Selection Day

  First Radha blames him, now Manju blames him. After all he had done for them. He lit a cigarette.

  Exhaling, relaxing a little, Tommy Sir observed the pleasure ship on the horizon, the foreign ship. Chock-full of lovebirds. Around the world they go, these little lovebirds: Italy, Scotland, Russia, maybe even to those Pacific Islands where there are still smoking volcanoes. At such moments, Tommy Sir remembered his late lamented wife, in whose company he had never been able to enjoy such pleasures.

  Can you believe it? He wanted to shout to the young lovebirds on the cruise liner: You find the new Tendulkar and he doesn’t want to play cricket!

  Half an hour later, as he retraced his route, recrossing Marine Drive and returning to the gymkhana, he saw two urchins playing cricket near the parked cars. One ran up and bowled an imaginary ball. The other swung at it with an imaginary bat.

  ‘Do it like Manju, yaar!’ the bowler shouted.

  Tommy Sir stopped.

  ‘Do what like . . .?’

  He sprinted the rest of the way to the P. J. Hindu Gymkhana.

  Men had gathered by the boundary wall. Men who had been working all through the night, and who still had an hour-long trip to Govandi or Thane ahead of them, and had come to watch a few overs first; two Indian couples; and a European couple in floppy caps, sitting, backs against the sight-screen, to consult their guide book. Now four pale legs move with a single shriek; for a hard red ball is heading straight at the sight-screen.

  ‘This fellow, they say his name is Kumar, he can bat, can’t he?’

  ‘He’s going to play for Mumbai.’

  ‘India! The World Cup!’

  Two trains were passing each other in Marine Lines station; their metal roofs overlapping.

  For the first time in four decades, Tommy Sir allowed the Mumbai cricketing public to see him smoking. Cigarette in hand, he watched Manju. Because this was the best the boy had ever been. Earlier, if he had cut and flicked the ball out of a love of batting, now he did so out of hate. His strokes had become crisp, his footwork precise. The story of the past few days was there, in every ball he played. Every flick of his wrist said, do you know how much I hate you, Anand Mehta? Do you know how much I hate you, Mohan Kumar? And do you, Narayanrao Sadashivrao Kulkarni, really want to know what I think about you?

  This is what I have not understood in all of forty-two years, Tommy Sir told himself. The shroud has parted: this is the one thing the boy needed to make him a great batsman. He needed to hate the game.

  When the Mumbai Sun sends a reporter to interview Manju on my seventy-fifth birthday, let him say Tommy Sir was a Monster. He destroyed my life, he sucked my blood. And if they ask me, I’ll say, a great sportsman is a kind of monster. This was the final discovery of my career as a Talent Scout.

  •

  ‘Why won’t you talk about the match, son? A reporter for the paper called me and told me you were great.’

  Mohan perched on the bed, bird-like, beneath the fast old-fashioned fan. His hair was wet. He turned his head from side to side.

  Manju sat with his organic chemistry tutorial notes. Pads and bat had been stacked up in a corner of the room.

  ‘They’ve put him to work in the fields. A son of Mohan Kumar, a big-city boy, and they treat him like this, in the village.’

  Turning the fan off, Mohan got down from the bed, bent his head, and rubbed his hair with a thick white cloth.

  Now Manju looked up.

  ‘So why don’t you do something? Write to Revanna Uncle to bring Radha back to Mumbai.’

  Mohan had stopped rubbing his hair; he looked about the floor, as if the words he needed were lying down there waiting to be picked up.

  It has been a long time, Manju thought, since this small man has tried to hit me. He had to strain to catch his father’s muffled words.

  ‘The winnowing has begun in the villages. I heard from Revanna just an hour ago. It’s the work I used to do. Breaks the back. Imagine if they found out in Dahisar, in the old neighbourhood. Ramnath, he’ll laugh so hard he’ll forget to press clothes for a day. And then he’ll give us four rupees which we’ll have to take as charity.’

  Putting his hands on either side of the cot, Mohan Kumar pressed, as if trying to squash his own bed.

  Manju sat facing the kitchen. The maid was making chapatis, stacking them up on a tin plate. He imagined her doing this for years and years, the pile growing higher and higher.

