The Zoya Factor

by Anuja Chauhan

  He stopped pumping iron long enough to give me a sour look. 'I got special permission to keep it open late,' he said briefly. 'So I could meet you.'

  'Oh.'

  He shook his head at me and moved onto a third machine.

  'So...how long will you take to finish now?' I asked, trailing behind him again.

  'Seventy-five minutes,' he said briefly. 'You could go back up to your room if you like.'

  Of course I didn't want to go up to my room. I was all primed for our big reconciliation. 'It's okay,' I said, settling down on the padded sound-and-shock-absorbing floor. 'I'll wait.'

  He nodded curtly and went back to his workout.

  I looked around the gym curiously. It was all gleaming steel-and-matte black, just like the set we'd used for a Diet Zing! still shoot last year. There were some body-building magazines lying around, so I flipped through them, looking at ads for bulk-building steroids featuring booby guys in tiny chaddis with humongous muscles all over their bodies. They look so gross, Nikhil looks way better than any of them, I thought, looking at him sideways through my lashes so he wouldn't notice. He was scowling at the TV screen above him, oblivious to my gaze, so I rolled onto my stomach, cupped my chin in my hands, and ogled him shamelessly.

  The cool thing about Nikhil Khoda, I mused as I ran my eyes over his lean, toffee-coloured torso in its clinging white ganji, is that he doesn't try. He looked around then, so I yawned quickly, turned my back on him deliberately and pretended to read. I didn't turn around again till I heard all the stacked weights slide down to the base of the machine with a clatter, a good fifty minutes later.

  He looked across the room at me and said, still sounding pretty pissed off, 'I'll shower and be with you in five minutes, okay?'

  'Okay,' I said equally coolly, even though I was quaking inside.

  I wandered around the gym, then sat down on a complicated-looking cycle and frowned at myself in the glass. He must want to make up, otherwise why'd he call me here? It couldn't be anything else, could it? Could it?

  I was still on the cycle when he came out, dressed in his usual grey tracks, his hair sleek and gleaming, his expression unreadable. I raised my chin and met his eyes in the mirror as he sauntered over.

  'So,' I said a little too loudly, 'what did you want to talk to me about?' It came out sounding a little cockier than I'd intended but the long wait in the gym had made me jumpy.

  Any hopes I'd had of a romantic reconciliation and mad passionate love-making amongst all the kinky steel machines went clean out of the window when he said, 'Have you seen that agarbatti script Lokey's mailed for you?'

  'What?' Then realization dawned on me. 'Oh. That.'

  So that was what he wanted to talk to me about. Tauji's Sheraan-wali ad.

  'Yes, that,' Nikhil said. 'Whatever happened to "Cricket is so uncool and I don't want any mileage out of it"?'

  He was playing back what I'd said to him in my hotel room in Dhaka, I realized. Damn, he really did remember everything I'd ever said to him.

  He sounded like he hated me. And to think I'd rushed down here, tail wagging eagerly, thinking he wanted to smell the gun smoke in my hair. I tossed my head. 'I changed my mind,' I said nonchalantly. 'Anyway, who are you to talk? You endorse a million brands yourself, why shouldn't I?'

  'Because it's being irresponsible,' he said. 'And untrue. Because it makes my team out to be eleven extras who just got lucky.'

  'Sounds like a pretty authentic portrayal to me,' I said coolly, getting off the cycle so I could make a quick exit after delivering my knockout punch, which of course was: 'Hey, bad luck about the match today, by the way.'

  He grabbed my arm then. 'You watch it,' he said warningly. 'Don't push me, Zoya, you don't want me to stop being your friend.'

  'Well, you definitely aren't being very friendly!' I said, fighting back tears. 'You're cold and horrid all the time and honestly, all I want to do is help. If I do have something that gives you the edge, and it seems like I do, why are you being so proud about admitting that it's helping you to win?'

  'Because I want to win fair and square,' he answered without hesitation, his eyes blazing. 'Not like this. Not because of some' - he flung his arms in the air - 'Voodoo goddess.'

