The morning of the fourteenth arrived with a quiet, pleasant breeze. The intense, demanding schedule of the Australian tour had finally come to an end. The Indian team dispersed from the team hotel, heading to their respective home cities for a short holiday to celebrate Diwali with their families.
Siddanth sat in the back seat of his Range Rover. Since the final T20 match had taken place in Hyderabad, the commute to the Shamshabad farmhouse was incredibly short.
Siddanth's phone rang. He looked at the screen. It was the President of the BCCI.
He answered the call. "Good morning, sir."
"Good morning, Siddanth," the President said. His voice was full of energy. "Congratulations on the series sweep. A phenomenal performance. The board is incredibly proud."
"Thank you, sir," Siddanth replied smoothly.
"I am calling to discuss your milestone," the President continued. "Tying Sachin's record of 101 centuries is a historic moment. The board wants to organize a grand felicitation ceremony for you in Mumbai. We want to invite all the former captains and host a massive celebration to honor the achievement."
Siddanth looked out the window at the passing trees. He appreciated the gesture, but he did not want a massive party right now. He wanted to go home.
"Thank you, sir," Siddanth said politely but firmly. "I truly appreciate the thought. But I would prefer to wait. Let me actually break the record first. Once I score the 102nd century, then we can celebrate. Right now, I just tied it."
The President paused, then let out a warm laugh. "Always looking for the next target. Alright, Siddanth. We will hold the preparations until you break it. Enjoy your Diwali break with your family."
"Thank you, sir. Happy Diwali," Siddanth said.
He disconnected the call and placed his phone in his pocket.
The Range Rover pulled up to the heavy iron gates of the Shamshabad estate. The gates opened automatically, and Rahul drove up the long gravel driveway, parking near the front porch.
Siddanth opened the door and stepped out. He grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat.
The heavy wooden front door of the farmhouse opened.
Krithika stood in the doorway. She wore a simple, beautiful red salwar kameez. Her hair was left loose over her shoulders. She held a small brass plate in her hands. A small piece of camphor burned brightly in the center, surrounded by turmeric water and red kumkum.
Siddanth smiled, dropping his bag on the porch. He walked up the steps and stopped in front of her.
"Welcome home," Krithika said softly.
She lifted the brass plate and moved it in three slow circles in front of him, performing the traditional aarthi to ward off the evil eye after his long, highly publicized tour. She set the plate down on a side table, dipped her thumb in the red kumkum, and pressed it gently against his forehead.
Siddanth stepped inside the house.
Before he could even take his shoes off, a massive, deafening shout echoed through the living room.
"SURPRISE!"
Siddanth stopped. He looked into the living room.
The room was full. Sameer, Arjun, and Feroz stood near the sofas. Krithika's best friends, Riya and Kavya, stood next to Anjali, holding small party poppers. His parents, Vikram and Sesikala, stood near the dining area with Krithika's parents, Subba Rao and Suma.
In the center of the living room, resting on the large wooden coffee table, was a massive, custom-made chocolate cake. Placed carefully atop the dark frosting were large, bright candles forming the number '101'.
Siddanth looked at the cake, then looked at the crowd in his living room. A wide smile broke across his face. He shook his head slowly.
"Thank you," Siddanth said, looking at everyone. He turned his attention directly to Sameer. "Good planning, Sameer."
Sameer grinned, adjusting his shirt collar proudly. "It took a lot of coordination to get everyone here before you arrived."
"I know it was your idea," Siddanth joked, walking into the room. "You are the only one who will look for any excuse to throw a party. If it was up to Arjun, he would have stopped you. He would have told you we cannot throw a big party until the record is actually broken. Am I wrong?"
The entire room burst into laughter.
"He is completely right," Feroz laughed, patting Arjun on the back. "Arjun literally told us yesterday that 101 is just a tie, and we should wait for 102 to throw a big party."
"I just prefer factual milestones," Arjun defended himself smoothly, though he was smiling.
"Well, the cake is already here, so cut it," Anjali cheered, handing Siddanth a knife.
Siddanth walked over to the table. Krithika stood next to him. They blew out the candles together. Siddanth cut a slice of the thick chocolate cake. He fed the first piece to Krithika. He then walked around the room, feeding a small piece to his parents, his in-laws, and his friends.
"I need a shower," Siddanth announced after the cake cutting was done. "I will be back in fifteen minutes."
He walked up the stairs to his bedroom. He took a quick, cold shower to wash off the travel fatigue. He dried his hair and walked into his closet. He put on a pair of comfortable blue jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Printed on the back of the shirt was the Wings of Freedom.
He walked back downstairs. The guests had settled into the living room. The parents had migrated toward the dining table, talking quietly among themselves and drinking tea.
Siddanth sat down on the large sofa next to Krithika. Sameer, Arjun, and Feroz pulled up chairs opposite them.