  Mohan Kumar was still trying to compress his bed.

  ‘ “On its way into town, the king’s white horse turned into a donkey.” A golden proverb. I had illusions about my sons, and all of us suffered because of them. If you make it onto the Ranji team, that’ll do. One point five lakhs a month will be your salary; first we have to give Anand Mehta his 75,000 rupees for saving your brother from the police. Then we have to give him back his 50,000 rupee house loan. In two or three years, he’ll go away, don’t you think?’

  ‘What if I fail? Tommy Sir said Radha would make it, now he says I will make it. Who can believe a thing he says?’

  ‘Who, Manju? Who fails in cricket? Everyone becomes happy in cricket. And you’re the best.’

  ‘I’m not the best. I don’t want to be the best the way T. E. Sarfraz does, and if you make me stay in cricket I’ll be just a . . .’

  Mohan Kumar sighed and scratched himself.

  ‘If you are a fraud, you are still my son. You can go to Bangladesh to play. They have IPL there too. You send me the money by mail. They must have a post office over there? And whatever you earn, we’ll give half to Anand Mehta Sir. I signed this on the name of our family god, and let them never say at Deepa Bar that I am the sort of man to break my word.’

  Closing his eyes, he recited from memory what he remembered of the contract:

  ‘. . . will be the legal property of Shri Mehta, in return for his commitment to . . . May God fill our mouths with worms if either—’

  ‘Have some self-respect, Father. Please stop.’

  When he opened his eyes, Mohan Kumar saw Manju looking darker and smaller, as though he had lost his essential oils. He clapped his hands.

  ‘. . . Oh, I completely forgot, Manju. Completely forgot. A man came from the MIG club and gave you this. It’s a gift from Tommy Sir. To inspire you to bat well tomorrow at Shivaji Park. Here, read it and feel better. You were always a big reader.’

  It was an old black-and-white magazine, Classics of Modern Indian Cricket, a photograph of the Nawab of Pataudi on the cover.

  A yellow note was pinned to it, bearing the handwritten words: ‘For Manju Sir. You will be joining them one day.’

  Manju stared at the magazine, but thought instead of a BBC science documentary that showed how an amoeba reacts to a drop of dilute hydrochloric acid: by contorting itself in an almost human grimace, and moving away. ‘One of the distinctive traits of any life-form is irritability,’ the British voice-over had observed. That is how he felt right now: like a colourless amoeba irritated at everyone and everyfuckingthing around. He grit his teeth, and turned the pages of the magazine.

  Mohan Kumar went to the sink and let the water run. Bending forward, he submerged his hair in the fast-flowing water. When he emerged with his head wrapped in a towel, he found Manju speed-reading the magazine, until he stopped at one page, and ripped it out. It was another photograph of the Nawab of Pataudi. Throwing the rest of the magazine in the waste-bin, Manju pushed his father aside and went into the toilet.

  ‘Why are you taking that photograph in there?’ his father asked.

  From behind the closed toilet door, the boy roared: ‘Why do you think?’

  And his father put his hands on the toilet door and whimpered like a dog. ‘Manju, this is immoral, he was our greatest captain, don’t . . . don’t . . . do immoral things in there, Manju, with the Nawab of Pataudi. What will the neighbours think of your father?’

  ‘Shut up!’ the boy shouted from inside. ‘It’s like batting. I need to concentrate. Don’
t disturb me for the next three minutes.’

  •

  Towards morning Mohan Kumar dreamed of the laterite arch in the jungle, set against its backdrop of stars, with the bullfrogs croaking all around it . . .

  . . . then he raised his neck off the pillow and the arch and the stars and the frogs suddenly disappeared: it was morning in Mumbai.

  When he went to Manju’s bed, it was empty. Mohan touched the bed, up and down.

  Without breakfast or a bath, he left the flat and went to the temple. It was not yet open, so he sat under a nearby banyan tree and looked at the dark little leaves. Suddenly all the leaves lit up: Mohan Kumar remembered that the Deepa Bar was open early in the mornings.

  He took an autorickshaw to the train station, and found himself, an hour later, entering the Bar, where the manager, Mr Shetty, recognized him and smiled.

