March 13, 1990 — Malik Riyaz's Estate
Hyderpur
The estate had become something else.
Not a haveli anymore—not really. A haveli was a house, even a large one, even one with walls and guards and history. This was becoming something else. Something Riyaz didn't have a word for yet.
The animal sheds had multiplied. What started as a single temporary structure behind the main building was now three—no, four—sprawling constructions of wood and wire and corrugated tin, thrown together by men who usually built houses but were now building barns because a five-year-old had demanded it. The goats had their own section. The cows had theirs. The buffalo, temperamental and massive, had been given the largest space, which it had immediately claimed by lying down in the middle and refusing to move.
The camels were separate. Camels needed space. Camels needed dignity. Camels glared at everyone who passed and made sounds that Riyaz was fairly certain meant they were plotting revenge.
And then there were the rabbits.
Dozens of them. Arslan had acquired them somewhere—Riyaz still wasn't sure where—and now they occupied a series of hutches along the eastern wall, multiplying at a rate that seemed mathematically impossible. Every time Riyaz looked, there were more. Small ones, medium ones, ones that stared at you with those weird sideways eyes and twitched their noses like they knew something you didn't.
The chickens were everywhere. Not in coops—Arslan had insisted they be allowed to "free range," a term he had picked up from God knows where—so now the courtyard was dotted with brown and white birds, pecking at the dirt, leaving droppings on the paths, and generally acting like they owned the place. One particularly aggressive rooster had taken to challenging the guards at the gate. So far, the guards were losing.
The staff had grown to match the chaos. A dozen people now moved through the estate at any given hour. Feeders and cleaners and milkers and watchers. Men who knew animals. Men who knew nothing about animals but needed work. A boy not much older than Arslan whose only job seemed to be chasing chickens out of the main house, which he did with the weary resignation of someone who knew he would never catch them all.
Riyaz sat on the veranda, cup of tea growing cold in his hand, watching the morning unfold.
A goat had gotten loose and was eating the roses. Two servants chased it, their shouts blending with the general noise. The rooster was at it again, squaring off against the guard at the gate. The buffalo had not moved since yesterday. Riyaz was beginning to suspect it was dead, but every time he got close enough to check, it opened one eye and stared at him with such profound contempt that he backed away.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, his grandson was playing with the rabbits.
Riyaz could see him from here—a small figure in a white kurta, sitting cross-legged on the ground, a half-dozen rabbits gathered around him like disciples. He was talking to them. Not in the way children talked to animals, making silly sounds and nonsense words. He was talking to them. Low and serious. Like they understood.
One of the rabbits—a fat gray one with ears that flopped—was eating something from his hand.
Riyaz watched for a long moment. Then he looked away, at the chaos, at the animals, at the servants, at the life he had somehow accumulated in the space of two months.
The money in the steel trunk was less now. Significantly less. The BMW had cost 250,000. The animals—he still didn't have a final number, but it was large. The sheds. The feed. The staff. The guards, who now required salaries and food and occasional medical attention when the rooster attacked.
He had maybe 700,000 left. Maybe. He needed to count it properly. He kept meaning to count it properly. But every time he opened the trunk, something else demanded his attention—a dispute among the staff, an escape attempt by the goats, a visit from a neighbor who had "just stopped by to see the famous animals."
The money was disappearing. Not fast, not yet. But steadily. Like water seeping from a cracked pot.
And soon, the lottery money would run out. And then what? His pension was modest. His land produced income, but slowly. The animals—the animals ate more than they produced, at least for now.
He needed another win.
He needed Arslan to have another dream.
---
Arslan was, in fact, not thinking about dreams at all.
He was thinking about rabbits.
Specifically, he was thinking about how quickly rabbits bred, and how, in a few generations, he could select for certain traits—size, coat quality, temperament. The fat gray one eating from his hand was a good specimen. Strong. Calm. The kind of rabbit that, in twenty years, would be sought after by breeders.
Not that he was thinking about twenty years. That would be weird. He was five. He was supposed to be thinking about how soft they were, and how their noses twitched, and whether the fat one would let him pet it for longer than three seconds.
