Selection Day

  Or, to put it another way, as Tommy Sir had, in an essay published three years ago in the Mumbai Sun: cricket is the triumph of civilization over instinct. As he left the showers by the swimming pool, and dried his hair with his towel, Tommy Sir remembered that wonderful little essay of his. American sports, baseball or basketball, make crude measurements of athletic endowments: height, shoulder strength, bat speed, anaerobic capacity. Cricket, on the other hand, measures the extent to which you can harness these raw endowments. You have to curb your right hand, the bottom hand, the animal hand, giving sovereignty to your left, the elegant, restrained, top hand. When the short-pitched ball comes screaming, and every instinct of panic tells you, close your eyes and turn your face, you must do what does not come naturally to you or to any man: stay calm. Master your nature, play cricket. Because a man’s body, when all is said and done, is a loathsome thing – Tommy Sir slapped his underarms with Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder, his favourite deodorant – loath-some, loath-some, loath-some. More Baby Powder, much more. Mumbai is a hot city even at night.

  Tommy Sir inspected himself in the mirror. He checked the smell of his underarms.

  Civilised and fragrant, the old man emerged from the changing room, and looked for young Manjunath Kumar.

  Tommy Sir was one of those who ‘lived’ in the Middle Income Group Cricket Club of Kalanagar, which is to say, he did his daily six laps in the pool, consumed international cricket and local whisky in the bar, and had tea every evening in the cafeteria towards which he was now walking.

  Inside, the waiters stood by a television set watching England play South Africa, either right now or perhaps several years ago.

  It was as if a ray of morning light had entered. Manjooo. Tommy Sir had not come alone. The waiters smiled at the boy; and then came to him bearing gifts – sit, Manjooo. Sit, sit. Little Manju they treated as de facto club mascot. Free snacks. Free Coca-Cola? Don’t worry, eat. Your father? He’ll never know. The trains would be packed till nine: the three Kumars were allowed to stay on within MIG club premises till late, but only one was pampered so.

  ‘Look at me, Manju. I have something important to say.’

  Though he had been expecting to discuss Radha Kumar with the selector, Tommy Sir had gone silent as Manjunath Kumar began to hit the ball. It was like watching his essay come to life. Standing beside him, the selector, Srinivasan Sir, had watched Manju’s batting with his mouth open, as if he too wanted to ask out loud – what is cricket? Because, like Tommy Sir, he could answer the question only in English. But the boy batting before them was answering it in the language of cricket.

  ‘Did I ever tell you my story about Eknath Solkar, Manju?’ Tommy Sir asked.

  But Manju, biting into a free samosa from the canteen of the MIG club, was concentrating on the pages of his textbook.

  ‘What’s the moral of Eknath Solkar’s story? Tell me. Every story has a moral. Stop reading that book.’

  Like many middle-class Indians of his age, Tommy Sir could be curious only by being hostile.

  Seizing the book, he turned it towards him, and read out loud from its contents.‘. . . Lesson 1: Linear Equations; Lesson 2: Highest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple of Polynom . . . Polynomin . . .’

  Tommy Sir angled the book back towards Manju.

  ‘Every cricketer in Tamil Nadu now has a degree in engineering. At nineteen, they say, let’s assess the risk and reward in cricket, too much risk, so let’s go to America for college. Manju, you mustn’t do that. Did Sachin go to America? Did he finish Year 12? Manju: tell me one thing. When you bat does your science and mathematics help you?’

  Chewing samosa, his cheeks full, the boy looked up from the textbook and examined Tommy Sir.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. And then, ‘No.’

  ‘Yes or No?’ Tommy Sir demanded.

  But the boy meant, Yes is the answer, and No is the answer you want from me.

  ‘Once during a match with Cathedral I tried to calculate the angle of an extra-cover drive – 35 degrees from the wicket, and a cover drive – 45 degrees.’

  ‘Did that help bisect the fielders?’

  ‘Next ball I was bowled.’

  Tommy Sir exhaled.

  ‘So you don’t think as you bat?’

  ‘I just let my mind go dark before I bat. If I think I always get out next ball.’