  He sat down at a table. The only other customer, a villager with a close-cropped grey beard and shrewd rustic eyes, a man who looked like he’d fuck his own daughter-in-law any day, chewed aniseed, while Mr Shetty, the bar manager, arms folded over his white shirt, talked to him about real estate.

  ‘Things are mad enough in Udupi. My uncle’s small plot was bought for five lakhs. And Mangalore – forget it. Real money is out there nowadays, not here.’

  Mohan Kumar began drinking.

  After a while, he had a pleasant surprise. His old neighbour, Ramnath the ironing man, had come to the bar with a carton of sweets and great news.

  ‘My daughter has done it,’ he said, handing the entire box over to Mohan Kumar.

  She had been accepted into the Illinois Institute of Advanced Technology, a famous college in America. A teacher had filled out her forms; she had studied for two years for the entrance exams. The best part was that this Illinois Institute of Advanced Technology was paying for her to study there. Even the plane ticket.

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful. But, no thank you, no sweets for me. Just another whisky.’

  All his life Mohan Kumar had warned his sons about the danger from other talented boys: he had forgotten that the real threat was from the normal and the average, like this smug shirt-ironer from the Shastrinagar slum. These were the people who had destroyed Radha: they and their normal sons, who had tempted him with drugs, shaving kits, and sexual materials.

  When he unwrapped his phone from its white cotton handkerchief, he saw that Tommy Sir was calling.

  ‘Good morning,’ Mohan Kumar said with the phone held in front of his mouth, and then moved it to his ear to listen.

  ‘Where is he?’ Tommy Sir asked. ‘At this very minute, where exactly is he? Your second son.’

  ‘At the cricket. Isn’t he?’

  Tommy Sir’s voice was hotter this time:

  ‘No. He’s not in Shivaji Park. I told him, he had to come show himself to the selectors or they’ll think he’s crazy like his brother.’

  Mohan Kumar hung up on him. The sunlight was harsh; he did not want to leave Deepa Bar.

  The phone rang again. Mohan Kumar picked it up again: ‘Yes,’ he said, and held it to his ear.

  ‘The boy’s phone is switched off.’ Tommy Sir’s voice was thin, tense. ‘The match is starting now.’

  Mohan Kumar moved the phone from one ear to the other.

  ‘. . . eh . . . um . . . mmm . . . mmmm . . . eh . . .’ he said.

  There was a pause and then Tommy Sir’s voice hissed at him: ‘Congratulations. This boy has also run away.’

  Tommy Sir swore, and the phone line went dead.

  Mohan Kumar re-wrapped his cell phone in his handkerchief. He remained in the bar for several hours. Late afternoon is when the sunlight hits the tables, and the germs and the slime begin to shine. Darkness will clean the bar, but right now nothing is concealed. The life you have made for yourself – and have hidden from yourself – is on full display.

  He began to play with the menu card on his table. The back of the laminated card bore a cyclostyled advertisement, something that looked decades and decades old.

  ‘Improves memory, inner strength, and character.’

  Learn Chess! Play Chess! Love Chess!!!

  Game of Kings and King of Games!

  The fascinating game of international renown.

  1. Chess develops methodical precise and logical thinking.

  2. Chess promotes creativity and true imagination.

  3. Chess shows there is no substitute for hard work. A study was carried out to determine the contribution of hard work to success. It concludes that hard work alone contributes 75% of success, the rest made up together by such other qualities as intelligence, tenacity, determination, ‘grit’ etc.

  4. Chess develops memory.

  Chess. Today’s Preparation is Tomorrow’s Achievement.

  Don’t let your child’s brain be wasted.

  Let him play with it and use it.

  P.T.O. (continued)

  Mohan flipped the menu card over and over. Why chess – on the back of a bar’s menu? Maybe because of the remarkable convergence in the benefits of chess and long-term alcoholism, he told himself, and laughed a little. Or maybe because there is no ‘Because’ in Bombay anymore. Things just happen to people like Mohan Kumar and his sons. No reason. No meaning. No ‘Because’.

  Complimenting him on his remarkable menu cards, Mohan Kumar paid the manager, and left the bar.