  'Oh, tell the truth,' I said nastily. 'It's not about fair play at all, it's just that you want to take all the credit.'

  'Yes,' he snapped. 'I want all the credit. Because it's mine. It belongs to me and to all the boys, who've been sweating it out in seedy small-town stadiums ever since they were old enough to grasp a bat or ball, ever since they were old enough to dream.'

  Oh great, he was in Nike-ad mode again. Honestly, he made it sound like all of them played for the love of India alone - not for pot-loads of money.

  He was still hanging onto my arm, glaring at me, and all the disappointment of my stupid dashed hopes rushed to my head. 'So, I'm just to be a dirty little secret, then, is that it?' I flung rudely at him, thinking desperately that maybe if I were obnoxious enough this would build to that moment where, in any decent romantic movie, the guy grabs the girl with both arms and lays a strong masterful kiss upon her mouth. 'I've got to help you win and keep quiet about it?'

  'No,' he said steadily. 'Ideally I would prefer it if you stopped coming to breakfast altogether. But, of course, both the team and the country will have a heart attack if you do. I'm just asking you to behave responsibly about the situation you find yourself in, that's all.'

  I made a frustrated little noise in my throat at this typical Nikhil Khoda speech and wrenching my arm out of his grasp, pushed my way out through the health club door.

  ***

  Lingnath Baba had not been bullshitting. The forces of darkness were gathering. The mandatory articles pressing for re-examining the Duckworth-Lewis system made an appearance in the papers the next morning, of course, but they were pushed into relative obscurity by lengthy articles talking about how India had lost because their Lucky Charm took a day off, and how I was proving to be vital in this World Cup. The lunatic fringe of the Australian media, meanwhile, was baying for my blood with harsh headlines: 'It's Not Cricket', 'Go Home, Zoya - Level the Playing Field', 'Mighty Indians Hide Behind Girl'.

  'You should make a scrapbook, Zoya,' said Rinku Chachi as she sifted through the papers complacently and sipped her coffee. 'So many pictures of you. And you are looking so pretty too!'

  I looked up at her dementedly, my hair in my eyes. I'd woken up with a throbbing headache, thanks to Nikhil Khoda, and now I was faced with this. 'Chachi, don't you get it? It's bad press! They hate me, okay?'

  She shrugged, 'Sticks and stones, Zoya beta,' she said soothingly. 'If the dogs are barking let them bark, what goes of yours if they get a sore throat?'

  I shook my head in exasperation. She just didn't get it, did she?

  'Besides,' she continued calmly, smoothing my hair back from my forehead, 'in India you are a heroine. Why don't you see what some Indian papers are saying about you, hain?'

  Now that wasn't a bad idea! I skipped over to Mon's room and logged onto crickindiya.com on her laptop. A big fat picture of me smiled back at me from the home page. Pleasantly surprised, I clicked on an icon that said 'Zoya Solanki - Karishma or Coincidence?' and found thirty pages of comments!

  ***

  'Of course Zoya Devi is a karishma and should be recognized as such. She has turned the fortunes of the country around. People who do not believe are fools, who would not believe in Bhagwan Krishna himself if he appeared, with a sudharshan chakra on his finger and the three worlds inside his mouth.'

  'Ganesha statues don't really drink the milk, Mahim water is not really sweet, and Zoya Solanki is not a karishma but a coincidence. Instead of worshipping Zoya, we should be thanking Nikhil Khoda who's got the useless Indian team to finally perform.'

  'Jogpal Lohia has prepared an army of eunuchs. A hijron ki baraat. They are all useless without this girl. They should all put on bangles and sit at home, rolling chapatis.'

&nb
sp; 'The blood of Robin Rawal, best batsman in India is on this so-called Zoyadevi's hands. Ban her.'

  'There is no such thing as a coincidence. Zoyamata ki jai.'

  'It was a black day for Indian cricket when Hharviinder Singh discovered Zoya's so-called luckiness. Our new team, never very strong to begin with, has now been weakened at its very core.'

