: Deva on batting with Virat Kohli when the 2011 final was falling in. They saw it out together. Two men at the crease. 👑🤝🇮🇳
@MemeCentral_Desi: Politicians: "We will give speeches on TV to motivate the youth." Siddanth Deva: "I will build a studio in the yard and let the athletes say what the system did." 💀🎙️
@TrackAndField_India: Neeraj Chopra asking Deva about pressure. Players recognising players. The respect in that room came off the screen. 🏃♂️🎯
@Desi_Liberal: We do not need the ministry to be the only door. Hand the sports money to the Nexus Sports Foundation. Deva and Arjun Reddy run it without the usual cuts. 🏢
@RightWing_Roar: The Deva family. Vikram and Sesikala greeting the parents with folded hands. The money did not rewrite the house. Jai Hind! 🚩🙏
@TiredFastBowler: As a fast bowler, hearing Deva on the Wankhede. You take guard and the ground has gone quiet on you. That is a different innings from the one the rest of us are picked for. 🏏
@Gamer_Boy007: Deva in that dark leather chair under the amber light. Like a final boss sending the Olympic lot out on the job. The presence is real. 🎮
@Priya_Vlogs: Krithika in the feast video, looking after everybody as if the lawn is her dining room. And Aadhya staring at the gold medals like she means to win a set of her own. 😂👧
@HistoryBuff_IN: In later years they will point at this podcast as the hour Indian Olympic athletes were allowed to speak. Deva gave them the chair and the time. 📜
@CricCrazyJohn: He has not given the usual media interview in years, and then he sits three hours so the Olympic athletes can be the ones heard. He used his crowd to put them up the order. 🏏
@Stats_Guy99: The NSF channel took on 2 million subscribers in three hours. 📈
@BlueBleeders: Deva describing the silence at the Wankhede in 2011. You could hear a pin drop in that studio. He tells a story the way he hits a cover drive. 🎤💙
@DesiPolitico: The politicians will be sweating. The athletes are saying the delays out loud. Nexus is doing the work of a sports desk the ministry did not. 🏛️
@Hitman_Army_Mumbai: Respect where it is due. He brought them to his home, fed them, and gave them a voice. A captain of Indian sport, not only of a side. 🤝🇮🇳
@Satire_Central_IN: News anchors: "Why won't Siddanth Deva give us an interview?" Deva: builds the broadcast and speaks on that. 📺
@IT_Cell_Commander: Athletes from Haryana, Manipur, Jharkhand, sitting together in Hyderabad with the pain and the win in the same hour. That is the country in one room. 🇮🇳
@BCCI_Insider: The BCCI PR team is reportedly quiet about the pictures. Deva and Arjun Reddy have made their own coverage, and they control the toss of it. 👑
@Meme_Mantri: Meera Devi laughing when Aadhya would not touch the medal, because she wants to win one. That child will be a problem for someone on a tennis court in fifteen years. 🎾
@Polity_Nerd: The two videos do not leave him as only a cricketer. He is in the chair as the elder of the Indian sporting house. ♟️
@Anti_Propaganda99: No script. No cue cards. No PR manager stepping on the answer. Three hours of it, said plain. A good day for the NSF. 🎙️
@Nationalist_Voice: I have the notification on for every episode. I want the one-by-one stories. Let these Olympic winners be known the way our cricketers are. 🔔🥇
@Sarcastic_Babu: A plain white kurta, and the money of a small country in the same frame. No logo on the chest. The man on the floor is the picture. 🤍
@Desi_Chanakya: The Master Architect does not only build an innings. He writes how that innings will be told. Talk with the Devil is him doing it where the public can see the score. 🎙️
@The_Master_Architect: The feast was shared. The truth was spoken. The quiet around the struggle is broken. The champions have the mic, and the house is listening. 🥇🎙️