"So," Sameer said, rubbing his hands together. "Diwali is in a few days. We need to plan the evening. I already called a guy in the city. He is preparing five massive boxes of crackers. Sky shots, flower pots, ground spinners, everything. I will bring them in my truck on the festival day."
Siddanth looked at Sameer.
"Cancel the order," Siddanth stated simply.
Sameer stopped rubbing his hands. He blinked. "What? Cancel them? Why? It is Diwali. We always burn crackers at the farmhouse."
"We are not burning crackers this year," Siddanth said.
"Why not?" Sameer asked, genuinely confused.
Siddanth gestured to Krithika sitting next to him. "Because there is a baby on the way, Sameer. Actually, two babies. The smoke from the crackers is bad for her health. The loud noise is not good for her either. I do not want to take any risks. We will light the oil lamps and eat sweets. No firecrackers on the property."
A brief silence fell over the group.
Then, Anjali started giggling. Riya and Kavya covered their mouths, trying not to laugh at how strict and serious Siddanth sounded.
Krithika rolled her eyes, though a fond smile touched her lips. "Sid, a few flower pots outside in the driveway will not hurt me. I am pregnant, not sick."
"The answer is no," Siddanth replied, completely unmoving. "No smoke near the house."
From the dining table, Sesikala overheard the conversation. She laughed softly. "Listen to him, Sameer. He has become a very strict father before the babies are even born. Do not bring the crackers. We will celebrate peacefully this year."
Suma nodded in agreement from her chair. "Siddanth is right. The pollution in the city is already bad. Clean air is better for Krithika right now."
Sameer sighed dramatically, throwing his hands in the air. "Fine. No firecrackers. We will just sit in a circle and look at a candle."
Siddanth ignored Sameer's complaints. He turned his attention to Arjun.
"Arjun," Siddanth said. "Did the logistics team finish the distribution?"
"They did," Arjun confirmed, adjusting his glasses. "The entire initiative was a massive success."
A few months ago, Siddanth had introduced a new company policy for NEXUS. Instead of giving standard generic gift boxes to employees along with a bonus for major festivals, NEXUS would gift every single employee a brand-new set of traditional clothes.
But Siddanth had added a strict condition. The clothes had to be purchased directly from local handloom weavers.
Since NEXUS had branches and offices all over India, the logistics team contacted the artisan guilds in every state. For the employees in the Maharashtra branch, they ordered pure Paithani silk. For the employees in Gujarat, they ordered authentic Patola work. For the massive workforce in Telangana and Andhra, they purchased directly from the weavers in Pochampally and Gadwal.
It was an enormous operation. It injected crores of rupees directly into the local artisan economy, giving the struggling weavers a massive boost before the festival season.
"The employees loved the gifts," Arjun explained. "It felt personal to their regions. And the weaver guilds were incredibly grateful. It cleared out their entire inventory for the season."
Siddanth nodded, satisfied with the execution. "Good. We will make this a permanent policy for every major festival."
"Actually," Feroz chimed in with a smile. "The artisans in Pochampally remembered you. Ever since you gave them the massive order for your wedding clothes, they consider you family. When they heard about the new order, the head weaver personally prepared a special set of clothes."
"For me?" Siddanth asked.
"For you and Krithika," Feroz corrected. "They sent a beautifully woven silk kurta for you and a matching saree for her. They said it is a small blessing for the new babies. I left the box on your desk upstairs."
Siddanth smiled warmly. The connection he had built with the grassroots workers of his state was something he valued deeply. "I will call them tomorrow to say thank you."
"Since we are not allowed to have fun with crackers this year," Sameer grumbled, leaning back in his chair, "we should at least talk about the good old days. When we actually celebrated Diwali properly."
"You mean the days when you nearly burned the neighborhood down?" Feroz joked.
"I did not burn the neighborhood down," Sameer defended himself quickly. "It was a minor accident."
"A minor accident?" Arjun laughed, shaking his head. He looked at Krithika and her friends. "When we were kids, Sameer bought a huge rocket. He set it up in an empty glass bottle on the street. Instead of flying straight up into the sky, the bottle tipped over right after he lit the fuse."
"The rocket flew straight into the balcony of our neighbor's house."
"It hit a pile of old newspapers," Feroz added, laughing at the memory. "The whole balcony caught fire. We had to run upstairs with buckets of water to put it out before the uncle woke up."
"He chased us down the street with a stick the next morning," Sameer muttered, crossing his arms. "How was I supposed to know the bottle would fall?"
"Because you put it on uneven dirt, you idiot," Siddanth pointed out.
Anjali giggled from the sofa. "That is nothing. Krithika Akka nearly set my hair on fire when we were small."
"I did not do it on purpose!" Krithika protested immediately, her cheeks turning slightly pink.
