Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

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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 slammed 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?’

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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.

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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 side-wall. 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.

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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.’