Selection Day

  Mr ‘J.A.’, the new ‘Young Lion’.

  The previous evening, as Radha and Manju lay in their new beds, Mohan Kumar, while reintroducing his sons to the three principal dangers on their path to glory – premature shaving, pornography and car-driving – had added one more. This Mohammedan (a left-hander!) had every advantage that Mohan’s two sons lacked: his father had FDs and online stock-trading accounts; his father had probably built a home-gym for his son; and he had that thing you needed more than a rich father in Mumbai – he had a godfather. Wasn’t his uncle Imtiaz Ansari a Ranji Trophy man, and wouldn’t the combination of money and influence (which is how things work in this world, my sons) make this left-handed boy irresistible on Selection Day, which was coming, which was coming?

  When Radha saw that silhouette inside the car, his heart contracted: he felt again that suspicion which now gnawed at him that despite everything his father said, his contract with God was not fool-proof, and he might not prove to be the best batsman in the world—and so he sweated; but what went through Manju at the sight of that dim body inside the car was a buzz—the same charge of electricity an ornithologist feels when he catches sight of a rare migratory species of bird.

  Open-mouthed, the brothers stared at the silhouette inside the Honda City, until Radha said ‘Manju’, and Manju said ‘Radha Krishna’, and the spell was broken, and the two were free to walk again.

  •

  It was on the morning that Javed Ansari tried to steal Sofia from them that the brothers Kumar finally did something about him.

  Sofia, the spotty-necked one, the girl with the car and driver, the girl whose father owned a big chemical plant in Thane, had come to Thambi’s that morning with the two brothers.

  Thambi’s Fast Food Hut, just a few feet away from the Ali Weinberg School, served exactly the kind of food that teachers at the school warned their students against. Cooking in the open near piles of cowdung and buzzing garbage, the food doled out on plates freshly dipped in bilgewater – all of which meant, in addition to their dosa and idli, young people who ate here were likely to receive a complimentary side-order of jaundice or typhoid.

  Thambi’s, inevitably, had become the great place for romance at the Ali Weinberg International School.

  That morning, Sofia sat on a bench with a textbook pressed against her chest, and a bag slung across her shoulder. Her long black hair was brushed down over her left eye, and she smelled like a large foreign flower. The blood-coloured spots, a birthmark, lay on either side of her fair neck.

  ‘I gave a presentation in class today, on women in today’s India. Do you want to know what I said?’

  The little outdoor shop was an excitement of garlic and onions; two Tamilians transmitted Radha’s orders to a third behind the counter, who sizzled the hot-plate with water, scraped it dry with a truncated broomstick, put a hand on his hip and yelled, ‘Dosa?’

  ‘Dosa.’

  ‘Cheese?’ asked the man behind the counter, scraping the tawa.

  Naturally. ‘Double Cheese. Double Double Cheese.’

  Always impresses the girls.

  Pointing his short broom at Manju, the man asked: ‘And if I see your father, am I to yell, like last time?’

  ‘Louder this time,’ Radha pleaded.

  ‘Getting back to what I said in class about women,’ Sofia continued, ‘I said, in India today, a woman is either a sucker or a bitch. My dad has taught me that. Do you know what it means? No? You must be good for cricket only. It means, if you’re a woman in a job in marketing or sales, for instance, men will treat you like you don’t know what you are doing, and they will try to cheat you. So you have to put your foot down, and get angry and shout at them, and then they’ll call you a – a . . .’

  She turned from the elder Kumar to the younger one. She covered the spots on her neck and asked Radha:

  ‘Why is your brother staring at me like that?’

  Manju wasn’t staring at her: only at the silver ‘H’ on her sequinned handbag.

  The Tamilian arrived with a cheese dosa on a cellophane-covered metal plate. Chutney dripped down the side of the plate.

  ‘Are you really eating that?’ Sofia asked.

  Oh, Radha certainly was. He tore into his food.

  Sofia winced. Stroking her handbag with the ‘H’, she said:

  ‘I’m also a sportsman, by the way, so don’t think you’re special. My Mummy says we get 3.5 per cent added to our final SSC marks if we play sports at the state level, and that will help me get into a good junior college, so she made me join state-level badminton. I go every day after class. My knees hurt, but Mummy says, get into college, and become rich, and you can go to hospital and pay for shiny new knees. Isn’t that crazy?’