"What happened?" Siddanth asked, highly amused, looking at his wife.
"We were lighting flower pots in the driveway," Anjali explained eagerly. "Akka told me to stand close to it so she could take a photo. When the sparks flew up, the wind blew them straight into my face. A spark landed in my hair. She panicked and threw a whole bucket of dirty mop water on my head to put it out."
"You were fine," Krithika defended herself, laughing. "Your hair just smelled like floor cleaner for a week."
"What about the atom bomb incident?" Arjun asked, looking at Sameer again.
Sameer groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Please, don't talk about the atom bomb."
"We were fifteen," Feroz told the girls, ignoring Sameer completely. "Sameer bought a huge green atom bomb. The ones that make a deafening noise. He placed it on the road. He lit the matchstick and touched the fuse."
"The fuse didn't light properly," Siddanth continued the story. "We told him to wait. We told him not to go near it."
"But Sameer has zero patience," Arjun laughed. "He walked right up to the bomb. He bent down to see if the fuse was burning."
"It blasted right in my face!" Sameer yelled, throwing his hands up in defense. "The fuse was just burning slowly inside!"
"The sound was so loud his ears rang for two days," Feroz said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "When the smoke cleared, Sameer was sitting on the road. Both of his eyebrows were completely burned off. He had no eyebrows for a month. He had to draw them on with a black marker to go to college."
Krithika, Riya, and Kavya burst into uncontrollable laughter. Anjali fell back against the sofa, holding her stomach.
"I looked very intimidating with the marker eyebrows," Sameer grumbled, though he was smiling too.
The stories continued for hours. The living room was filled with constant laughter and loud banter. They talked about the times they tried to place small Lakshmi bombs near each other's feet to scare each other, and the times they spent hours drawing massive, colorful Rangolis in the courtyards only for a stray dog to walk right through them.
Over in the dining area, the parents sat around the large table. They did not interrupt the younger generation. Vikram Deva and Subba Rao discussed the recent rains and the agricultural yields.
Sesikala and Suma talked about the preparations for the babies and the dietary plans Krithika needed to follow. It was a very peaceful, harmonious family dynamic.
At 8:00 PM, Sesikala called everyone to the dining table.
Dinner was a massive, traditional Telugu feast. There was steaming white rice, spicy mutton curry, chicken fry, thick dal, and an assortment of homemade sweets and sweets brought by Krithika's parents.
They ate together, the noise of the conversations filling the large dining room.
After dinner, Sameer, Arjun, and Feroz stood near the front door.
"We are heading out," Sameer said, putting his shoes on. "See you in a few days, Sid."
"Drive safe," Siddanth said, hugging his friends. He said goodbye to Riya and Kavya, who left in their own car.
Subba Rao picked up his car keys from the side table. "We should leave too, Vikram garu. It is getting late."
"No, Mamayya," Siddanth stepped forward, shaking his head. "You are not driving back to the city tonight. The traffic will be terrible because of the festival crowds on the roads."
"Siddu is right," Krithika added, walking up and holding her mother's hand. "Please stay the night. The guest rooms are already prepared."
Subba Rao hesitated, looking at his wife. Suma smiled and nodded.
"Alright," Subba Rao agreed. "We will stay."
Vikram Deva smiled warmly. "Excellent."
The house slowly settled down. The staff cleared the dining table. Anjali went to the guest room, exhausted from the day.
Siddanth and Krithika walked upstairs to their bedroom.
Krithika walked over to the mirror, removing her earrings and untying her hair.
Siddanth walked over to the small drawer in the dresser. He opened it and pulled out the yellow tailor's measuring tape and the small notepad.
Krithika looked at him through the mirror. She smiled. "You remembered."
"I promised," Siddanth said, walking up behind her.
He stepped in front of her. Krithika turned around and lifted the edge of her kurti slightly. The small baby bump was now clearly visible. It was no longer flat.
Siddanth wrapped the flexible tape gently around her waist. He pulled the ends together right over the center of her stomach. He looked at the number.
"Thirty-three inches," Siddanth read aloud.
He picked up the notepad and the pen from the nightstand. He opened the first page where he had written the baseline of twenty-nine inches before the tour. He wrote today's date and the new number below it.
"Four inches," Siddanth noted with a warm smile. He placed a hand gently on her stomach. "The twins are growing fast."
"They are eating a lot," Krithika laughed softly, placing her hand over his. "Especially when you make pasta."
Siddanth put the notepad and tape back in the drawer. He walked over to the window, looking out over the dark estate. The small clay lamps flickered on the driveway below.
Krithika walked over and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her cheek against his back.
"It was a good day," Krithika murmured.
Siddanth turned around. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her gently. He kissed the top of her head.
"It was," Siddanth agreed quietly.