Raj opened the door a crack when Ishan rang the doorbell.

He hadn't said more than, "Be prepared, Ish-" when their parents strode up to the hallway just inside the door. And he hadn't even put his bag down when they started.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" his father asked in almost a shout.

Ishan took a step back.

"Aren't you?" his father repeated, making Ishan realize it wasn't just a rhetorical question.

"I....I, I didn't do anything to...to be a-ashamed, Papa." Ishan's voice shook so much, he wasn't sure if his parents even got it.

"Oh, haven't you?" His father thundered inside and came back and shook the newspaper in his face, the one from a month back that had the awful photo in the front page.

The sad part was neither the photograph nor the memory was awful. It was the consequences that had made it so awful.

"Remember something?" demanded his father.

"We can't step out of the house for shame, you know," said his mother, taking the newspaper from his father and tossing it away. "The neighbours stare at us wherever we go. Pitying us. The poor Kishan family, having got such a disgrace for a son."

"Your uncles warned us the day you went to your first IPL camp," his father said. "Young cricketers who try to go way out of their social status get their heads turned dangerously by the fame and attention. Cheerleaders, fan following, drugs, everything....it's an open world to them. But I don't think even they had imagined this."

Ishan pressed his back against the wall involuntarily. He felt the same as if a train had come and hit him head on.

"Seriously Ishan." Disappointment and disgust filled his mother's face. "What kind of crazy attention stunt-I-I don't have words. None of us do."

Ishan's eyes turned to his brother who was standing in the background. Raj looked miserable, but he also looked helpless.

Ishan didn't blame him.

If Raj tried to defend him, their parents would call him a disgrace too, and their opinions wouldn't change anyway.

"You don't step inside till you've explained yourself, Ishan," his father commanded.

"I'm telling you, he did it for a twisted sense of attention," his mother said. "It was right after Shubman was declared captain, wasn't it?"

"Who do you think wants this kind of attention, Mumma?" Ishan asked in a small voice.

"Then I don't suppose even you know your inner reasoning behind such an act?" his father asked.

"I know the reasoning," said Ishan. This was one thing he could say with certainty. "I love Shubman."

"Did he drug you? Did he force you?"

Ishan couldn't believe his ears.

"No, Papa, Shubman would never do anything half so insanely stupid, and if you think-"

"Don't take that tone with your father," his mother said fiercely. "You are the one in the wrong. If Shubman didn't do anything of that sort, you are the one who is in the wrong."

Ishan tried to say, Loving him does not put me in the wrong, Mumma.

He couldn't say it. Or anything.

Something large and painful seemed to be stuck inside his throat. If he tried to speak, he would start crying, and he would not cry under any circumstances and make a fool of himself.

"Go on," his father said...or spat. "Explain yourself. There has to be some reason for this disgusting behaviour."

"Isn't the BCCI going to do anything?" his mother asked, a bit on tangent.

Do you wish they do?

Ishan shook his head. That he could do without disturbing the constriction in his throat.

"Did Shubman pull the strings?" she asked.

"The kind of people they make captain of the nation." His father laughed a terrible laugh.

"Don't-" Ishan risked the tiniest sentence he found. "-blame Shubman."

"Do you think yourself some sort of a hero, Ishan? Defending Shubman?"

"He has just come home after two days of travel, Mumma," Raj said very softly from behind. "Let him eat and sleep before you two continue this."

He had finally broken through a mother's disapproval about her child's behaviour to a mother's concern for her child's health.

Mrs. Kishan bypassed her husband and ushered Ishan in, saying, "Change and come down...dinner's ready."

Ishan wanted to sprint upstairs, but his legs were trembling shamefully. As for eating....he could not even imagine eating.

He dived into bed the moment he'd washed his face, travel clothes and all. In spite of the thick blanket, he found himself shivering violently.

His mother looked in a few minutes later. "Come and eat, Ishan..." She switched on the light.

Ishan exerted the last bit of his will to keep himself from twitching in order to appear convincingly asleep. His mother felt his forehead, switched off the light again and left.

Ishan sent off the worst day of his life trying to feel proud that he had stuck to his oath of not crying and making a fool of himself under any circumstances.