  'Aarti of Zoya Devi performed daily every morning and evening. For Zoyadevi amulet, saamagri and autographed photograph visit my website at www.Zoyadevikachamatkaariballa.com. All are welcome.'

  'Zoya is nothing but the latest in a long line of Rajasthani girls who have been exploited by the male-oriented society since time immemorial. Her life is doomed to end in tragedy.'

  'Jogpal Lohia is a cunning fox. He is preparing to make this poor girl a scapegoat if we lose the World Cup.'

  'These things happen. My mother has a large mole on her right cheek. Whenever she massages it gently, India hits a boundary. It is the nazarbattoo, the black mark that repels the evil eye for all of India. My friend has a lucky pajama. Whenever he makes his drawstring loose, India loses a wicket. He sits tight and does not go to bathroom for whole day and then India wins the match. Jogpal Lohia should invite my friend and my mother to the World Cup,'

  'What a joke. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on the twenty-fifth of December. Does that make him Jesus Christ?'

  'Lakhs of rupees of taxpayers' money is being spent on entertaining this girl and all her family in Australia. That money could have been better spent on opening cricket academies for promising youngsters in Indian hinterland.'

  'This whole thing is a match-fixing scam. The bookies are hyping up the Zoya Factor so that people will bet on India, then they will give our team money to lose and make a fortune.'

  'Very soon Nikhil Khoda will be sacked and this girl - who cannot tell batsman from Batman - will become captain. Wah wah, mera bhaarat mahaan. It happens only in India!'

  'Nothing can be done for this country.'

  ***

  It was like dipping your glass into a matka for a drink of cold water and pulling it out full of a million squirming snakelings instead. And these were just the first few pages. The ranting and raving and haranguing went on page after page after page. I kept scanning through them, looking for even one positive reasonable comment but I couldn't find any. It's not just Nikhil Khoda, I thought dementedly. Everybody hates me. Correction. Everybody hates me except the lunatics who worship me.

  Lucky on the field. Unlucky off the field. Lingnath Baba was right. Balance is what kept the cosmos in motion, after all.

  ***

  The boys gave me a rousing reception when I made an appearance at breakfast the next day. Zahid leapt up, pulled out a chair for me and dropped down on the one next to it, smilingly. 'It's too good to see you, Zoyaji,' he said sincerely. Everybody else chorused the same general emotion. Observing all of them carefully as I ate some fruit, I decided they really meant it. They didn't look like they hated me because I was responsible for them being called 'hijras' and 'credulous morons' on the World Wide Web. Obviously, they were smart enough to avoid the comments pages on websites like crickindiya.com.

  My heart rose to my mouth as Nikhil Khoda sauntered in and took his usual place at the top of the table. I took a deep steadying breath, held on hard to the edge of the table and risked a casual glance Khoda-ways. He was shovelling chunks of pineapple onto his plate as usual. He didn't look like he had read any of those vicious comments. Or, maybe, he just didn't give a damn about stuff like that. Nor did he look like the encounter in the gym was giving him sleepless nights.

  Not me. I, of course, was feeling like something out of a Jogpal Lohia ballad. I am a timid tremulous deer, I thought dementedly, wandering hither and thither, oh slay me with your lotus-eyes, my navy-blue hunter!

  I think he sensed I was looking at him, because he looked up just then and met my eyes quizzically. I flushed and got back to the slimy papaya slice on my plate.

  'What's up, Zoya?' Hairy asked. 'Not feeling fully strong yet?'

  'No, I'm fine...' I said. Then I asked, 'Hair...uh Harry, tell me, d'you read the newspapers nowadays?'

  Hairy (very hairy, actually, he'd taken a vow not to shave till the World Cup was over) looked at me thoughtfully. 'Bhai, I toh don't read them, Zoya,' he said finally, one leg jittering under the table so hard the plates clattered up and down, up and down. 'But Shivee reads them every day.'

  'Mein bhi nahi padta,' Zahid volunteered. 'I never read anything they write about me, unless Hardin-sir asks me too. It spoils your concentration.'