  Radha smiled: ‘Let’s see the knees.’

  Sofia lifted up her school skirt and showed. But when Radha grinned at her naked knees, she grew angry with herself.

  ‘Cricketers!’ She covered her knees with her skirt. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t know anyone who respects cricket. Lunchbreak! Nothing that stops for lunch can be called a sport. Everybody I know follows Arsenal or Manchester United. Although I hope you’re not into Barcelona because I hate their guts. Are you listening to me?’

  Of course he was. Done with his food, Radha wiped his lips with the back of his palm, and then began whispering to Sofia about something that was this big (he showed her with his hands exactly how big), until she screamed: ‘Seven colours! Seven?’

  It was true: Manju had seen his brother do it. Radha’s thing was enormous, and when he held it tight, after going to the toilet, and squeezed it so that the blood stopped flowing into it, he could make it any colour he wanted. It was all true.

  But Sofia just pushed Radha away, and laughed hysterically.

  ‘You cricketers,’ the girl said, ‘are too funny. You’re even worse than J.A.’

  ‘Than who?’

  While Radha frowned, Sofia explained that both Young Lions had been trying to impress her, because earlier in the morning, she had been given this by Mr Javed Ansari. A piece of fragrant white paper. Radha read it, while Manju, putting his chin on his brother’s shoulder, spied.

  Miss Sofia:

  You walk in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.

  J.A.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ Radha asked.

  Sofia said it was Javed’s love poem, written just for her, and that she found it ‘touching’.

  ‘He likes me. You cricketers are all too funny.’

  When Radha saw Manju reading the love poem with a frown, as if he was trying hard to understand it, he couldn’t take it anymore.

  ‘Scientist,’ he said. ‘Give that back to her.’

  That Saturday, when no one was looking, the two brothers broke into the school changing rooms, found a green cricket bag embroidered in gold with the initials ‘J. A.’, and unzipped it. Radha had brought the pen. He examined Javed’s gear – his thigh pad, his box, his gloves – before settling on the chest-guard. Placing it on his knee, he wrote something on it. ‘Done,’ Radha chuckled, and asked Manju to read what he had written on the chest-guard – but what was his younger brother up to? His mouth open, Manju had slid his whole forearm up to the elbow into Javed’s green kitbag. The arm was trembling. And more of it was still going into the bag!

  ‘That’s filthy.’ Radha slapped Manju on the head. The younger boy withdrew his forearm at once. Radha held the pen out to him. ‘Now you write something on his chest-guard.’

  Afterwards the two brothers howled and screamed all the way up and down Carter Road in celebration of their victory over Mr ‘J.A’.

  •

  During the monsoons, the maidans in the heart of south Mumbai – Azad, Oval, Cross – are overrun by weeds. By Independence Day, with rain still falling, dark nylon nets have cordoned off parts of the maidans, and rectangular patches of reddish earth are taking shape inside those protected areas. Similar rectangles turn up at the Police Gymk
hana and the Islam Gymkhana along Marine Drive, puzzling the black kites, which fly circles over them, balancing their wings on the sea breeze.

  In September, stone-rollers are applied over these patches, levelling out the earth. At the Oval, the rectangles of stubble are now russet, the colour of some of the tiles in the Bombay High Court building, which towers over the maidan. Mounds of cut turf are stacked up; men in khaki shorts sit by the turf; mynahs land and take off, and pigeons roost on the pitches. Two white sight-screens are moved into place against the fence, just beyond which the bronze statue of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, first Baronet of Bombay, sits with his hands on his lap and his back to the Oval, disdaining the common pleasures of sport. Then one morning, a bare-chested man materializes on the cricket pitch at the Oval and starts meditating. His palms are folded by his chest and his eyes are shut; only his lips move. A stone-roller waits beside him. Raising his palms over his head, the half-naked man claps once – twice – three times, and opens his eyes.

  It is October, and the cricket season has begun.

