After being forced by Coach Sawant to leave his sons at the MIG Cricket Club, Mohan had returned to Dahisar, mounted his bicycle, tied two stainless-steel containers of chutneys to its side, and visited a Mysore Sweets, an Anand Bhuvan and a National Hindu Restaurant, before cycling down to Deepa, the Restaurant-Bar near the Dahisar train station. No one bought a thing from him. Heaving his bicycle over his head, he walked over the Dahisar river on the all-but-submerged bridge of bricks, then slammed the bike down, and cycled through the cardboard WELCOME TO OUR HOME arch (shielding his eyes from the gaze of the grinning politicians), past the broken homes and little shops, until he got to his own, where the sight of his neighbour Ramnath pressing white shirts with a stupid industriousness was so unbearable that he went to a teashop for relief.
He squatted by his bicycle and blew on the hot tea. He seethed. Tommy Sir thinks he can cut me out of my own sons’ future. I know what he is telling that visionary investor about me. He is calling me a chutney salesman. A thug. A peasant. An idiot.
When he got angry, Mohan Kumar’s right eyebrow rose up rakishly, which highlighted the comic element in his small and moustached face.
Looking at his glass of tea, he delivered the speech he wanted to give Tommy Sir (but had had to desist for the sake of his sons):
‘Other parents pay tens of thousands of rupees for cricket coaches, but I, a penniless migrant to Mumbai, am the pro-gen-i-tor of pro-di-gies. Mr Tommy Sir, I say these words slowly, why? So that even a man of your mental capacities may understand them. Here are two more words pronounced slowly for you. Amoxycillin. Azithromycin. Do you know what they are? Do you know how to prescribe them? I do. I have taught myself medicine and pharmacology. Mr Tommy allegedly Sir: where were you when my sons fell ill? Where were you when they needed someone to sit by their side and record their temperature every half hour? Mr Tommy: when my Radha becomes famous and glorious, I’ll call the reporters to the MIG Cricket Club. To the very place where you humiliated me. And I’ll have my press conference right there.’
Even in tea, there is no peace today. The moment Mohan Kumar began sipping, the legless man had to make noise on his flute in a corner of the shop. This legless fellow performed every morning in the train station, and came here afterwards. Holding up his glass of tea, Mohan Kumar looked at the flautist.
Brother. Have pity on me. Think how much I have suffered in life. Please stop.
The flour-mill began its rumbling, giving off pungent fumes – it ground red chillies in the second shift, adding burning eyes to its customary noise pollution.
Mohan Kumar kept looking. The legless flautist kept playing.
Until the father of champions put his glass down, walked over, slapped the flute out of the man’s hand, and returned to his spot to pick up his glass, only to find that his phone was ringing.
It was the boys’ cricket coach, and he said: ‘It’s payday, Mohan. Congratulations.’
•
‘But where is Coach Sawant?’
Three-quarters of an hour had passed, and Mohan Kumar, an aureole of sweat on his back, had pushed through the crowds around Bandra train station, and returned to Kalanagar, walking past Matoshree for the second time that day, to find a tall grey-haired man, whom he recognized from his one previous meeting nearly six months earlier as the man who hated all sporting fathers, Tommy Sir, waiting at the entrance of the MIG club, along with a stocky middle-aged man wearing a wonderful red T-shirt.
‘Gone with the other boys to school,’ said Tommy Sir, without smiling at Mohan Kumar.
‘I’m Anand Mehta.’ The man in the T-shirt, who smelled of cologne, stuck his hand out. ‘Just seen your boy bat. Very impressed.’
When he smelled the rich man’s hand, Mohan Kumar was overcome by shame. He almost cried.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, refusing to touch the perfumed flesh. ‘For my wet state, forgive me. For my lateness, forgive me.’
‘No problem, mate,’ the rich man said, slapping Mohan on his wet back. ‘My wife Asha says, if people sweat it means they’re honest. Can you read my T-shirt? Manchester United Gold Key Supporter. I have a cricket academy near Azad Maidan, did Tommy Sir tell you? Last year, I was happy to escort, at my own expense, seventy-six of the brightest young cricketing bodies in this country under the age of fifteen to Bowral, New South Wales, home of the one, the only, the eternal, the infinite, Sir Donald Bradman, where, in addition to a master class conducted in the Don’s own town, the boys also enjoyed a sumptuous meal of Aussie lamb wrapped in brown pitta bread. Australia is the reality principle in cricket, Tommy Sir: otherwise we Indians would think we were good at this game. Am I right, or am I right? Come in, come in, let’s eat and do business.’