So that's what he did. He petted the rabbit. He watched its nose twitch. He let his mind go blank, for once, and just existed in the moment.
It was nice.
The rabbit seemed to think so too.
---
Riyaz's voice broke the peace.
"Arslan."
The boy looked up. His grandfather stood at the edge of the rabbit enclosure, face unreadable, hands clasped behind his back in that way he had when he was about to say something serious.
"Yes, Nana?"
"Come inside. We need to talk."
Arslan looked at the rabbit. The rabbit looked at him. It seemed to understand that playtime was over.
"Okay."
He stood, brushed the dust from his kurta, and followed his grandfather into the house.
---
The study was small and cluttered, filled with papers and ledgers and the general detritus of running an estate that had grown too fast. Riyaz sat behind his desk. Arslan sat on the floor, as he always did, legs crossed, hands folded, waiting.
For a long moment, Riyaz said nothing. He just looked at his grandson. At the small body, the innocent face, the eyes that saw too much.
Then: "Have you had any dreams lately?"
Arslan considered the question. The truth was, he hadn't been trying. The last few weeks had been busy—animals to select, land to point at, a tantrum to throw over a car. The dreams required effort. Fabrication. A certain level of creative energy that he hadn't felt like expending.
But looking at Riyaz now—at the tension in his shoulders, the worry lines around his eyes—he understood that the effort was necessary.
"Maybe," he said.
Riyaz's eyebrows rose. "Maybe?"
"Sometimes I have dreams and then I forget them. Nana says I'm forgetful sometimes." This was true. Riyaz did say that. Usually when Arslan "forgot" to do something he didn't want to do.
Riyaz pinched the bridge of his nose. "Try to remember. It's important."
Arslan closed his eyes. He could, of course, produce a perfect set of winning numbers right now. He had dozens stored in his memory, from a lifetime of watching lottery draws on crackling television sets in tea stalls. But that would be too easy. Too neat. And it would set an expectation that he could produce perfect information on demand.
Instead, he let his face scrunch up in concentration. Let his lips move silently, as if searching for words. Let a small frown appear between his brows.
"I saw numbers," he said slowly. "I think. But they were mixed up. Like—" He opened his eyes. "Like when you put different colors of thread together and they get tangled."
Riyaz leaned forward. "What numbers?"
Arslan reached for the paper and pencil on Riyaz's desk—a gesture he had seen adults make a hundred times—and began to write.
Three sets of seven digits. Seven sets of four digits.
He pushed the paper across the desk.
Riyaz looked at it. His expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes shifted.
"Which one is correct?"
Arslan shrugged. The gesture was pure child. "I don't know. Maybe one of them. Maybe close enough. The dream was fuzzy."
"Fuzzy."
"Like when you wake up and you can't remember if it really happened or not."
Riyaz stared at the paper. Ten sets of numbers. Three long, seven short. Any one of them could be the winner. Or none of them. Or something close.
The odds of winning the lottery were already astronomical. This—this was something else entirely.
"How am I supposed to bet on this?"
Arslan tilted his head. "You bet on all of them?"
"All of them would cost—" Riyaz did quick mental math. A seven-digit number, 400x return. A four-digit, 99x. To make any significant money, he'd need to bet substantial amounts on each. Spread across ten tickets, the cost would be—
He stopped calculating. The number was too high.
"Arslan, this is—" He stopped. Took a breath. "Next time, try to remember more clearly."
Arslan nodded solemnly. "I'll try, Nana."
He looked so sincere. So earnest. So genuinely sorry for the inconvenience.
Riyaz sighed. "Go play with your rabbits."
Arslan went.
---
Outside, the chaos continued. The goat had been recaptured but was now eating someone's shirt. The rooster had retreated to the roof, where it crowed triumphantly at irregular intervals. The buffalo had not moved.
Arslan returned to his rabbits. The fat gray one was waiting for him.
"Sorry," he said quietly, settling back onto the ground. "Had to do some work."
The rabbit twitched its nose. It seemed to understand.
Arslan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of carrot. The rabbit took it gently, nibbling with the focused intensity of creatures that lived entirely in the present moment.
