The story is told in the order that the events took place, with no real examples of flash-forward or flashback.
It could not even be argued that the thoughts Ravi has while sitting on the side of the dusty bathtub in the shed, about the glory he would receive when he emerged victorious in the game of hide-and-seek, were a flash-forward, because that isn't the way the story ends. As it turns out, he receives ridicule, rather than this reward that he so anticipated.
If the story had been told with Ravi as an old man, perhaps telling a grandchild the story of why he felt so insignificant as a youngster, it could be classified as a flashback. However, this story is told purely in chronological order, depicting the events in the order that they took place.
This story is told in chronological order. The kids beg to get outside. They are let out. They play a game. Ravi worries about Raghu. Ravi claims victory, and nobody believes him. I can't say that there is any well-defined flashback or flash-forward; however, the story does ever so briefly give readers some information about the past. The information comes just before Ravi hides himself in the garage. He isn't keen on hiding there because it's "dark and depressing" and only gets cleaned once per year. We are told what happens at that time.
That shed wasn’t opened more than once a year, when Ma turned out all the old broken bits of furniture and rolls of matting and leaking buckets, and the white anthills were broken and swept away and Flit sprayed into the spider webs and rat holes so that the whole operation was like the looting of a poor, ruined, and conquered city.
As for a flash-forward, the only thing that resembles it in the story is when Ravi envisions what it will be like when he wins the hide-and-seek game. He believes that he will be hailed a conquering hero of sorts.
He hugged his knees together and smiled to himself almost shyly at the thought of so much victory, such laurels.
Unfortunately, these thoughts do not come true. Ravi is only hailed as every bit as insignificant as he ever was.
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