They sat in the cafeteria of the MIG club, and a waiter came for their order.
‘Nothing for me,’ Tommy Sir said.
‘Order,’ Anand Mehta retaliated. ‘Order samosas.’
Like many others of his class in Mumbai, Mehta gave an impression of dogged and uncerebral strength. A small square forehead, held tight by close-cropped hair, expanded into a powerful black brush moustache over a stonecrusher jaw; a white fold of fat at the back of his skull broadened down a thick neck into a wide chest and wider paunch whose width he exaggerated by letting his shirt hang loose. His fleshy palms had clearly done no hard work, and yet seemed to sweat a lot. His English was international; he drew his phrases equally from the American, British and Indian dialects, and had acquired the democratic Australian habit of calling everyone around him ‘mate’. Halfway through each sentence came a pause in which he stared at a corner of the ceiling with an open mouth, as if just then realizing what he had begun to say; and he had the child’s habit of raising his voice when he repeated himself.
‘This man,’ Tommy Sir, pointing a finger at the investor, ‘is a visionary. He wants to start the world’s first cricket sponsorship programme, and of all the boys in Mumbai he has picked yours as his first candidates. You are a lucky man, Mohan Kumar.’
‘No, sir,’ the chutney salesman replied. ‘No, sir.’
‘No?’
‘He is a lucky man.’ He took a breath, and turned to the investor: ‘Mr Anand, sir, I was not allowed to be present when my own sons were exhibited to you like goods at the market –’ an angry glance at Tommy Sir – ‘so I could not present a full picture of their talents. Let me share with you the whole A–Z of Future Champion-Making. Now, sir—’
Everyone stopped talking. Like a gangster introducing a gun into the discussions, Mohan Kumar suddenly placed a white cotton handkerchief on the table. Within the handkerchief was something black and heavy; he unwrapped the white layers to reveal a very large cell phone, which he proceeded to squint at.
‘Just checking if any customer has asked for a new batch of chutneys,’ he said, re-wrapping his phone in the handkerchief. ‘To keep germs away,’ he explained.
‘Excellent idea,’ Anand Mehta grinned. ‘Does look a bit odd – but then who cares what they think? There is a wonderful European philosopher named Mister Nietzsche who said, the man who doesn’t care about what other men think becomes a superman. I congratulate you on shedding all inhibitions. Now, relaaaaaax. Don’t bore me with details. Has Tommy Sir told you the arrangement I am proposing?’
Mohan indicated with his head that, no, the arrangement and its details were not known to him. Since he was not allowed to be present when his sons were exhibited like buffalo at a weekly fair.
‘Simple. I’ll give you a certain sum a month. You can pay all your son’s expenses using this certain sum. In return, I negotiate for him in the future with Adidas or Nike or whoever wants him when he joins the Indian Premier League. And I’ll take a certain interest, by which I mean a fair percentage, in his marketing revenues. Fair enough?’
‘No, sir,’ Mohan said, clearing his throat. ‘No. It is not fair in the least.’ He joined his thumb and index finger in the manner of a maestro. ‘My sons are not sportsmen. They will grow into the Bhimsen Jo
shi and Ravi Shankar of cricket. Sir—’
Tommy Sir slapped his hand on the table. ‘You know where these two boys are from, Mr Anand? Dahisar. From a slum. Hungry Lions.’
‘Sir, let me finish.’
‘Angry Lion, I think, was what the television people said,’ Anand Mehta suggested. ‘The boy Radha has these very . . . film-star eyes. And long hair, like Sachin’s. Pepsi, Coke will love those eyes and hair. He will act in films one day, I say.’
Mohan Kumar found himself still sweating from his bicycling, which put him at a disadvantage in the negotiations.
‘Sir: I will finish. Returning to the process by which I created two geniuses of will-power, sir, it must be noted that the first principle of my system is diet—’
Tommy Sir turned to Mohan Kumar and indicated, with ‘down, boy’ motions of his palm, that it was time for silence.
The investor proposed terms.
‘I am being asked, to invest, in a highly speculative manner, in a young person, whom we shall call Person X.’
