‘Who is this?’ the gruff voice asked.
‘Anand. Anand Mehta. Don’t remember me?’
After an almost audible hesitation, Tommy Sir said:
‘Yes. Remember.’
‘Our boy has made it. I saw the article in the paper. He’s made the Mumbai Under-19s. Our boy. Manjunath Kumar.’
To which Tommy Sir said: ‘Leave him alone.’
Anand Mehta, suddenly transported to the Hernshead lake in Central Park for a brief second or two, returned to Mumbai and said,
‘. . . leave him alone . . . ? Who are you to tell me what to do?’
There was a sigh, and Tommy Sir, accepting the inevitable said, ‘He made it, yes. But what a drama. There was too much tension, I tell you. Too much. So the boy runs away at the last minute to Navi Mumbai.’
‘Yes, I know that, Tommy Sir. But he came back?’
‘Yes, Mr Anand. See: out of the blue, my daughter Lata, this morning, tells me, she will turn off the lights in the kitchen every night, so half my life’s worries are solved there. It’s like a Van Gogh scenario; I want to take a canvas and paint a sunrise. Why? Because the other half of my worries were solved four days ago. What happened four days ago? Four days ago Sofia, formerly Radha’s girlfriend, phones me and says, cool as ice, “He is back. And I’m his new girlfriend.” Gives the phone to Manju and Manju says, “Tommy Sir, I’ll never run away again. I’ll never go to Navi Mumbai again.” Did you hear all that, Mr Anand Mehta? And he has a girl-friend now.’
Mehta took his time to say: ‘I knew it.’
‘Personally I spoke to Srinivasan Sir. Personally I spoke to each of the other selectors. Personally told them lies, that the boy had a family health issue. Nine times in ten they would tell me go to hell. But this Manju is a golden boy, born to shine, never knows what it is to lose. I got him in the team for the Policeman’s Invitation Cup. Selectors turn up to see him. He batted brilliantly, I tell you. Best he’s ever been. Now Manju is in the Mumbai Under-19s. As I’ve always said: some boys rise.’
‘So they do have character in the slums, Tommy Sir. They still do. And my money? What about the sponsorship?’
‘Manju has promised, you will get your 75,000 rupees, Mr Anand. From the first cheque the boy makes, he will pay you back. But you must let his brother return to Mumbai and play here. Don’t go to the police or make trouble.’
‘Has the boy left college? You always said that was important.’
‘Yes, he has. I told him, there is no other way. And he went to the Principal and dropped out yesterday.’
With his left hand, Anand Mehta slapped both his cheeks and pulled at his moustache.
‘Fantastic. By the way, Tommy Sir, you’re fired. I’ll take things over from here. I’ll deal directly with Goldenboy.’
Before the old man could reply, Anand Mehta hung up. The newspaper had flown back to the floor of the bridge. Bending down, Mehta outlined the boy’s grinning photograph with his thumbnail . . . No: not a boy anymore.
Manjunath Kumar
Said to be ‘one of our brightest young prospects’
Anand Mehta stood up tall.
He thought he was ready to cry. Had ‘Jo-Jo’ Mistry ever done something like this? O, this was big. Bigger than Barbarossa. Remember where that cricketer and his brother and their father had been living when all of this began? Dahisar. Slum, absolute slum, rats this big running on his roof. And now: the cars, lifestyle, flat, stars and starlets chasing after him, everything he wants. (We should tell Pepsi and Adidas at once.) In return, little fellow with the big forearms is asked to do what for next twenty years? Something he loves, something everyone loves, cric . . . cri . . .
He staggered down to Chowpatty beach.
He had to call his wife and tell her. Asha. Asha! It worked. My plan worked!
Anand Mehta walked towards the water, watching it recede, watching the city become bigger with every step he took.
I have set a man free, he shouted at the waves.
In Bombay I have set a man free.
