Aarav scored a century.

One hundred runs on the maidaan behind the temple, with a taped-up bat and a tennis ball and eleven boys who had tried everything to get him out. The last shot bounced off the temple wall with a crack that sent pigeons scattering.

His teammates mobbed him. He walked home with the bat on his shoulder, narrating every shot to himself like a commentator: "And Aarav drives through the covers — brilliant!"

Dadu was on the verandah, mending a net. Aarav dropped his bat against the wall. "Dadu, I scored a hundred. A hundred!"

"I heard," Dadu said. "Well played."

"I was amazing. Nobody could bowl to me. I hit Ravi's spin for three sixes. My cover drive was perfect—"

"Tell me," Dadu said, not looking up from his net, "did you make the wind?"

Aarav blinked. "What?"

"That last shot — the straight drive. Was there a breeze?"

There had been, actually. A warm crosswind from the sea that had been blowing all afternoon. "Yeah, but—"

"Did you make that wind? The one that curved the ball just enough to bring it into your swing?"

"No, but I still hit it—"

"And your arms," Dadu continued. "The strength in them. Did you choose that? Did you decide before you were born, 'I would like strong arms, please'?"

Aarav opened his mouth and closed it.

"The bat. Who made the willow tree it was cut from? Who sent the rain that grew the tree? The man who shaped it — his years of skill — did you give him those?" Dadu looked up now, his eyes gentle. "The eyes that saw the ball. The nerves that sent the signal from your brain to your hands. The food that gave you energy this morning — your sister cooked it, by the way. Did you thank her?"

Aarav was quiet. The grin had not left his face, but it had changed — less a shout and more a whisper.

"You played well," Dadu said. "Truly. But 'I did it all' — that is the ego talking. A thousand things came together to make that century. The wind, your body, the bat, the food, the years of practice, the friends who bowled to you in the nets. You were the place where all of it met. That's wonderful. But it's not the same as 'I did it alone.'"

Aarav sat with that for a long time. The evening call to prayer drifted from the mosque down the lane.

Finally he stood up, went inside, and found Lakshmi chopping onions for dinner.

"Thanks for breakfast," he said.

She looked at him, suspicious. "What did you break?"

"Nothing. I just — thanks."

She shrugged and went back to the onions. But Aarav noticed, as he walked back to the verandah, that his century felt different now. Not smaller. Just — shared. Like it belonged to the world as much as it belonged to him. And strangely, that made it feel bigger.