The phone rang as Kirti and Vally were lounging in Ballu and Yash's room, watching a movie.

"Hello...Simran?" said Ballu.

Yash perked up.

"Bhabi ji...Sat Sri Akal!"

"Sat Sri Akal," said Simran. "Unko bhi mere taraf se hello bolna."

"Simran hello bol rahi hai," said Ballu obligingly.

"Hello ji!" yelled Yash and Kirti.

"Lekin bhabi ji, hum aapko Julie ke bare me kuchh nahi batayenge!" shrieked Yash.

The theatre exploded again.

Yash, who used to be the most unimaginative person you could imagine, turned into a powerhouse of evil ideas when it came to pranks.

Especially when he was with Kirti.

"Mai na tere lobby se jake call karta hu, ye nalayak mujhe chher rahe..." said Ballu, panicking.

"Ek minute ek minute," protested Simran. "Kaun Julie?"

"Arey Julie koi nahi hai—mai tere ko lobby se call karta hu—ok ok—" Ballu put down the phone and glared at Yash and Kirti who were rolling on the bed, laughing. "Kya yaar...tum log sagai katwaoge meri...ab uski dimag se Julie hatani hai yaar..."

"Nahi hategi—"

"Julie! I love—"

The phone rang again.

"Leave the poor man alone," said Ballu sympathetically.

"The poor man is you," pointed out Kiri.

"That's me 40 years back," said Ballu. "Kirti wouldn't dare try anything on me now—"

Kirti looked over, eyes glinting.

Ballu decided it was best to shut up.

Yash beat Ballu to it.

"Hello," he whispered in what he must have considered a seductive voice. "Julie speaking..."

Ballu looked on in despair.

Yash sat up straight.

"Lala ji?"

Kirti, Ballu and Vally froze, too.

"Kaun Julie?" asked Yash. "Nahi Julie nahi—"

Ballu ran to switch off the TV.

"July bola July..." went on Yash. "Hanji Lala ji wo munde sare baithe the na room me...keh rahe the ki chhuttiya manake June me nahi July me wapas jayenge..."

"He made up better excuses to Lala ji that you ever did, Jim pa," Kirti leaned around Maddi to say.

"Kaps did, too," said Maddi.

"Because they were dad's favourites, weren't they?" said Jimmy. "They couldn't do wrong in his eyes—and everything I did was wrong in his eyes—" he added, the sense of aggrievedness rankling inside for a moment.

Kapil sniggered and wished Yash was there to snigger along with him.

"Nahi nahi baki sab theek..." Yash was saying. "Jimmy se baat karni thi? Phone nahi utha rahe?"

Ballu and Kirti looked at each other, petrified.

"Ha...ek minute...haa...abhi toh yahi the..." He indicated at Vally to check.

Vally ran out and hammered on Jimmy's door, hollering his name—there was, of course, no answer.

"Wo thora nikal gaye honge lobby me tehlne..." Yash continued improvising. "Nahi nahi Lala ji, bilkul nahi," he said, turning uncannily serious. "Raat ko kahi bahar nahi jaate..."

"Look, he's trying to save you," said Kapil. "Did he really ever try to save you?"

"Yash always tried to save me from dad," said Jimmy drily, "unlike you."

Vally came back, shaking his head.

"Haa...nahi hai..." Yash said out of panic.

"So—soo—" Kirti prompted fiercely.

"So gaye?" repeated Yash. "So gaye, Lala ji, so gaye...utha du?"

Kirti and Vally made violent gesticulation of 'no.'

"Ha...wo...ha..."

Yash handed the phone over to poor Kirti.

"Typical," snorted half the first row.

Vally tried to convey something in sign language to Kirti, who was the only one who seemed to understand.

"Hello..." he said in a sleepy voice. "...papa?"

Then he kept down the phone.

**************

"Ek jagah jaa kar peeche dekho peeche na ho," Yash was shouting impatiently as he led the others down the stairs. "Yeh rahe aap. O Jim pa, kitthe?"

Mohinder Amarnath was good at hiding emotions. In fact, he was so good at it that he was known for not being an emotional man.

But Kapil Dev and Madan Lal were two people who had, long back, decoded every tiny way in which Jimmy would react when he was feeling something.

"Kyu be?" asked Jimmy.

"Lala ji ka phone aya tha," said Yash.

Jimmy's expression changed. "Oh...toh...keh dena tha so gaye..."

"Maine kaha, kehte uthao usko..."

So they knew that when he was trying not to cry, Jimmy rubbed his thumb against whatever he found within reach—in this case, the armrest.

"L-lekin Lala ji bole...oye Kirti, bachhe, mai Jimmy ka nahi tera bhi baap hu," said Kirti. "Maine jhatt se phone rakh diya bhai."

The phone rang again.

"Lala ji ka phone aa raha—" said Yash ominously.

Most of the people in the hall, including most of the original team were laughing, and indeed, they could not be blamed, because according to Kabir Khan himself, this was one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie.

Maybe if Jimmy hadn't been sitting right next to them, his best friend and his younger brother would also have been laughing along. But as it was, they were not.

Kapil and Madan almost simultaneously caught Jimmy's arms on either side. Jimmy, being Jimmy, managed to keep his face impassive, gazing at the screen.

"Big brother?" said Yash, the next day at the nets. "Toh kya bole kal Lala ji?"

"Tu batting kar na Yash."

It was unfortunate for Saqib that for just two minutes, he'd taken his eyes off Jimmy sir's face because he was laughing and high-fiving Jatin, enjoying the laughter of the audience, and in those two minutes, he ended up missing Jimmy sir's first show of emotion during the screening of the movie.

***************

"Oye yaar...tum log ko dekhke na meri muscle pull ho jayegi," said Patla. "Zara aaramse."

Kirti and Shastri, lounging around, laughed.

"Yaar ye photo kheechne wali ki dekho," complained Madan, studying the newspaper. "Bhai Man of the Match mai hu, photo tumhari lagi hai."

Kirti sat down beside him.

"Maddi pa, simple hai. Photo usi ka ayega jo champagne kholega. Photographer ko—thora action chahiye hota."

Maddi frowned as he took it in.

Kirti laughed and banged Maddi pa on the back.

Maddi, one hand still around Jimmy's elbow, remembered a few dozen such instructions of Kirti he'd had to endure—he'd tried to follow, in fact, with unmemorable consequences.

"Kya lag raha hu mai," said Kirti complacently, laying his head against Madan's shoulder, laughing.

Madan turned to study him, still frowning thoughtfully.

"This is exactly you both. Exactly," Kapil told Madan and Kirti, "isn't it, Jim pa?"

"Uncannily," said Jimmy with a grin.

Hardy and Dinker also exchanged a grin. Though the entire second row might not be eavesdropping as obviously as Saqib was, they all were.

Jimmy's smile didn't, however, reach his eyes, because all he could think of was—

"Big brother? Toh kya bole kal Lala ji?"

***

A/N: A short chapter, but I wanted to keep it this way. This is the first time thinking of the Lala ji phone scene didn't make me laugh.