  NINTH STANDARD CONTINUES: CRICKET SEASON

  Was she really really dead – their mother? Radha seemed to think so. Maybe someone had murdered her and hidden her body in the Dahisar river. No – she had to be alive: Manju was sure of it. Because he remembered the last evening he had ever seen her: he had come home early from cricket practice, and she had been sleeping on the bed. Manju had watched her and thought, when his father slept, his lips thickened, and his face became coarse; but how radiant his mother looked in her sleep. Her lips twitched. Her eyelids pulsed. And as Manju drew nearer to her sleeping body, her lips began moving silently, as if intoning something, some prayer, some secret Sanskrit, some message meant for her son.

  ‘Tommy Sir is here: stop dreaming!’

  Manjunath opened his eyes. Through a colourful umbrella overhead he saw the sun; and then dark grinning faces and white shirts all around. He was sitting on a plastic chair in the Ali Weinberg tent at one end of the Oval Maidan.

  As if it had fallen from a coconut tree above, he was holding a bat in his hands.

  Manju looked around. Holding on to the black bars that ran around the maidan, men watched the cricket; the lucky ones, day labourers with a morning off, sat on the trunk of a palm tree, sipping tea, silenced at the moment a ball hit a bat. In the middle of the Oval, a Young Lion hunted for runs: Radha Kumar was on fire this morning.

  But Tommy Sir was nowhere to be seen.

  Showing his middle finger to the other cricketers – they responded with a squeal of delight – Manju closed his eyes and exercised his right to dream.

  What was she trying to say, lying in bed like that with her eyes closed and her lips moving? Manju had brought his ear to her lips, and he could almost hear the words she was struggling to form: ‘Manju, let us find Radha and run away from here before it’s too late.’

  ‘Stop bloody dreaming, and get up from that chair, SubJunior!’

  This time it was Tommy Sir, striding up to the Ali Weinberg tent, along with a middle-aged man. Manju stood to attention with the other boys.

  ‘Boys, this man is the most important man in Mumbai. He will determine your fates one day. Who is he?’

  The middle-aged man smiled. ‘Please don’t embarrass me, Tommy Sir. I’m just a selector.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said, Srinivas, and in plain English. Now, boys, this very important man will tell the story of how he knew Ravi Shastri would play for India just by looking at him. Tell them, Srinivas.’

  ‘That was years ago, Tommy Sir. Ten years ago, we could say, this boy, from his stance, from the way he grips the bat, will make the team. Today, it’s all different. Today, it’s all a mystery, even to the selectors, who will make it and who . . .’

  The workers sitting on the fallen log cheered. A Young Lion had just roared: twisting his torso, Radha Kumar had pulled a long hop past the mid-wicket fielder, and through the boundary, which was marked with white flags.

  •

  ‘Just look at him bat, Srinivas. Do you know his scores in the Pepsi tournament?’

  ‘How can I not know his scores, when you text them to me three times a day? It’s a rich crop, his batch. There’s Javed Ansari, Kumar, and I’m hearing a lot about T.E. Sarfraz too.’

  Manju stood close to the two men to overhear.

  ‘Kill it like Yuvraj!’ All around their school tent, the cricketers had begun clapping in rhythm.

  ‘Kill it?’

  Tommy Sir pointed to Rajabai Tower.

  ‘You heard the story? That Yuvraj Singh hit the clock tower with a six during trials?’

  The selector looked at Rajabai Tower.

  ‘It’s seventy-five metres to the boundary wall – then thirty more over the coconut trees. Bullshit. No one’s ever hit the tower from here.’

  Tommy Sir, who had written about Yuvraj’s Rajabai Tower-shaking sixer in a newspaper column two years ago (‘Some Boys Rise, Some Boys Fall: Legends of Bombay Cricket and My Role in Shaping Them Part 16 – How I Made Yuvraj a Young Prince of Cricket’), looked to his right, where he found little Manju.

  ‘This is the brother, Srinivas. Scientist by nature. If I ask him, he’ll recite your life story. Shall I ask him?’

  But right about then Tommy Sir saw a man pushing a bicycle into the Oval Maidan.

  And Manju wished he could seal his ears. It was happening once again: Tommy Sir was talking about his father as he stood in hearing range.

  ‘You see that creature coming in, Srinivas? Comes and watches every match his boys play. Control freak. Keeps asking me, are they talking to women, are they boozing beer, are they watching blue films? Between us . . .’ Tommy Sir called the selector in closer, ‘. . . has a police record.’

