By the second week, people stopped asking questions.
The boy had always been quiet, they said. Bit odd, but harmless. Looked like he'd taken a bad knock to the head. Ammaji spread the story that he'd survived the family shooting by hiding under a charpai. No one challenged it.
In a place where people vanished often — prison, police, cholera — survival was explanation enough.
Vikram moved through those days with practiced silence. Watched more than he spoke. His Hindi was awkward but passable. His body felt unfamiliar — lighter, smaller — but he learned to walk in it like a second skin. The hunger never left.
By the third day, he knew he was Bhola to them.
The name sat like a borrowed coat.
He worked at the press, sweeping floors and folding pages. He slept on a mat near the corner behind the hand press. At night, rats skittered. In the morning, he bathed with cold water near the drain. Ate whatever Ammaji or the chaiwala passed his way.
He said little. Just enough to pass.
No one knew where he came from. No one asked why his eyes looked too calm for a boy. Or why he stared too long at the walls.
But he noticed everything.
How the British officers passed through Chandni Chowk with thin-lipped scorn. How Indian constables straightened when white men walked by. How the headmaster at the school nearby shouted in English louder than he needed to. How Muslim shopkeepers held quiet meetings at night. How temple bells grew fewer, quieter.
He watched all of it. Stored it.
But inside, he burned with stillness.
He had no documents. No family. No property. No proof.
A dead man in a child's body.
One evening, a small boy named Golu asked, "Where did you live before this?"
Vikram looked up. Smiled faintly. "Don't remember."
"Why?"
"Too much happened."
The boy nodded and accepted it like kids do.
Later that night, Vikram sat near the hand press and stared at the inky rollers.
He realized he had nothing. No ties. No record. No rights.
Which meant no leash.
No one owned him. No one claimed him.
And that, he thought, might be the only advantage he had.
If no one knew where he came from, no one could predict where he'd go.