Arslan watched it eat.
Two months, he thought. Two months, and already Riyaz is worried about money. Already he's looking to the dreams for salvation.
It was perfect. Exactly as planned.
But also—and this was the part he didn't examine too closely—it was nice. Having someone who needed him. Someone who looked at him with hope instead of hate.
He pushed the thought away. Focused on the rabbit.
The rabbit focused on the carrot.
For now, that was enough.
---
Inside, Riyaz sat staring at the paper.
Ten sets of numbers. Ten chances at winning. Ten chances at losing the money he had left.
He thought about the animals. The sheds. The servants. The guards. The BMW sitting in the courtyard, beautiful and useless. The land Arslan had pointed at, scattered across the countryside like a child's game of connect-the-dots.
He thought about his daughter. About the fire. About the moment he had first seen Arslan, sitting in the ashes, reciting Qur'an like a prophet.
He thought about the dreams. The first one, clear and perfect. The second, also clear. And now this—fuzzy, uncertain, a child's imperfect memory of something that might have been divine.
Maybe, he thought, this is how it works. Maybe the dreams get harder to remember. Maybe the messages get tangled. Maybe this is the test.
Or maybe—and this thought was darker, so dark he barely let it form—maybe it had all been luck. Maybe the first two wins were coincidence. Maybe the boy was just a boy, and Riyaz was just an old man clinging to a miracle.
He looked at the paper again.
Three sevens. Seven fours.
He would have to bet on all of them. Spread the risk. Hope that one hit, or came close.
It would cost him. Cost him most of what remained.
But if one hit—just one—they would be fine. More than fine.
Riyaz folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket.
Then he stood, walked to the window, and watched his grandson play with the rabbits.
The boy was laughing at something. A small, genuine sound that Riyaz rarely heard.
For a moment, the worry faded. The calculations stopped. There was just this: a grandfather, a grandson, and a yard full of ridiculous animals.
Then the rooster crowed, the goat escaped again, and the moment was gone.
Riyaz sighed and went to deal with it.
---
That evening, Riyaz made his decision.
He called for one of the guards—the one who hadn't been defeated by the rooster—and gave him instructions. Go to Multan. Find Jamil's contact there, the one who handled lottery bets. Place these numbers. Use this money.
The guard looked at the amount. Blinked. Looked at Riyaz.
"Malik Sahib, this is—"
"I know what it is. Do it."
The guard nodded and left.
Riyaz sat alone in his study, listening to the sounds of the estate settling into night. The animals were quiet now, mostly. The servants had gone to their quarters. The rooster was asleep, presumably dreaming of future victories.
Arslan was in his room, probably talking to his rabbits.
Riyaz thought about the money. About the risk. About the possibility that tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, he would open the trunk and find it empty.
He thought about his grandson's face. The way it changed when he looked at the animals. The way it softened, just slightly, when he thought no one was watching.
Whatever happened, he decided, it would be worth it.
He hoped.
---
In his room, Arslan lay on his cot, staring at the ceiling.
The rabbits were in their hutches. The chickens were roosting. The goats were—somewhere. He could hear them occasionally, a distant bleat that meant they hadn't all been eaten by whatever predators lurked in the dark.
He thought about the numbers he had given Riyaz. Ten sets, all losers. He knew that. He had checked them against his memory—against the actual winning numbers from March 1990—and none matched. Not the sevens, not the fours, not even close.
The real winning numbers were in his head, safe and secret. He would produce them later, when the moment was right. When Riyaz had learned the lesson he needed to learn.
You can't rely on miracles, Arslan thought. You have to build something that lasts.
The animals would last. The land would last. The BMW, absurd as it was, would last.
The dreams were just the beginning.
He closed his eyes.
In the distance, a goat bleated. Another answered. The rooster, disturbed by something, crowed once and fell silent.
Arslan smiled in the darkness.
Tomorrow, Riyaz would worry. Tomorrow, the bets would be placed. Tomorrow, the numbers would lose.
And then, when the time was right, he would have another dream. A clear one. A perfect one.
But not yet.
For now, he was just a boy with rabbits.
And that was enough.