PART TWO
Eleven years after Selection Day
His eyes were growing smaller each year. He was certain of this when he examined his face on his birthday. Full of all those changes that are supposed to happen to women with age: the nose becomes big, and the eyes . . .
He was twenty-seven years old today.
Sitting astride a bench in the toilet of the Cricket Club of India, he was reading the newspaper. In his pocket was a white envelope with his severance cheque in it.
A man called Karan from SwadeshSymphony, the public relations firm that ran the Celebrity Cricket League in partnership with the Cricket Board, had given him the envelope, and the good news.
Two months. And they had a new job for him, starting right away.
Humming a film song, Manjunath turned the pages of the newspaper until something made him smile:
12 May
The Prime Minister’s Office has stated that a person by name of V.V. Cherrinathan frequenting Mumbai under the pretext of being ‘the prime minister’s special adviser on marine biology’ is not employed by the PMO in this capacity, or in any other. He is not an accredited expert on marine biology, meteorology, plate tectonics, political theory or personal finance. If approached by this person for money, the public is urged to report the matter to the police.
(Press Trust of India)
Tearing the article out of the newspaper, he added it to the white envelope in his pocket. This was the kind of thing he liked to bring Radha from the outside world – it would be good for a laugh, and would defer the moment when he had to give his brother the bad news.
He looked around, and realized he was alone in the men’s toilet.
So he bent over and licked his forearms like a cat, again and again. What if someone came in? Let them come in and scream. Call security, and throw me out. This would be the last time he was in the Cricket Club. No more wearing the armour – the pads, chest-guard, arm guard, the ‘box’ tucked in, thigh pads, forearm guards – no more of that second body of foam and plastic covering his own. He was free.
what happen?
His phone beeped six times in a row with the same message.
what happen?
Of course it was his father.
What happened is they dropped me, he texted back.
On the way out, two schoolboys in cricket whites stood pressed together, watching something on their cell phone. One of the boys glanced up: and said, at once,
‘Can I have your autograph?’ He held a little notepad towards Manju. ‘And a selfie?’
‘Do you know who I am?’ Manju asked.
The boy smiled.
‘Cricketer.’
Must have been a lean day for the two autograph hunters.
Manju, still only five foot four inches, observed that the two schoolboys were nearly as tall as he was. But he knew that for a cricketer, shortness of stature only adds to his mystique.
With an ironic smile, exactly like he’d seen Ravi Shastri affect for female admirers, he asked: ‘What’s my name?’
The boys looked at each other.
Manju said, ‘I played for India Under-19, and for Mumbai, three seasons in the Ranji. Maybe you saw me in the Celebrity Superstar Cricket League? I was one of the non-celebrities, the real batsmen. I batted with Sanjay Khanna once: the actor? I have the record for the longest six hit by a non-celebrity in the history of Celebrity Cricket League. Do you know how many metres the ball went?’
He seized the autograph book, before the boy could change his mind, and wrote his name on it.
Manjunath Kumar
Batter
He could read the question forming in the boy’s eyes.
You really hit the biggest six in the Celebrity League?
You?
No one ever believed it.
‘Yes, it was me,’ he said, even before the boy asked.
Outside the club, he pushed past the grimy white clothes of
cricket-playing teenagers and the immaculate white uniforms of their adult servants (chauffeurs, delivery men, peons). Manju looked quickly at his own T-shirt: he was wearing, appropriately enough, beige.
The two teenagers had followed him, perhaps for another autograph, but the moment they saw him sit down on Marine Drive, they turned back. No boy wants to see a cricketer enjoying solitude: it is not how he imagines his heroes.
A clear summer’s evening. Looking to the south, Manju could see the skyscrapers of Nariman Point give way to a line of nearly identical low-rise buildings, Navy Nagar, and beyond them, and before the Arabian Sea, a final twinkling, a dot . . . the lighthouse at the end of Mumbai.
To his right, a pair of little slippers, each studded with glass gemstones, lay next to two warm black shoes; from somewhere down below, among the concrete rocks that buffered the city from the ocean, he heard a woman’s laughter. When he looked at the slippers again, the sunlight shining in the cheap glass stones was suddenly too much to bear.