Anand Mehta smiled at the Cricket Scout, and then drew a square with his fingers.
‘Is there a guarantee that said Person X will get into the IPL team? Can you give me this –’ he drew a smaller square inside the first – ‘guarantee?’
‘Sir, a growing body, scientifically speaking, needs three things, known as the triangle of—’
‘Shut up,’ Tommy Sir told the father, ‘right now.’ He turned to the investor. ‘Radha Kumar is the best batsman I’ve seen in ten, maybe fifteen years. And he has the right background. Because a middle-class boy can no longer make the Bombay team. You saw for yourself what that Javed Ansari did today. He has everything, money, background, pedigree, but he will never make the team. He comes to practise in an air-conditioned car, with nurse and driver. Can’t sit in the sun for five minutes. This boy, on the other hand, this Radha—’
‘Maybe you didn’t hear me, Mr Tommy.’
The investor drew that magic square again.
It was one of those moments when Tommy Sir realized his age: a decade ago, he would have got up and walked out at this point.
Having taking up painting many years ago as a way to calm himself when cricket-related tension grew unbearable, Tommy Sir now thought about his own watercolour copy of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a reproduction which in some ways improved on the original, and which he had framed and hung in his living room so that its stimulation, direct or recollected, would regulate his heartbeat and lower his blood pressure at moments precisely like this one.
‘If you want guarantees, play carrom. And if you don’t want the boys,’ Tommy Sir looked the investor in the eye, ‘we will go to Reliance and Nike and the Big Boys. Directly.’
‘Relaaaaaaaax.’ Anand Mehta smiled at the old scout. ‘I make an offer of . . . four thousand rupees a month. Four thousand. Done? Are we done?’
‘Eight thousand,’ Mohan Kumar said. ‘For one boy. And fifteen thousand for both.’
‘Two?’ The investor broke into an incredulous smile. ‘Two? I’ve done plenty of charity in my time, mate, but I did not come here to make a donation.’
‘Two. Two is the opportunity.’ Tommy Sir bunched his fingers together. ‘Two is the visionary aspect. Listen. Sport alone isn’t enough today. People want sport and a story. I know, because I am also a writer. Two brothers from the slums making it big. One of them looks like a film-star. It’s a story.’
Anand Mehta rubbed his moustache.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘As I often ask my wife, Asha: what are Indians? To which I give the answer: Indians, my dear, are basically a sentimental race with high cholesterol levels. Now that its hunger for social realist melodrama is no longer satisfied by the Hindi cinema, the Indian public is turning to cricket. Brothers X and Y from the slums. Playing cricket for Bombay. I can see the potential. I once donated a lakh of rupees to a school in the slum near Cuffe Parade, back when I had just returned from New York. You know what the Mumbai Sun did? Called me a hero, and printed my photo. Page four. But Brother Y is too young. Voice hasn’t broken yet.’
‘Manju is almost fourteen,’ Tommy Sir said. ‘In this city we throw boys out of the women’s compartment of the train when they are seven, and tell them, go to the men’s compartment. Push and survive. In sport there is not always a difference between a boy and a man. What is cricket, anyway, Mr Mehta? Game of chance. Take two, one may win.’
Anand Mehta looked at the ceiling so sadly.
‘What is cricket?’
Meaning, no. He was not taking two boys.
He pointed at one man, and then at the other, and asked:
‘Done?’
So the scout put his large palms on the table and got to the point.
‘Doing well in Mumbai is nothing: being noticed while you do well is everything. There are competitions, shields, trophies, prizes I have to get these boys into. There’s a fine art to getting a boy selected in this city. No guarantee, but . . . if I support a boy, he is well supported.’
Anand Mehta did not smile.
‘For all this work that I will do for the boys, I don’t want any money, Mr Mehta. Not one rupee. But I have a simple question, Mr Mehta: tell me, what makes a great batsman great? Hard Work? Sacrifice? Mother’s Prayers? Each is necessary, yet all together are still insufficient. Even I don’t know. It is a shroud before my eyes. Believe me when I say I could be running a very profitable coaching academy for fat and rich mummy’s boys, instead of which I am out here day after day, in the field, in the sun, trying to solve this mystery of mysteries and find a great, I mean great batsman. The shroud must part, and that is the only reason I—’
Anand Mehta had other things to do with his life.