  While he waited for the train on the platform, his hand rose, his palm rotated to the left and vibrated. In the old days you solved a problem like that. Come here, Manju. Come here, Radha. He stopped swiping his palm through the air, and looked at it with disgust, wondering how many millions of Gram-Negative Bacteria had accumulated on its flesh during his stay in that filthy bar.

  In these seas of septicity where you have cast your sons, O Father, how do you expect any man to stay sane, to stay safe?

  It was over an hour before Mohan Kumar, his hands washed, could lie down in his own bed.

  Closing his eyes, he thought of that moment, years ago, when his wife had left him alone in the slum in Dahisar with two boys to raise; when he stretched himself on the bed and thought, I am mocked by all other men, my life is over. But how simple it was back then to hear the fingers of his destiny snap and command: ‘Get up, Mohan. Get to work.’ Back when failure still had its innocence. On his way out of Deepa Bar, something had touched Mohan Kumar on the shoulder: it was a senile creature, pale and trembling, every known species of broken Indian male in one ancient wrapping, exhaling beer and trying to escape from the bar two inches at a time. ‘That is going to be me,’ Mohan told himself. ‘I am going to die mad and alone.’ No: he curled up both his fists, breathed in, and invited Yama, the God of Death, to tighten the noose around his throat while he was yet a man.

  Minutes passed, and he was still alive, so he decided to approach a more familiar god. Wallet in hand, he went to the prayer room with the image of Lord Subramanya in its small oil-coated stainless-steel altar.

  Mohan Kumar moved coins, into a line, till they made six rupees, and pushed them before Lord Subramanya. It was an offering: a new secret contract he was proposing to God. Mohan Kumar was reinstating ‘Because’. Because I am giving you this money, God, you must make my sons cricketers, God.

  Looking at the coins, Mohan re-counted them subaudibly, and slipped three back into his pocket.

  Only one son this time.

  One week after Selection Day

  ‘Wake up.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Get out of the car. We’re home.’

  All through the early-morning train ride Manju had stayed awake; but the moment he saw Navi Mumbai shining beyond the Thane Creek, his eyes began to close. A dark station with giant columns; an anonymous crowd; and then, detaching itself from everyone else, as his heart beat faster, Javed’s dark face. With his powerful arm around Manju, Javed led him out into the car park. They got into a car, and Manju slept at once.

  ‘We’re home, man. Wake up,’ Javed said, shaking him by the
shoulder.

  Getting out of the car, Manju followed Javed into a building where a man in khaki saluted them both. An old woman opened the door of Javed’s flat: and they walked into a sunny room smelling of fresh red sofa. Manju sat on a hard chair opposite the sofa to remove his shoes.

  ‘Who else is here?’ he asked.

  ‘This is my place, I told you. If a cousin is visiting, Dad sends him here. Otherwise it’s only me.’

  Leading Manju into a room with a bed, Javed opened a wardrobe and showed him what was inside: a stack of shirts.

  ‘These are mine. You can wear them all.’

  Then Javed pointed to the bed. It was covered in a golden bedsheet.

  ‘Yours.’ And then he went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. ‘I have to brush my teeth. It’ll only take a minute. You can go to sleep now.’

  Afraid he’d crumple the immaculate bedsheet, Manju lay down slowly and stretched his legs.

  ‘Javed,’ he shouted. ‘Are you going to sleep here too?’

  ‘No,’ the voice boomed back from the bathroom. ‘My father said you could stay here, but only if I slept at night in the other place. My family flat. He doesn’t want me to become gay. Changes his mind on the subject from day to day. Once he even went to a store and bought condoms and left them on the table. Other times he threatens to send me back to Aligarh. Like there’s no gays there. Ha!’

  Javed came out of the bathroom, combing his fingers through his wet hair.

  ‘One day I’ll take you to meet a gay mullah, Manju. You should see these fellows in UP. They’re just . . . fantastic.’ Javed bit his lower lip; sickle-shaped dimples winked from his cheeks. ‘Half the mullahs there are gay. Half. You go into any madrassah and the man with the big beard makes the boys sit on the floor right next to him, and calls them nearer, nearer, and then tells the girls, you go sit far away.’