Sundays were holidays for Oxford Coaching Academy too, so when my mobile rang that morning, I was in my room, slicing onions on an inverted steel plate. Sandeep, my roommate, had finished cleaning the chicken and was setting up a makeshift kitchen in our only room. An induction cooktop, two pots, a box of spices, a spoon and two plates were all the kitchen we had. The call was from Rajesh, another loser like me from my village. We used to be best friends at school, going fishing together and everything else, but I didn’t feel like talking to him today. The last couple of times he had called, it was for money. Just a hundred or two each time, no more than that. Perhaps he, too, had grown sick of asking his parents for money, just like me. I had sent him the money then, but now I was…
