Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

More guests came, and more after them; and at 9 p.m. Anand Mehta himself turned up.

‘This man,’ Mehta told the people gathered around Mohan Kumar, ‘is the only other man in Mumbai who has no inhibitions. He is the only other man creating new value in a dead city.’

While Manju brought him white bread to snack on, Anand Mehta talked superman-to-superman with Mohan Kumar, suffering the others, mere humans, to stand around them eavesdropping. ‘Entrepreneurship. Most of what we hear about it in the media is absolute bullshit, Mr Mohan. Don’t invest in a new business in India. That’s some shit we feed the Yanks and Japs. Real money is in turning around old businesses, because the heartland of this country is a Disneyland of industrial disasters: thousands of socialist factories, sick, or semi-sick or partially shut down.

‘See, Mr Mohan, Mumbai is finished. Proof. Other night, I’m visiting my aunt. Lives in the ground floor of Pallonji Mansion. You have to do these things, go see these bores once a month, to make sure the maid hasn’t murdered them. Usually, all you get from these ladies is the usual South Bombay talk: Haan, girl is looking for a husband in Carmichael Road, maybe even Altamount Road, but certainly not beyond Pedder Road. But this time — this time, I go there, and my old auntie is talking politics. First time in her life. She looks at me and says, “Anand, Anand, did you know Bal Thackeray is slowly dying?” So what? I say. Indian politicians always die slowly, unless they’re Gandhis. And she says, “Anand, Anand, when the Permanent Boss is gone, who will take care of the city?” And then it hits me. My God, it hits me, Mr Mohan. What is Bombay? Shit scared. Deep down no one is khadoos . They’re all waiting for a Daddy Figure to hold ’em and protect ’em and maybe even hump ’em. That’s why I say, we in the city of Mumbai know the future is in distressed assets because we’re living in one. Get it? It hurts — but it’s the truth, right? That’s why, I said, Goodbye, Mumbai. I’ve got an inside man in north India, an IAS officer’s son, and we’re going about the city of Dhanbad looking for old industrial plants to turn around.’

Chewing a lump of white bread, Mehta sprayed his host with hard truths and moist starch, and asked periodically that Mohan Kumar’s cell phone be extracted from its handkerchief cover (his own phone had broken down, he explained). As Mehta made calls, and told people that ‘his investment’ had broken a global record, he kept chewing, seemingly bent on devouring all the bread in the Kumar home.

At nine thirty, Mohan Kumar, scratching his ankle with one hand, raised the other and gestured, like a statesman, for the people to behave themselves and quieten down, and confirmed the buzzing rumour.

‘Please keep it to yourself, but it is true: Shah Rukh Khan has asked to see Radha. It is true.’

That is why the boy wasn’t home: he had gone straight from the cricket grounds to the Bandra Bandstand to meet the world’s most famous film-star. The crowd sighed.

Later, they saw him on television. Master Radha Kumar, holder of the record for the highest score in Mumbai school cricket, still in his soiled cricket whites, which the TV people had insisted on for authenticity, and whose shabby state only heightened the power of his grey eyes, stood before Shah Rukh Khan’s mansion in the Bandra Bandstand, answering questions from a TV reporter:

‘ Shah Rukh Khan called me a teenage human skyscraper, because I made so many runs, and he said two things in Mumbai keep going up and up, skyscrapers and school cricket scores, then he asked how does a young man like you have the concentration to become a teenage human skyscraper, and I said, my father has trained me in willpower, and then he said, which part of the innings was the hardest, and I said, for me, no part of the innings was hard, because my father told me first become a centurion, and then become a double centurion, and then become a triple centurion, and then … ’

‘Hopeless,’ his father said, slapping his forehead in front of all the visitors. ‘Stammers when he’s asked a simple question.’ He and the remaining visitors discussed and dissected Radha Kumar’s performance, and though they identified a few good things in it (Radha’s snow-leopard eyes could never lose their glamour), they awarded it, on the whole, very poor marks; with the result that when Radha Kumar finally returned to his home, he was, to his surprise, received as a failure.

He and Manju would have to wait till the next day for their first taste of cricketing stardom: which is to say, their first real chance to do some fucking.

•

‘What is Shah Rukh Khan’s bungalow like? How many Ferraris does he have? Is it true that two German fans, both blonde girls, wait all day long outside his house for autographs? Did you get to meet Gauri?’

It was after class, and Radha and Manju, who were supposed to report for cricket practice at the MCA, had instead been ‘picked up’ by Sofia, and were being driven by her chauffeur to the city, for a bit of ‘shopping’. Manju, assuming he had been brought along for the sake of appearances — to provide some cover while his brother and the girl got up to some serious ‘shopping’ — sat stiffly in the back of the car, while Sofia, from the front seat, fired questions at Radha.

‘But don’t get a big head, okay? You’re bad enough as it is.’

Sofia’s thatch was even more pronounced now, and Manju wondered how she managed to see through the hair covering her eye.

‘We have a dictatorship of cricket in this country,’ the girl said, opening her handbag with the silver ‘H’ and rummaging about in it till she found a mirror. ‘Everyone in school was trying to talk to you today, it was crazy. But they’re bringing Lionel Messi to Mumbai, and that will be the end of your stupid cricket.’

Leaning forward from his waist, Manju saw a large cell phone, lipstick, a round mirror, some hundred-rupee notes, some change.

While she checked her lipstick, Sofia watched the younger boy in her round mirror, but addressed the older:

‘What happened to your brother’s thumb?’

Sofia frowned, and, as they passed Mahalaxmi temple, reached over to touch Manju’s bandaged thumb — ‘poor thing’ — leaving him confused.

‘Have you seen this road before, Bandage Boy?’ she asked, letting go of his thumb.

‘No.’

She laughed a little.

‘It’s Pedder Road. You must have heard of it?’

Manju said, ‘No,’ because that was what she wanted him to say.

Maybe he should have done a namaste when they passed the temple. She would have enjoyed that.

Radha intervened: ‘One thing you must know if you are going to be with me — never tease my younger brother. He’s a bit shy. Don’t bully.’

‘I’m not bullying him,’ Sofia said. ‘I am strictly opposed to all forms of harassment. Hey, Manju,’ she turned around to him again, ‘you know I have this project for class that fights discrimination against women? My dad gave me the idea. I am calling up chemical companies everywhere in India and finding out where it is safe for a woman to work in sales and marketing. You know, because she has to go by herself in buses and rickshaws selling the company’s chemicals to strange men, right? My dad is helping me, and together, we’re going to make this map of India, which will show where it is perfectly safe for a woman to work in sales and marketing. Like South India is safe. But not Andhra Pradesh, because my dad says that Andhra men have a chicken-eating and macho culture. We have drawn a big map at home and we’re filling it in blue, for woman-safe, and red, for not-so-woman-safe places, where the men eat too much chicken. Manju boy, are you listening? I’m not bullying you. Okay?’