  Tommy Sir placed a palm on the boy’s textbook.

  ‘Manju, look at me. Tell me: which club did Vijay Merchant play for?’

  ‘Fort Vijay.’

  ‘How many sixes did C.K. Nayadu hit against the MCC at the Gymkhana?’

  ‘Too many.’

  ‘Good answer.’ Tommy Sir raised his palm from the book – and lowered it again. ‘Who is going to break that record?’

  Manju chewed his samosa.

  ‘My brother.’

  ‘Is your left thumb hurting?’

  Manju stopped chewing: he looked at Tommy Sir.

  ‘You know that is what Javed Ansari told me after the match? He could see you were holding the bat with the right hand only. He thought you might have hurt your left thumb.’

  ‘That Javed is a liar!’ Manju stood up. ‘I scored faster than him today, so he hates me.’

  ‘Then show me your left thumb,’ Tommy Sir said. ‘And why were you turning the page of your book with only one hand?’

  The boy slid both his hands under the table.

  Outside, Mohan Kumar, who stood clapping as his elder son jogged backwards to build up his hamstrings, turned – ‘Missster Moooohan!’ – to see Tommy Sir charging out of the club, and dragging Manju along with him.

  Holding Manju’s left hand up as evidence, he explained everything to the father.

  ‘Boy has a hairline. Still went out there and batted today. Why? Because he’s so scared of someone in his family.’

  Manju saw Tommy Sir push his father back.

  ‘Shall I go to the police and tell them what you do to him? Shall I tell the social workers?’

  And when the scout threatened to show Manju’s broken thumb to his friends in the Mumbai Sun, which would certainly result in a negative article about the father, which would certainly be seen by all the neighbours in the Tattvamasi Housing Society, and probably even by the general public of Chheda Nagar, Mohan Kumar folded his palms and begged Tommy Sir, reminding him he was just a poor man, a villager in the big city, victim of the chutney mafia, who had nothing, not even a friend in the world, and even agreed to leave the club at once, with the result that when Tommy Sir put the boy (along with his elder brother) into the auto that would take him express to Lilavati Hospital, he patted Manju’s cheeks and whispered into his ear: ‘Best fracture in human history.’

  •

  Lying in bed, Manju watched CSI Las Vegas. His brother was holding up an iPad to make it easy for him. In this episode, which he had seen three times before, an old woman was eaten alive by her own cats.

  ‘Is your thumb still hurting?’

  ‘No.’

  Radha smiled, but as Manju watched the iPad, he watched Manju.

  ‘Why did you bat if your thumb was broken?’

  Manju looked at the closed door. There was a man behind that door. He was the reason Manju did everything.

  Radha knew this: yet he watched his brother.

  ‘Was there another reason? Did you also bat with the broken thumb just to impress Srinivasan Sir? He’s a selector, I’m the one who should impress him. After I got out, you should have got out. That’s your duty. Especially when a selector—’

  From outside their bedroom, a voice shouted: ‘Complex Boy!’

  From the living room, seated on the sofa so he could observe his boys’ beds, Mohan Kumar said: ‘And he has to tell Tommy Sir a lie, that I bowled the ball in practice that broke his thumb. Would I do that to my own son? My own Robusta?’

  Radha put the iPad down on the bed and smiled at Manju. And as his younger brother watched, he walked to the door of their bedroom, and s
lammed it shut.

  There was a moment’s silence and then:

  ‘Radha, open this door at once.’

  Before picking up the iPad, Radha leaned back and stuck out his middle finger at the closed door. When the banging began he shouted:

  ‘I’ll call Tommy Sir.’

  The banging stopped. And then:

  ‘Are you two watching blue films in that computer that I bought for you which was meant only for cricket?’ From the other side of the door, his father’s high-pitched, almost hysterical voice continued to accuse his sons:

  ‘Blue films? Foreign films? Foreign women in foreign films?’

  •

  In the morning, when Radha shook him awake with news that their father had locked himself in the bathroom and was refusing to come out, Manju thought it was all his fault.