Twilight had set in by the time he got off the train at Santa Cruz station and walked through a congested market to a place called the Mafia Bar, which he visited each year on his birthday.
No connection whatsoever between name and decor (but then, this is Mumbai). The low wooden ceiling of the bar was ribbed like a Buddhist cave in Ajanta, and the red velvet covering the eight empty tables was so ancient that its decomposition could be smelled on the air-conditioned air, and after a few hours, would coat the tongue and render everything slightly acrid.
A black beam divided the bar; four tables on this side, four on that. Someone was sitting right behind the beam.
That was the spot Radha always chose, because whoever sat behind the black beam had an interrupted view of the small television fixed into a corner of the ceiling. Radha said he did not want cricket to poison even his drink.
Leaning around the black beam to smile at his brother, Radha held up a glass of rum: ‘You’re on TV. Turn around.’ And though Manju knew this was just mischief – almost malice, on this of all days – he turned, in real hope, to the TV screen.
Of course he wasn’t on TV. It was Ashvin Trivedi batting in a one-day match. Maybe from the recent India versus Namibia series? No: it was a replay of an older series against Puerto Rico. ‘Legendary Encounters in Indian Cricket.’ So Ashvin Trivedi, who had joined the Mumbai team after Manju had been dropped from it, was already a modern legend.
When the waiter came, Manju ordered a Coca-Cola.
‘It’s your birthday,’ said his brother. ‘Experiment.’
Radha had the fastidious good looks of the perennially unemployed rake: his long black hair was gelled and brushed back until it curled up around his neck, he wore a silver ring in his left ear, and looked like a prince out of Sanskrit Romance. His beautiful irises, those ‘film-star eyes’, were now battered in by drink, but Manju could still see their colour.
‘Alright, stick to your Coke. But happy birthday.’
Manju raised a glass of water to his brother’s rum.
Still noticeably shorter than Radha, though better built, his hirsute forearms striped with veins, Manju’s close-cropped hair was already turning grey, and he was starting to look the older of the two.
In the manner of such little bars, a door opened, three men came in, and then three more, and now the place was packed.
Mafia Bar was one of what Manju referred to as the Quarter Bars that filled the eastern side of the Santa Cruz train station: as a stencilled logo on the wall indicated (‘Quater System Available Here’), patrons were served liquor in nothing smaller than 180ml ‘quarters’ (although 60ml refills were permitted) while they gazed blankly at a TV screen showing cricket, either Indian or international, classic or instant, live or canned: quarter men, quarter sport.
They had started coming here three years ago, on Sofia’s suggestion. (‘Why don’t you two meet on your birthdays like normal people?’)
Behind the manager’s desk stood a grandfather clock, with a dully moving pendulum. A lampshade hanging from a long cord glowed down on the bespectacled manager, who was hard at his accounts, like a Victorian allegory of Diligence in a den of vice. He had a silver pen in his shirt pocket.
‘Look, Papa just walked in.’
‘Papa’ was an old man who visited the bar every night. Along with his whisky he ordered a plate of French fries which he ate one at a time. He had been doing this for nine years at this bar, according to Radha, and before that for eighteen years at the bar that had previously stood here.
‘The waiters say he came in for a drink even during the Babri Masjid Riots, Manju. But I see you’re looking at your people again, aren’t you?’
His people. Five middle-aged gay men, whom Manju remembered from the previous year, sat at a table in a corner, discussing the new Shah Rukh Khan film. First all five delivered their verdict together, ‘Fantastic!’ ‘Amazing!’ and then, after clearing his throat, and pronouncing his individual verdict to be ‘very different’, each man at the table analysed the film in turn, concluding that it was in fact either ‘Fantastic’, or ‘Amazing’.
Now one of them said:
‘Enough about films. This is my topic of discussion for today. Have you noticed how every young boy in Mumbai is now called Aryan?’
