Manoj Ojha Chapter 1: The Girl with the Red Ball The dawn in Mangaldoi wasn’t the kind that arrived in silence; it came humming with birdcalls, the hiss of kettles from roadside stalls, and the occasional bark of restless stray dogs. Yet, amid this subtle chaos, a different rhythm echoed through the empty school playground—thud… thud… thwack—the steady beat of a red cricket ball hitting a battered concrete wall. Arohi Nath, seventeen and barely five feet tall, stood poised like a coiled spring, the ball returning to her palm with ghostlike familiarity. Her fingers were calloused, her sleeves rolled to…