By the time Arjun was three, the adults around him had learned something important.
He did not reach for things randomly.
Most children grabbed at air, toys, fingers—anything bright or moving. Arjun didn't. He waited. His eyes tracked. His hands moved only when the angle was right.
When his mother dangled a wooden rattle, he didn't flail. He studied it, tilted his head slightly, then caught it cleanly by the handle.
Once was coincidence.
The fifth time, silence filled the room.
"Vaadu… alochinchi pattukuntunnadu," his aunt whispered.He's thinking before he grabs.
Arjun heard it all.
That was the curse of remembering—being trapped in a small body while your mind ran laps around everyone else. He had to be careful. Too sharp, too early, and the world would notice. And attention, he already knew, was expensive.
So he learned restraint.
He learned to lose on purpose.
When neighborhood kids played marbles, Arjun lost the first few games badly. Let them feel superior. Let them relax. Then—just once—he would win everything in a single stretch, not flashy, not cruel. Just enough to tilt the balance.
Confusion was safer than fear.
By five, he had mapped the house without being taught. Which floorboard creaked. Which cupboard stuck. Which window faced the street and which faced the narrow lane where the milkman cut through every morning at 6:12 a.m.
Patterns were everywhere.
Guntur taught him that.
The city wasn't loud like Hyderabad. It didn't pretend to be important. But it moved. Trucks at dawn. Wholesale markets breathing awake before sunrise. Conversations that happened behind shutters instead of in offices.
Power without polish.
It felt familiar.
One afternoon, his father brought home a plastic cricket bat. Bright blue. Light as nothing.
"For timepass," he said, smiling. "Don't break the windows."
The adults laughed.
Arjun did not.
He held the bat and felt its weight—or lack of it. Cheap plastic. Poor balance. Completely wrong.
Still, when the tennis ball was thrown underarm, Arjun stepped forward without thinking.
Not with excitement.
With calculation.
Front foot planted. Head still. Bat coming down straight—not fast, not hard.
Tap.
The ball rolled cleanly between two bricks they were using as a makeshift wicket.
Silence.
"Again," someone said.
This time the throw was faster. Higher.
Arjun adjusted before the ball left the hand. His feet moved instinctively, not like a child copying elders, but like someone remembering something old.
Tap.
Again.
No slog. No swing. Just placement.
His uncle frowned. "Where did you learn that?"
Arjun shrugged.
He had learned it dying slowly in domestic cricket, watching selectors look past him, understanding—far too late—that cricket was not about hitting the ball.
It was about not making mistakes when others did.
By six, the whispers started.
"Vaadu odd ga unnadu."That boy is strange.
Not loud. Not naughty. Not greedy.
Just… watching.
At night, while the house slept, Arjun lay awake and replayed matches in his head.
2003 World Cup.Australia's arrogance.India's chance.
T20 chaos. Opportunity disguised as novelty.
Home pressure. Narrative traps.
He didn't relive them emotionally.
He dissected them.
Field placements that should have changed.Bowling spells that ran too long.Moments when captains blinked.
I won't blink, he promised himself.
One evening, rain poured suddenly, turning the lane outside into mud. The neighborhood kids ran in, dripping and laughing. Someone slipped, scraped a knee, cried.
Arjun stood under the eaves, watching the water carve paths through dirt.
Channels forming naturally. Flow choosing efficiency over effort.
His grandmother came up beside him. "What are you looking at, kanna?"
"Water," he said.
She smiled. "It always finds its way."
Arjun nodded slowly.
"Yes," he thought. And so will I.
He didn't dream of sixes.He didn't imagine applause.He didn't even imagine India yet.
He imagined control.
Years later, analysts would say Arjun Verma had unnatural game awareness. That he seemed to see moves before they happened. That bowlers felt trapped, batters suffocated.
They would credit talent.
They would be wrong.
The truth was simpler—and far more dangerous.
From the moment he could walk, the Devil had never played blind.
And Guntur—quiet, underestimated, patient—was teaching him exactly how empires were built.