‘So what’s your worry?’
‘My worry is, these boys called Aryan will go abroad to study, and the Americans will think all Indians are now Nazis.’
Laughter.
‘Aren’t we all Nazis now?’
Much more laughter.
The lights went out in the bar: at once, total silence. Radha and Manju felt themselves caught out – five dark silhouettes, turning in tandem, looked over at the brothers.
The lights returned, and everyone was happy and heterosexual again. The TV came back to life on a different channel: a chameleon was unrolling its tongue in slow motion. ‘Papa’, who had been eating French fries and gazing at the TV all through the blackout, did not seem to mind.
Radha ordered another quarter bottle of rum.
‘Javed was in the papers today,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘Why not?’ Radha asked.
Manju said: ‘I haven’t seen Javed in eleven years. I don’t want to know.’
But Radha insisted on telling him why Javed had been in the papers, and Manju looked at the floor of the bar and bit his lip.
‘You need to find a job, brother. A steady pay cheque. My contract was terminated today,’ Manju said, abruptly, to get even with Radha. ‘They said it was nothing personal. My form hasn’t been bad. They just have too many other dropouts from the IPL who want a job in the Celebrity League.’
His brother reached over and took the white envelope out of Manju’s pocket.
‘How many months did you get?’
‘Two.’
‘Congratulations,’ Radha said, as he patted the white envelope, which was now in his pocket. ‘So it really is your birthday. No more cricket. You should have left years ago, before they kicked you out.’
He nudged his glass towards Manju, who said:
‘No.’
With a grin, Radha whispered: ‘You don’t drink, you don’t fuck. You’re a monster, you know that? Go to that table and introduce yourself to those men. Show them your forearms, little brother.’
‘Give me back the envelope,’ Manju said.
But it was only to take out the newspaper clipping about the scientist. Reading it along with sips of rum, Radha burst out laughing, spraying Manju with liquor.
‘V.V. Cherrinathan: what a name – what a fraud. Telling women he’s the prime minister’s scientist, asking them for cash. A bit like you, Manju, eh? I have a gift for you, too,’ Radha said, reaching into his trouser pocket. ‘Birthday gift. A man gave it to me in Versova two nights ago.’
Manju looked at an actor’s résumé, which featured a black-and-white snapshot of a brooding chubby-faced man with 1990s hair:
&
nbsp; ASIF K. JAMAL
Cintaa (Life member)
Actor by Birth: Thespien by Nature: International by Choice
D.O.B: 23-10-1982
Age of: 28 Yrs
Height of: 5’2
Languages: Hindi, English, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Marathi (plus all known Southern and also Sri Lanka)
Most recent role: Eunch character in latest Shah Rukh Khan film Dance Baby Dance!
Notices and Mentions: Times of India, Mumbai Times, Mumbai Sun, Hollywood Reporter of US
KINDLY NOTE: I have done 18 very challaging roles including
Female
Mentally Challenged
Epileptic Patient
Gay
Eununch
Zombie
Blind Man
Blind and Handicapped Man
Dumb-Deaf-Blind-Handicap (All in one Character)
Hunchback Notre Dame Type whose body is deformed in nine unique parts (first time in India)
Fustratred Impotant Man
‘Why the fuck did he give this to you?’
‘He asked me to “push” his career along.’
Manju got all his revenge with a look and a word. He glanced at his brother’s leg, and said:
‘You?’
‘Yes, me. Because I told him I had a brother who was a professional cricketer.’
Touché. Manju studied the résumé.
‘He must be from a village. I-m-p-o-t-a-n-t. Like you, Manju. Just like you.’ Radha winked. ‘Sofia would marry you in two minutes. You treated her badly, but you know she’d leave her husband for you. How much money has she given you by now? She’s your new sponsor. You should be nice to her, jump up and down for her, the way you did for the old sponsor. And she’s not the only one, is she? You don’t screw them, but they just keep doing whatever you want.’