It seemed to Cosmo that every day a new billboard went up around the perimeter of Kangla Park. For the span of three blocks he barely saw past the barrage of advertisements for exotic products he couldn’t afford. Some of the advertised goods held no other purpose than status.

Like banners stretched between two-story chopsticks, the flimsy billboards creaked. Peeling edges fluttered in gusts of wind and exhaust. With pleasure, Cosmo followed his gang of comrades away from the park’s edge.

At an intersection jammed with bicycles, rickshaws, mopeds and porters pulling makeshift trailers, his thoughts wandered to the jungle. Cosmo knew he should schedule a return trip to his village, if only for his mother’s sake.

Somehow, they had managed to send him to boarding school in Imphal City for the last five years. The least he could do was visit them once a year. And yet, he’d already scheduled his upcoming vacation with training and fights. The next vacation seemed too far away to concern himself over, especially given his current lifestyle.

Traffic lurched forward, carrying him with it like driftwood caught in a river current. Standing on the pedals, he pumped hard enough to free himself from the main flow of traffic. Together with the rest of the gang, Cosmo rode to the top of a small rise in a neighborhood on the very edge of the restricted area.

“There they are.” The gang’s leader, Damu, slammed on the brakes of his bicycle and skidded to a sideways stop in the middle of the dirt road. From atop the rise, he pointed past a low row of mud homes. “Beneath the bridge.”

Cosmo, along with a dozen other members of Damu’s gang, stopped beside their charismatic leader. Cosmo nodded. “I knew the Meitei Brothers were expanding their territory.”

“It looks like little Cosmo was right.” Damu slapped his youngest protégé on the back before turning toward the larger group. “Today, we teach the Brothers a lesson. Tomorrow,” he grinned, “we’ll teach them again.”

The others whooped as Damu waived his arm and led the downhill charge. The ruckus drew the attention of the Brothers, along with a few dozen bystanders on their way to the nearby shopping mall. Heads down, the pedestrians accelerated their pace until no one remained in the way of the rival gangs.

Cosmo dismounted his bicycle before it had come to a complete stop. Constantly wound up, his muscles sprang eagerly into form. Beneath the bridge and next to a fetid drainage canal, the day’s street fight bloomed—the gang’s first since the day before. As sure as the sun would rise, tomorrow would bring another.

Half an hour later, Damu’s gang pedaled their bikes around the southern end of the park, smug with victory and oblivious to the minor wounds they’d incurred during the fight. As they passed a restaurant, one of the older boys, no longer a teen, called from the back. “How ‘bout some lunch?”

Without a word, the whole gang agreed. Stacking their bikes against each other, they puffed their chests and ambled inside. The dirty, storefront window lent the dimly lit restaurant an orange hue. The odors of exhaust and garbage instantly gave way to roasted fish and what Cosmo thought to be a hint of cardamom. He filled his lungs. “I’m suddenly in the mood for fresh fish.”

As the others rearranged the furniture, Cosmo snatched a handful of fennel seeds from a bowl on the counter. He ground them between his thumb and finger and popped them in his mouth. In the process, he realized blood had dried on his hands.

He spit into them and wiped them on his pants. Afterward, his hands smelled tangy sweet, as if cleansed in expensive perfume. Cosmo pulled up a chair at the far end of the table.

Damu shook his head and gestured for the youngest member of his gang to take the seat next to him.

Proudly, Cosmo obliged while ignoring the grumbles of the older gang members. Cosmo often wondered if the sixteen-year-old Damu kept him around so he wouldn’t be the youngest member of his own gang.

Damu picked up the conversation from earlier. “Fish, huh? You know, I’ve never seen you eat anything other than meat.”

“I’ll eat vegetables when all the animals are gone.”

“Personally, I love a good samosa or spicy shinzhu.” Damu stroked his chin. “Or just a fresh tomato sliced thin and sprinkled with salt and coriander. Didn’t your mother cook vegetables?”

Cosmo lowered his voice. “Nothing but.”

“Ah,” Damu nodded, “you’re feeding a hunger, not an appetite.”

Cosmo remained quiet.

“We’re all hungry for something.”

Slowly, Cosmo raised a questioning eye. “And you?”

Damu waived for the server then pulled Cosmo close until their heads knocked. “Anyone else asks, I’m hungry for money and power.” He breathed deeply. “The truth: I’m hungry for respect. But the virtue seems extinct from among the Manipuri.” Damu released his grip on the back of Cosmo’s head and resumed his smug smile.

While pondering Damu’s words, Cosmo watched the anxious owner of the restaurant intercept the server to wait on their table personally.

Trembling with terror, the man’s gaze swept the table. Finally he arrived at Damu as the head. “Your order, gentlemen?”

At Damu’s request, Cosmo ordered first. A quick inquiry revealed the odor wafting from the kitchen to be roasted kawoi fresh from Loktak Lake. Cosmo nodded. With a glance at Damu, he ordered a kachumber salad on the side.

The owner of the restaurant struggled against his quaking hand to scrawl the order into his notebook. Cosmo puzzled at the man’s behavior. Not one member of the gang had harassed the man, and yet he seemed on the verge of bolting out the back door.

Damu ordered last—dum aloo.

Bowing and smiling profusely, the trembling owner retreated into the kitchen.

Damu elbowed Cosmo and chuckled beneath his breath.

Cosmo followed along, but still couldn’t figure the strange behavior. Giving up the puzzle, he joined in the banter as his comrades relived the most glorious moments of the day’s fight.

Laughing and drinking bottled water, they poked fun at each other’s scrapes and bruises. Only then, did Cosmo make the connection. The server shuttled each of them a glass of ice. Cosmo put two cubes in his hand and held them to his cheek.

As bloody rivulets of anise-scented water coursed down his neck, he glanced at each member of the gang. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises had become a regular part of life to them. Bloodstains and torn clothing were a badge of honor.

To onlookers, the blood simply meant trouble. Without trying to intimidate, they scared people who ran away from fights rather than toward them. Grinning and puffed up with his new knowledge, Cosmo offered the rest of his glass of ice to Damu.

After the food had come and gone, the owner surprised Cosmo again by refusing to charge them for anything they’d eaten. This was an interesting revelation indeed.