  Manju gritted his teeth.

  Almost at once, there was a loud crack from the pitch: Radha Kumar, as if competing with the ghost of Yuvraj Singh, had lofted the ball in the direction of the Rajabai clock tower. The sound of his bat commanded the maidan into silence. Two boys almost ran into each other: then one of them stepped back, and the other, with cupped palms, caught the ball.

  ‘The moment I praise him, he gets out. You’re next, Manju. Yes, I’m changing the batting order. I want the selector to see Manjunath Kumar. Quick, quick.’

  •

  Helmeted, padded, centre-padded, chest-padded, thigh-padded, Manjunath Kumar came out to bat; his left thumb throbbed.

  All batting – all good batting – starts with superstition. Manju already had a personal treasury of superstitions associated with his game – some held in common with all other batsmen (never to wipe the red ballmarks off the face of his bat, for instance) – and some which were peculiarly his own. This one was unique: when he got to the crease, Manju first walked in a circle all around the stumps, and only then stood where he was meant to, in front of them. Next he uttered a little Kannada poem his mother had taught him in his childhood:

  Obbane Obbane

  Kattale Kattale

  Alone, Alone

  Darkness, Darkness.

  Not yet ready to bat. Next, Manju scratched around the dust with his bat, as if he were searching for something, though he had found it already, in his own thumb: a spark of hurt. Next he took a leg-stump guard, because he felt like scoring on the off-side today, and began tapping his bat.

  Now.

  Mynah and sparrows flew into stacks of cut grass each time Manju tapped his bat; the umpire’s face darkened by degrees; the fielders crouched. The bowler turned into a small, stupid animal. He pursed his lips and sucked on his teeth, and emitted squirrel-like noises with which he instructed his fielders exactly where to position themselves. Pointing at Manjunath, he yelled: ‘This boy is not a cricketer. This boy is just his brother’s shadow. This boy reads books! This boy is not going to last two balls.’

  Manju turned to where the sun was shining over the buildings. It was something his father had taught him to do: when there is pain or distraction, when the sun is
in your eyes, lift your palm till it blocks the light. You are now in control of the most powerful force in the universe.

  Now look at the bowler, the one who taunted you. And look at the three fielders on the off-side who laughed in response. You will all share in my pain.

  Manju’s nostrils are dilated; forearms tense. Around him, Mohan Kumar’s second son sees the city’s landmarks – the Eros cinema, the big blue UFO in Colaba owned by the Taj Hotel, Rajabai Tower, Churchgate station – joining up into a crown whose rim can touch his head if he wants it to. If he bats well enough today.

  The first ball he hits right through the covers, humiliating the pair of fielders who had laughed the loudest.

  Their punishment has begun.

  On a coconut tree nearby, a woodpecker, in a frenzy, rams into wood with its beak; in the middle of the cricket pitch, a boy digs his bat into the pitch, again and again.

  •

  Over an hour later, having stripped his left glove to give his thumb a good shake – he had just overtaken his brother’s score – Manju glanced at the cricketers’ tent. Radha wasn’t there: but behind the Ali Weinberg pavilion, he saw a man urinating by a coconut tree. Mohan Kumar was leaning back as far as he could to ensure he didn’t miss a single second of his son’s batting, even as he relieved himself. What a buffoon my father is, Manjunath thought. How ashamed he makes me of him sometimes. The other spectators would see him peeing in public – whistle at him – perhaps throw things and chase him from the maidan – unless the next ball was hit high in the air. A tremendous six.

  Manju was now batting to protect his father.

  •

  What is cricket?

  A face: Eknath Solkar’s face. Right before the 1968–69 Bombay–Bengal Ranji final, his father dies. ‘We know your father is dead, you don’t have to come to bat,’ his Bombay team-mates tell him. But it’s a grim situation for Bombay, we’re losing wickets fast. Solkar performs the rites for his father in the morning, gets into a train, and arrives, stoically, at Brabourne stadium. ‘I am here to do my duty,’ he says. Pads up, goes in to bat. Bombay takes the lead in the first innings thanks to him: and wins the Ranji Trophy. On a day of supreme personal pain, on a day rich with excuses not to do his job, he does his job.