  'What saala concentration?' said Shivee. (He had shaved his head the day we got into the Super 8; he was eschewing vanity, he'd told me solemnly.) 'If you're a mature, what everybody is saying won't affect your concentration.'

  'So what are they saying, this everybody?' Zahid asked him belligerently.

  Shivee started to answer but I broke in, 'Let's not go into all that now. I think Nikhil's ready to go.'

  ***

  18

  'It's India-Pakistan today!' Mon said dreamily as she threw an orange dupatta over her white kameez and green salwar. 'Drama, Tragedy, Emotion...twin siblings with bleeding umbilical cords, seeking closure, in love and death.... Ahhhh....' She placed a blue bindi on her forehead and added, 'It's like Deewar, only better, because there's no Nirupa Roy.'

  'Arrey, Monita, you are looking very decent,' Rinku Chachi pronounced as she bounced into Mon's room in her RINKU 10 tee shirt. 'Hain na, Zoya?'

  I nodded yes, while Mon looked at Chachi like she couldn't decide whether to be flattered or insulted. 'Thanks, Rinku,' she said finally turning to daub large quantities of orange and white face paint on Armaan's cheeks before clamping a jauntily angled Men in Blue cap on his head. 'Let's go, guys,' she said, standing back to survey her handiwork critically. 'I don't want to miss a moment of this.'

  We'd flown back to Melbourne for this match. Security had been beefed up at the MCG and the stadium, which can seat up to one lakh people, was sold out. The members' enclosure was packed. A whole contingent of Indian page-3 celebrities had flown in for this last leg of the World Cup and they'd bagged all the best seats. The air was redolent with their tinkling laughter and expensive perfumes. Mon marched purposefully past some lesser Khans and stopped before a gaggle of Bollywood starlets. 'Do you mind?' she said sweetly. 'These are Zoya's seats.'

  It was the most embarrassing moment of my life! I wanted the earth to swallow me up. No, I wanted the earth to swallow her up, the silly lid.

  The starlets got all gushy and excited. 'Hey, look, Zoya!' they yelled to the lesser Khans who rushed up to me in a whirl of stubble and sunglasses and started introducing themselves. The girls moved quite willingly to make place for us. The only person who found this exciting was Armaan who was thrilled to have all this firm cool female flesh pressing against him suddenly. He dropped and picked his Beyblade to his heart's content, and got to see the whole match ensconced happily in the godi of a hot little starlet who wanted to show her date how maternal she was, really, in spite of her D&G mini-skirted exterior.

  We had all settled down and the commentators had just announced that the captains were coming out for the toss when I got this massive attack of nerves. I was suddenly absolutely sure something awful was going to happen. I just knew it somehow. It was divine retribution for having been nasty to Nikhil. Regardless of what he had said to me that evening, the truth of the matter was that he had reached out to me after an awful day that had ended in defeat and what he had got in return was a whole lot of attitude. It was hardly the unconditional support he'd told me he had been looking for.

  I concealed my unease as well as I could as we watched the burly, round-shouldered Paki captain push back his dark green cap, scratch his beard and reckon he'd take heads. Khoda shrugged and the umpire flipped the coin up in the air. It seemed to take forever to land today, and my heart beat so loudly I expected people to turn around and go shush at me but they didn'
t.

  'Tails it is,' the umpire announced finally and Nikhil said he'd field first and they both strolled back to the pavilion together.

  Mon stole a look at me.

  'What?' I asked irritably.

  'Nothing,' she said. 'You wanna let go of my arm?'

  I uncurled my fingers from her wrist. There were huge red welts right around it. 'Shit, sorry, Mon,' I said.

  'Quit worrying, Zoya,' she said, hugging me. 'You can't do anything now, just sit back and enjoy the game.'

  I nodded and sat back waiting for the bomb to explode.

  The stadium looked like a massive inverted hemisphere of the earth itself, part blue and part green. There were continents of Pakistani supporters in dark green, suspended in a rippling ocean of light blue Indians, all screaming their lungs out.