  ‘Appa, what happened?’ Radha stood outside and shouted at the bathroom door, trying to interpret the noises from within. ‘Who has gone to the police?’

  Their father slipped the newspaper from under the bathroom door and shouted: ‘Javed Ansari has gone to the police. Read, read.’

  Once or twice a month, their father became a woman.

  The boys studied the newspaper article together.

  Our readers feed a Young Lion a few questions:

  Q: What are your extracurricular activities?

  (Soumya M., Navi Mumbai)

  Javed Ansari: I am reading Peter Roebuck’s columns and George Orwell. I also write poetry, both with rhymes and the kind called free verse.

  Q: Do you play sports other than cricket?

  (Joseph, Dhobi Talao)

  Javed Ansari: Balance is crucial. Every Sunday, I practise football in Priyadarshini Park with my friends. I have imbibed from my father, who is a freelance cricket commentator, a passion for fine words and poetry. ‘With a sword you can cut off the head of one man at a time, but with a pen in your hand you can cut off the noses of a hundred men at a time,’ says my father. My interests extend to music where my heroes are Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shakur and Eminem.

  Q: How important is the big Selection Day? Does your whole life depend on being picked for the IPL or Ranji team?

  (F. Jeevan and Ms Jyoti, Jacob Circle)

  Javed Ansari: Success does not mean hurting myself or letting others hurt me. For instance, if someone breaks my thumb saying it is for the sake of cricket, I will take him to the police at once.

  ‘That son of a bitch,’ Radha said. ‘He must have spies in the MIG club. They told him everything.’

  Manju, reading his father’s mind, shouted at the closed door: ‘I’ll never go to the police, Appa. And if they ask me why is my thumb broken I’ll say that you are the best father in the world.’

  And only then did the bathroom door begin to open.

  Ten minutes later, all the world saw Mohan and his boys, hand in hand, one happy family on their way to the temple.

  •

  Camphor, crushed marigold, wet stone and stale coconut combine to produce the body odour of a South Indian god, an odour not always pleasant, but always divine: and this is the smell which exuded from the closed wooden doors of the Subramanya temple at Chheda Nagar, Chembur. Finding the temple not yet open, the three Kumars bowed to the lord’s golden spear, the vel, embedded into the sidewall. Radha closed his eyes and prayed audibly: ‘Please keep us safe from the police and neighbours and most of all from our rivals in cricket.’

  Mohan saw Manju looking at the parakeets on the roof of the temple. He reached over and slapped him on the head.

  Sending Radha off to a cricket match – and Manju with his broken thumb to school – Mohan Kumar walked back into the Subramanya temple compound, which was now open, and fragrant with jasmine and good silk, and prayed for the moral improvement of his sons. He sat in the temple courtyard, removed his sandals and looked at the cracks on the balls of his feet.

  The thing you do not realize when you are a young father is that they will never grow up to be as smart as you. Even if they love you (and Manju certainly did), they still provide your enemies with new opportunities. Expand the circumference of your vulnerability. Best if he kept away from Manju and Radha. At least for now.

  This meant that for the first time in years, Mohan Kumar was free on a weekday morning.

  Might go to Deepa Bar, he thought. Just to sit at one of those dark air-conditioned tables and talk to someone. Even Mr Shetty, the manager.

  Having started his bike, Mohan Kumar looked up at the trees. He caught sight of a bulbul – a dash of red among the green – which reminded him of his village near the mountains. Fly home, he prayed to the bird, and tell them nothing has gone wrong. Mohan Kumar’s plan is just beginning. Because his sons will soon have sons, and they too will bat: a dynasty of cricketers is rising in Mumbai from two drops of Kumar semen.

  •

  Three Poems about Manju

  1. Why I am watching M.

  Up on the 4th floor of Ali Weinberg School

  In the full classroom

  that is taking the exam

  everyone else has failed already.

  I see only one face that is not a slave.

  2. The little flame

  Has no one else seen

  the dark line that cuts into his forehead

  when he is thinking?

  It leans to the left.

  3. M. is a cheater at heart

  He wants to cheat in the exam

  But he is not bold.

  He wants to be free

  But he is scared of his father.

