30th December, 2023

Virat Kohli was staring at the clock ticking forward.

8:03...

8:04...

8:05...

India had lost the Boxing Day Test to South Africa pretty dismally earlier that day, and most of his teammates had gone for dinner at a club in Centurion. Virat, still smarting from the loss, had not felt like going, and he couldn't pretend he wasn't regretting that decision.

He had never been so bored, and had absolutely nothing to do but relive the awful fourth innings batting of his team's. He'd been the top-scorer, but he'd played awfully, too.

And the long-dreamt Test series victory in South Africa had slipped out again, though they still had the chance of drawing it.

Maybe he should think of something different. Not different as in something apart from the match, but something truly, truly different.

How about an autobiography?

He knew the saying 'an idle mind is a devil's workshop' and he recalled it, too.

Enough of proverbs, he told himself. Think of an autobiography. Virat Kohli's autobiography. Really, it was a must, after all he'd achieved. He ought to start working on it now, so it could be ready in a few years.

It would sell in millions.

Holy heavens!

He would be a best-selling author!

Virat sprang out of bed and fetched his iPad. Then he paused. The old-fashioned, good writers, he'd heard, said that writing longhand brought out the best in them...and who was he to contradict their opinion?

So he went instead for the notepad and pen on the bedside table. The notepad was thin, the pen wasn't fancy. Not at all how he'd like to start his autobiography...

But Virat possessed one quality in exceedingly less amount, or perhaps lacked it altogether.

(It was called patience.)

So he couldn't wait to get the stationery he wanted, lay down on his stomach, took off the cap of the pen with a flair and wrote in bold handwriting, 'The Autobiography of Virat Kohli.'

The name wasn't nice, was it?

He scratched out the 'Virat' and tried replacing it with 'King.' Added the doodle of a crown on top of the K. Also on top of the K of 'Kohli.'

Still not good enough.

Virat cocked an eyebrow at the paper.

Wasn't going to be as easy as it seemed, was it?

Never mind. That was why he was starting early.

__________________

It took Virat only two hours to realize that writing wasn't quite his cup of tea. Not just that—he was horrible, and he needed someone else to write his autobiography—or would that be biography?—for him.

It would have to be someone he trusted completely.

Anushka would surely be better at writing? But she was in no state to write right then, nearing her nine months of pregnancy, and the prospect of waiting till their baby, Akaay or Akshita, was born, and she recovered enough to write didn't appeal to Virat at all.

(He did acknowledge the whole lack-of-patience issue.)

It had to be someone within his team, then. He trusted Rohit with his life, but that lazy dolt would fall asleep before he completed two lines. Jaddu would add too many Jamnagar stories. Ash was too bossy; he would plod ahead with what he felt was right and wouldn't respect Virat's opinion at all.

Jassi—

The door opened and Rahul came in, and made a beeline for the centre table.

"Hi, Virat, you don't mind me taking the milk powder, do you? I finished mine and the hotel is out of them."

"Take them since you're determined on becoming a diabetic patient before forty—" Virat sat up bolt upright. "Rahuliya! You can write my autobiography. Or biography, whatever."

Rahul, who was already eating out of one sachet, paused.

"Me? Write on you? In this life?"

Virat gave him a winning smile. "Yes."

"I'll pass," said Rahul drily.

"Please, Moi, please Moi please Moi—"

Rahul eyed his notebook with several scratched-out paragraphs in exasperation. "Why do you need to write an autobiography tonight?"

Virat was about to say the truth—'because I'm bored'—before sense hit him. Rahul wasn't going to agree just like that. He needed a lot of coaxing, and a dirt-cheap trick occurred to Virat instantly.

"I'm retiring after this series."

The sachets of milk powder fell from Rahul's hands.

_________________

Rahul could vaguely remember himself stumbling to the couch and bumping down to sit on it, because his knees felt weak. Right here, in Centurion, possibly at this very hotel, two years back, he'd heard something similar—"I'm giving up Test captaincy"—and it was like he was inside that traumatic flashback again.

Then he vaguely remembered Virat rushing to him, kneeling in front of him to reach his height, asking, "Are you alright?"

"NO, I'M NOT," Rahul heard himself scream. "WHY WOULD I BE ALRIGHT? WHY WOULD YOU RETIRE AT 36?"

"Rohit and I thought it's a good time—"

"ROHIT TOO?"

"No, no, just me, but we talked and—after the World Cup last month—"

"YOU ARE NOT A COWARD, VIRAT, TO LEAVE CRICKET BECAUSE WE LOST A FINAL. IF YOU WERE—IF YOU'D THOUGHT—YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME—" Rahul buried his head in his hands. "I would have tried harder to make us win—I wouldn't have—"

"Rahuliya, no! The final has got nothing to do with you—please don't ever think that again."

"IF YOU WANT ME NOT TO THINK THAT, DON'T RETIRE."

"I just realized, Rahuliya," said Virat quietly, "that you've never supported me in any decision unless you liked it. I suppose it's natural."

That was the last straw. Rahul's desperate rage disappeared, replaced by more desperate sobs.

_________________

A thrown-off and partially-guilty Virat decided it was time to 'change his mind.'

He drew Rahul into his arms, squeezed him and said, "I can't do something that hurts you so much, Rahuliya."

"What?" Rahul raised a tearful face.

"I won't retire right now," said Virat. "I can never do anything that hurts you so much..."

