Pali Hill's takeaway joint Yugo Sushi serves stellar sushi and the innovative sushi burrito, or sushi-in-a-roll. A lone person is manning the place when we reach there on a wintry Friday afternoon. Irfan Mallick is a strapping young man with a chiselled face and calm, light-brown eyes. He's the one who opens the shutters in the mornings and works there till 2.30 pm, which is when he takes a break before returning to the eatery around 8 pm. But this break isn't meant for rest. Instead, Mallick rushes to Bandra station and catches a train to Islam Gymkhana at Marine Lines. That's the cricket club he represents, where the left-arm pacer bowls his heart out for three hours every evening. It's a hectic day he keeps, considering he has to switch from his cricketing whites to his chef's coat right after a gruelling practice session. "Sometimes, it's as if I am sleepwalking when I come into work after a match," the chef-cricketer says. But he isn't complaining. On the contrary, Mallick is living a dream that started when he first picked up a cricket ball as a 10-year-old in Ranchi, his hometown — or "the land of MS Dhoni", as the 23-year-old says.

This, then, is one man's story that reflects how Mumbai is simultaneously the city of dreams and the megapolis of struggle. You'll get what you want here, but only if you shed blood and sweat. Mallick has always had just one ambition, to play professional cricket. And he's now realising that, having picked up 11 wickets in three matches in the ongoing Purshottam Shield. But he started off on a sticky wicket so to speak, since he arrived here three years ago to pursue his career with hardly any money, no lodging and no cricketing contacts. He found a relative who put him up in Kurla though, while someone else told him that there is only one place to go if you want to kick-start your cricketing fortunes in Mumbai — Dadar's Shivaji Park.