Dilli trudged back home from school, his satchel bulging not just with his usual books but with mathematics textbooks from every class. His friends had chuckled, wondering what this boy—who once hated numbers—was planning to do. But Dilli was on a strange, unstoppable path.
After freshening up, he sat cross-legged at the dining table where his mother had lovingly prepared snacks. The taste barely registered on his tongue; his mind was elsewhere. Today's match—13th September 2004—Australia vs. USA. The odds heavily favored Australia with a rate of 1.2. Without hesitation, Dilli logged into his Bet365 wallet. The numbers stared back at him: ₹6,00,000/-. With a steady hand that belied his age, he placed the entire sum on Australia. The dice were rolled.
Then he slipped into his bedroom, carrying the mountain of textbooks as though they were treasures. Opening the very first mathematics book from Class 1, he braced himself. Yet to his astonishment, every problem, every example, every explanation seemed to dissolve into his mind effortlessly. Numbers, once his sworn enemy, danced before him like loyal soldiers. His reasoning, his memory, his grasp—everything felt amplified, as though someone had whispered a secret cheat code into his very soul.
He tore through the textbooks with lightning speed. Class 1, Class 2, Class 3…by the time dinner was announced, he had conquered up to Class 6 in barely two hours. At the dining table, he wolfed down his food in ten minutes flat, the hunger for knowledge burning brighter than the hunger for rice and curry. Then, like a possessed little devil, he plunged back into the ocean of numbers.
His parents watched in stunned silence. In just eight days, the shocks their son had delivered far outweighed the entire decade of his life so far. They whispered their worries—shouldn't they stop him before he broke down? But when they saw his eyes, twinkling with an intensity they had only glimpsed during exams, they held back. Instead, his father made a quiet decision: they would let Dilli use their bedroom, shifting his grandmother to the hall. Tonight, the little boy would command his own war zone of learning.
Meanwhile, the cricket world delivered its verdict. Australia demolished the USA by nine wickets, swelling Dilli's wallet to ₹7,20,000/-. A fortune for a child, yet just another stepping stone on his strange new journey.
The house slept, but not Dilli. His room glowed with a dim, stubborn light, the rustling of pages like a war drum in the silence. Equations, formulas, theorems—he devoured them relentlessly.
At dawn, his father stirred and walked groggily toward the source of the light. Pushing the door open, he froze. There sat his son, eyes bright, posture sharp, energy undiminished. No trace of fatigue, no slumped shoulders—only a fierce, almost divine focus.
For a long moment, the father simply stood there, gasping for breath, realizing with awe and a touch of fear:
This was not just his little boy anymore. This was the beginning of something far greater.