"You shouldn't," said Rahul. After a while, he added, "Promise me you'll not retire after this series."

It wasn't hard for Virat to promise not to do something he hadn't planned on doing in the first place.

"I promise."

Rahul was still crying a little. An increasingly-guilty Virat patted his back and ruffled his hair and kept holding him.

At that point, Rohit looked in. "Did you get the milk pow—what on earth happened?"

"Nothing," said Virat, since Rahul wouldn't lift his head from his shoulder. "He's all right," he added in a whisper.

"How can you make someone who came for milk powder cry?" Rohit demanded of Virat.

"I AM NOT CRYING," said Rahul.

"How can you make someone who came for milk powder cry so much that he says he's not crying?"

"Go away," said Virat. "Right now."

Rohit went.

_________________

After a very long time, Rahul let Virat go, wiped his eyes and said, "You know, if I'm to write your autobiography, you need to tell your part of the story."

Virat's eyes widened. "Really? You're going to—?"

"I suppose so," said Rahul.

Virat nearly leapt with excitement. "Yes, yes, let's start!" He tore off the pages containing his own unsuccessful attempts at writing and offered Rahul a fresh, new page. "You have to write in first person, as me."

"Okay."

"I, Virat Kohli, am an Indian cricketer, and cricket is not just a sport to me, it's my religion," began Virat.

Rahul interrupted. "About the first part, everyone knows that you, Virat Kohli, are an Indian cricketer, and about the second part, can you really come up with nothing more original?"

"Honestly?" said Virat. "I can't. I suck at this. You might have to do it all yourself."

"It's ridiculous—I can't write in first person as you all by myself!"

"Sure you can—I'm authorizing you, aren't I?"

"Virat—" Rahul swallowed his exasperation and said, "Fine, let me write the foreword first. I can write that as myself, in third person."

"Great!" said Virat, some of the excitement that'd died away returning.

Rahul started writing.

Virat peered over his shoulder and read it out loud as he wrote.

'I will start not about...'

"Stop it," said Rahul. "I can't write with you breathing down my neck and reading aloud. Go sit on the couch till I've finished."

Reluctantly, Virat obeyed.

__________________

It so happened that at the present moment, recovering from the shock of Virat's possible retirement and the knowledge that Virat had changed his mind because he didn't want to hurt Rahul, Rahul was in a very molten state, and he didn't require to think much or hunt for good things to say. He wanted to focus on adding literary value to his writing: which meant, keeping a Thesaurus open on his phone and employing as many fancy words as he could.

Soon, he forgot about the Thesaurus, though.

Fifteen minutes later, Virat asked in a whining tone, "Can I see it now?"

"No."

Five minutes later: "Now?"

"No."

Finally, after half an hour, Rahul agreed to show Virat what he'd written so far. Virat jumped back on the bed and pulled the notebook to his eyes.

'I will start not about Virat Kohli, the player, of whose greatness every person in the cricketing world and even outside is aware, but Virat, the senior. I first saw Virat when I was bought by his IPL team in 2013, but I got to know him closely only when I came into the Indian national Test team a year later. As coincidence would have it, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the regular captain for the past seven years, retired right after that match, ushering a new era of Indian cricket whose torchbearer was Virat.

I didn't perform well in my debut, and as a youngster in the team, that was a hard pill to swallow. During that time, when the new captain was going through so much himself, Virat's solidarity by me was unexpected to say the least, and when I scored my first century the next match, it felt like it was a personal achievement for Virat himself. That was a turning point very early in my career, and I am not the only one. You can ask anyone in our team, and they will say the same—Jasprit Bumrah still talks about his first international hat-trick where Virat went against his own insistence and took a successful review for the third wicket, Hardik Pandya still seeks out Virat if he thinks he has underperformed in an important game, our spin twins Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal attribute their rise to the international stage, amongst other factors, to each other and to Virat.

Not just from a point of view of the game, even otherwise, Virat has always taken the time to get to know his juniors, and I have never known him to be too busy to offer them a listening ear or a word of comfort or encouragement. His encouragement, however, of course does not come in the conventional form, but...'

Virat, in spite of all his un-detoxed ego, was overwhelmed, and blinked several times when he'd reached the end before looking up.

"This isn't going to work," he was forced to concede.

"Why?" asked Rahul, anxiously. "Don't you like it?"

"Like it?" Virat laughed. "Personally, I love it. But this is so biased, it feels like I'm holding you at gunpoint."

"You are holding me at gunpoint, Virat."

"Holding you at gunpoint to praise me, I mean. Also, where's the gun, Rahuliya?"

"Enough," grumbled Rahul, who had actually got into the hang of writing and wanted to write more (possibly he would, back in his room, and not show anyone). "Now that you're satisfied that me writing your autobiography isn't going to work, can I take the milk powder and go?"

"Take the milk powder, but don't go. Stay here."

Rahul pretended to accept the offer with much unwillingness. He collected the fallen sachets, settled down beside Virat and poured milk powder into his mouth.

"I can't believe it actually worked," said Virat, partly to himself, and partly because he felt it was time to own up.

"Believe what worked?" asked Rahul.

"You really thought I was going to retire at 36—! I figured you'd not agree to write anything about me without some persuasion, so—"

Virat deemed it best to stop talking, because Rahul had straightened up and was looking at him with a murderous glint in his eye.

"Persuasion?"