‘I’ll compensate you a thousand a month for your time, Tommy Sir. Done deal?’
The scout looked away.
‘Two thousand. Final Offer.’
‘Plus I want a T-shirt,’ Tommy Sir said.
‘T-shirt?’ Anand Mehta frowned.
‘Yes. Like the one you’re wearing. Manchester United Gold. For Lata, my daughter.’
Everyone shook hands with everyone else; they bought South Indian paans, rich with clove and pulverized sugar, and placed them on their tongues to close the deal; before the sugar had melted, Tommy Sir had disappeared.
At once, Mohan Kumar caught the rich man by his wrist and said: ‘Finally, I can open my mouth.’
•
Revenge is the capitalism of the poor: conserve the original wound, defer immediate gratification, fatten the first insult with new insults, invest and reinvest spite, and keep waiting for the perfect moment to strike back. Because every mocking remark that Mohan Kumar had heard about his plan to produce champions had been stored away in his keen memory, he knew only one way of telling his sons he had secured their future for them:
‘I’ve screwed a rich man, my boys,’ he said, even though he had taken a liking to Anand Mehta. He clapped his hands. ‘A man in a red foreign T-shirt. I flipped him over and screwed him royally. Come and see.’
His boys gathered around; Mohan Kumar showed them a paper napkin from the MIG club, which was covered with writing in a blue ballpoint pen. A contract.
Until mountains fall and rivers dry this contract will be honoured by Mohandas Kumar of Alur Taluka and Anand Mehta of Mumbai. One third of all future earnings of my two sons Master Radha Krishna and Master Manjunath will be the legal property of Shri Mehta, in return for his commitment to sponsorship. May God fill our mouths with worms if either breaks this contract.
‘Isn’t it beautiful, boys? Words are magic, remember this: words are magic. There is a man who comes to our village and with a spell and a secret poem he makes an elephant dance for him. Today, I made a rich Gujarati man dance for me. At first he said, No, no, I don’t want Manju, his voice hasn’t broken, but I said, you will take Manju, because I made two champions! Yes, he said, and he’s giving us five thousand rupees each month! But I wasn’t done
. Made him sit down and bought him a samosa and told him about this flour-mill and how it pollutes the air, until he said, oh, terrible, how terrible, and then I said, there are rats and stupid neighbours, how can I raise champions here – so he gave us a loan, interest-free, of 50,000 rupees, so we can get out of this hole, boys! To a more “hygienic location”. His words! Screwed him.’
Manju and Radha looked at the contract that guaranteed their future, and the older boy asked: ‘But where are we moving to? And when?’
Mohan Kumar rubbed his hands, and pointed one of his warmed palms at Radha: ‘Get ready for a check-up. Manju, stand outside. Stand at attention.’
Radha began removing his shirt. Manju closed the tin door behind him and stood outside with his arms pressed to his sides like a soldier at a drill. It was evening in the Shastrinagar slum, and men were returning to their homes after work; their faces, dark from fatigue, glowed with the anticipation of seeing their children again. There are times when only a sick man knows how warm and bright the rest of the world is. Manju watched his neighbour, Ramnath, showing his daughter how to stack up a pile of fresh shirts and cover them in newspaper, so that they could be delivered in the morning.
He strained his ears: from inside the hut, his father’s voice rose.
‘Are you thinking of shaving? I can see in your eyes that you are thinking of shaving.’
‘No, Appa.’
‘A boy mustn’t shave until he’s . . .’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Why must a boy not shave till he’s . . . ?’
‘Hormones.’
‘Which are not good for . . .’
‘Cricketers.’
Tap, tap, tap. On a coconut tree beside their hut, Manju saw a woodpecker hammering away. He thought at once of Mr ‘J.A.’ with his beak nose. Working with his beak – tap, tap, tap – the woodpecker raised his enormous profile, which looked like a tribal mask, and disappeared, only to reappear half a foot higher on the coconut stem – tap, tap, tap – before his dark face again vanished, to rematerialize another foot higher: as if he were ascending via masks. In school, Javed had invented a new ‘look’ for himself these days by wearing his blue monogrammed cap backwards, like an actor in an American film. Watching the woodpecker, and thinking of Javed, Manju smiled until he heard Radha pull up his trousers, and promise to take more scientific care of his cricketer’s body.
Selection Day Page 4