  He knows the colour of my cap

  And my initials.

  But he won’t talk to me.

  He knows

  I am watching him right now.

  4. Fourth poem (because Javed does what he wants and breaks all rules)

  A star fell to the earth

  When no one was watching.

  The name of the star is love.

  Turn round; for it fell right behind you.

  ‘There are still twenty minutes left, Manjunath.’ Mr Lasrado, the Physics teacher, returned from the window to his desk to collect the exam paper. ‘What is the hurry to leave?’

  All the other boys in the classroom were watching. On the blackboard were written the formidable words:

  Physics Practice Exam

  Number 2: Periodic Table and Atomic Particles.

  But Manju insisted: ‘Done, sir.’

  Mr Lasrado sat at his desk and studied his paper.

  ‘You haven’t finished one question. Name five man-made elements. You have only bohrium and plutonium here. What is the hurry? Sit and finish.’

  Manju held up his bandaged left thumb. Mr Lasrado lowered his nose and studied the bandage around the sporting finger.

  ‘Cricket?’

  ‘Cricket,’ Manju agreed.

  Outside in the hall, the peon was pasting a hand-made poster in the hallway: Ten Easy Ways to Fight Tension during the Exam Period.

  Manju went down the steps, to an empty bench with a view of the parked school buses; he groaned. Name five man-made elements. Bohrium, plutonium . . . There was a new edge to these surprise tests, monthly tests, half-annual and annual exams. For eight years, the students knew they could not fail. Now all that had changed. Now they could be thrown out of Ali Weinberg if their grades even threatened to lower the school’s average in the Board Exams. Five man-made elements. Manju knew they were going to ask this question in the surprise test: he should have been able to name at least five.

  He had lied to Mr Lasrado; the broken thumb had nothing to do with his not preparing properly for the exam, and the CSI Las Vegas back-to-back special on AXN had a lot to do with it. But he had read Mr Lasrado’s mind, and knew that he wanted to hear about the famous cricket thumb, and not about CSI Las Vegas.

  What was the point anyway of studying? He, like Radha, would have to drop out after the SSC exams to concentrate on cricket. Their father had already decided. Tommy Sir, for once, agreed with
their father. He had seen so many young cricketers in Tamil Nadu say, I have to go to America, have to concentrate on my studies, sorry, Tommy Sir: no more cricket. There was no chance of either Manju or Radha failing at cricket. And if they did fail, Tommy Sir said, so what? Could always go back and finish college one or two years later.

  Einsteinium. Is that man-made? Manju played with a lock of his hair.

  Then someone whistled – the air filled with perfume – and a boy in a blue cap passed right by him. Farewell at once to both man-made and natural elements. Tucking his textbook under his arm, Manju followed Javed Ansari.

  He walked over maroon-and-grey bricks, and through a makeshift cardboard arch painted with images of Mother Mary, to a place where he saw Javed leaning against a coconut tree to give himself a view, through a variety of mildewed structures, of the ocean. Manju saw a flame being struck.

  Javed removed his blue cap and tossed it on the ground. Standing against the tree, looking at the waves, and running a hand through his hair, he smoked. Ten feet behind him, Manju struck the same pose with his hand and his hair. He too exhaled.

  Describe your interests in life other than cricket, Manju.

  Science. Chemistry. CSI Las Vegas.

  How boring. What about driving a motorbike?

  No. I can’t.

  Manju, can you please use fine English words in your answers?

  Suddenly Manju saw that the figure leaning against the coconut tree had disappeared; and he already knew, as if in a horror movie, where Javed now was. Manju turned around slowly and there he stood, grinning: Mr ‘J.A.’, cigarette still in hand.

  ‘Why did you and your brother write on my chest-guard?’ he asked. ‘Do you even know what it means, that thing you wrote?’

  How Manju ran. He ran, under the makeshift arch, over the coloured bricks, through the school gate, and back to his classroom, Class 9, Section A, where he waited for his English class to start. Even in class, there was no safety, because a few minutes after the lunch break, a peon turned up at his desk to summon him with a crooked finger: ‘Patricia Principal wants to see you. Now.’