TIGER, TIGER

The more he lost, though, the more frenziedly he placed his bet. Oblivious to his losses, he just couldn't stop himself - until there were no more notes and his little body, woozy with adrenalin, was suddenly overcome by a cold sweat and a vision of his father's hand raised high above his head. He never gambled again.

In the years since they had left for Jaffna the capital had calmed down somewhat, although the safety of Tamil residents was never fully assured, as the raid on their house by the military made clear. But the options for Renu's family were running out.

Not yet in his teens, Renu had spent much of his life toing and froing between the frying pan and the fire, sometimes literally avoiding the crossfire. Soon after the army's raid on the house, when a birthmark almost made a terrorist of the young lad, Renu's grandmother decided that his situation as a Tamil coming of age in Sri Lanka's capital was too perilous. He might either be tempted to join the Tigers or fall foul of the nationalist Sinhalese groups on a prowl across the capital.

By 1992 the family had scraped enough money together to send Renu to London, where his aunt and uncle lived.

His new life on the other side of the world, in a most unfamiliar setting, contained its own dangers. At the Langdon School - one of the biggest and most unruly in east London - Renu, stick-thin and small, found himself caught between two large communities, one white and one Bengali. He performed well in maths, outstripping all his peers, but was barely able to express himself in English. A complete outsider, he was bullied relentlessly and after six months simply refused to attend classes any more, despite the entreaties of his despairing aunt and uncle.

For two years Renu locked himself inside the house, sometimes not emerging into the fresh air for weeks on end. Watching television from morning till night was his sole activity.

Renukanth Subramaniam learned how to be alone.

And he might have stayed alone, had his uncle not finally forced him back into the outside world, specifically to Newham College of Further Education. Here he learned some new skills: how to socialise with his peers; how to smoke marijuana; how to drink Martell brandy; and how to programme a computer.

Down at the local pub, stoned and drunk, Renu would hammer his virtual opponents on the arcade machine, Street Fighter. How many