Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

‘Forget that Javed. Posh creatures like him will never make the team, too delicate. You know he writes poems and gives them to the other boys, and they all laugh. But you . You are almost as good as Radha now. Manju: listen. Do you know how much you improve every single time I see you bat? Now listen: you are going to play for Mumbai, I know it. Marathi kathin nahin. Tu lavkar shikshi. You must learn Marathi. Good for the back foot. Manju, are you listening?’

This was not all Narayanrao Sadashivrao Kulkarni wanted to tell the boy, but it was time for a photo shoot with the Mumbai Sun .

‘I don’t want to do it,’ the boy said.

Tommy Sir stared.

Manju stared back. The dark groove in his forehead, the one that tilted left, flickered to life.

‘It’s twilight,’ he said, looking up at the sky. ‘It was my mother’s …’

‘Go, you duffer: go.’ Tommy Sir slapped the tired boy on the back, harder than he meant to.

Then he watched, his arms folded, as the photographer for the Mumbai Sun made the virtually quintuple-centurion sit on a stone-roller, the victorious bat over his shoulder like Hercules’ club, and asked him for a Young Sachin smile.

After complying with a series of big smiles, and after the cameras were done with him, Manjunath Kumar, everyone’s darling, no doubt overcome by fatigue and attention, raised the bat which had made 497 runs and swung it down on the stone-roller. As all of them watched, he raised and swung it four more times until it broke down the middle.

•

On Sunday — three days after Manju’s 497 — visitors were still arriving at the Tattvamasi Building. The latest were two strangers, husband and wife, who had come by taxi (taxi!) all the way from Colaba. They had a son of their own, a cricketer, naturally — would the father of Manjunath Kumar kindly offer a few tips? No, Mohan Kumar wagged a finger at them, no, he won’t, he will not. Because are you , as parents, prepared to earn the lifelong hatred of your children while doing what is, scientifically speaking, necessary for greatness? Just this morning, for instance, Radha, his own eldest son, had accused him of needlessly extracting his tonsils through minor surgery at JJ Hospital — when everyone knows that tonsils attract infections which have to be treated by expensive Azithromycin, once a day, or even more expensive Amoxycillin plus Potassium Clavulanate, three times a day. Dangers of all kinds lie in the paths of young men today: do you know how many new cases of male VDs are reported daily from JJ Hospital? Devilish thing, the male urinary system, the father of two boys said (demonstrating with his fingers) — excellent internal flushing, tough for bacteria to get into, but if they do sneak in, with all that tubing and piping around the bladder … Finished! Maybe Cipromycin can clean it up, maybe not. Remember my words: a young man, a healthy young man, is always being stalked by parasites with big hungry eyes. You haven’t come to see Radha? Oh, the young one. Manjooooooo! Mohan Kumar, followed by the Colaba couple who were eager to pose for a ‘selfie’ with the cricketing superstar, strode into the boys’ room shouting: Manjoooooo! Stop being shy like a girl! Come out and meet new people!

•

With a copy of the Mumbai Sun that showed him sitting victorious on the stone-roller, the boy had walked all the way from Pedder Road to Kemps Corner and then up Nepeansea Road into Priyadarshini Park.

In one corner of the park, under the trees, a group of old men and women were inhaling and exhaling together — Hu! Ha! Hu! Hiding behind a tree, Manju spied on the other corner of the park, where, inside the oval loop of a jogging track, a dark beak-nosed boy, wearing knee-high orange socks trimmed with red, was playing football by himself.

Behind him, an ocean smashed into the park’s edge.

It was Sunday. Javed Ansari, exactly as he had described in his newspaper interview, was practising football in Priyadarshini Park.

Hu! Ha! Hu! Though he was hidden, something told Manju that Javed, out there on the football field, knew he was being watched, and that he also knew by whom he was being watched. Hu! — Manju’s body trembled: as they raised and lowered their arms, the senior citizens directed wicked grins at him.

Manju’s intuition proved right, because Javed suddenly stopped playing. Abandoning the football, he came running over to the trees to investigate. Hitching his orange socks up with his free hand, he looked this way, and that way, but — Hu! Ha! Hu! — found nothing hidden behind the trees but vigorous retirees.

•

On Tuesday, at last, the two boys met.

After passing so many black sewers, so many concrete towers, so many patches of grassy wasteland onto which slums encroach, you finally reach, somewhere within Kandivali West, a little Eden: a green field where boys practise cricket inside blue nets propped up on bamboo canes. Beside the green field is an old shed with a metal staircase leading up to its terrace; an awning supported by wooden poles is covered by blue tarpaulin in the manner of slum huts. This shed, legendary in Bombay cricket, birthplace of many a Ranji Trophy batsman, bears the sign Payyade Sports Club .

As Manju approached the club grounds, a black Honda City stopped behind him. A door opened and ‘J.A.’ stepped out.

One look at him and Manju knew that they had both arrived at the club early for the exact same reason: to see if the other would also be there.

It was the day after Lakshmi Puja. A mess of firecracker wrappers, extinguished sparklers, charred rockets and mounds of ash covered the cricket ground. A bonfire burnt outside the compound wall.

Maintaining a good distance between them, the boys unpacked their gear. Javed began stretching, alternately touching his toes.

As he had rehearsed all morning, Manju put his hands on his hips, and expressed himself in English:

‘Are you Mahatma Gandhi?’

Javed, still touching his toes, regarded Manju curiously.

Who continued: ‘You didn’t hear me just now? Why did you get out to the fat boy? To make me look bad, no?’

‘I heard, Captain, I heard you.’

Straightening himself, Javed shook his body loose, and asked:

‘What is it you want? Why are you here, little Manju?’

His temples flexed and moved back; his eyes, unlike Manju’s, became narrower when he was angry.

Manju responded by looking Mr ‘J.A’s’ body up and down, with his tongue sticking out, the way the boys did when starting a fight in the slum.

‘Just say you think you are as great as Mahatma Gandhi, then I’ll go. That’s all I want.’

U-ha, U-ha, U-ha. Javed chuckled. Passing his cricket bat from hand to hand, he chopped the air and drove it towards Manju’s face.

Manju felt the skin tighten over his forehead, while the base of his neck turned warm. He left Javed and walked to where the other boys had gathered: You were born in ’94, idiot. You’re not going to make the under-17. Shut up, you homo. My birthday is 3 July, so do I make the cut for this year’s Selection Day or next year’s?

In the pavilion, the coach of the Payyade Sports Club was on the phone: Ten thousand rupees. It’s for your own son, after all. He’ll learn from retired Ranji players. And we’ll put in a word on Selection Day, we’ll godfather him, don’t worry about that …

Manju walked around the pavilion, turned, came back, and stood in front of Javed, who, done with his stretches, was changing for the game.

‘Why did you get out on purpose?’

‘Don’t be such a slave.’ Javed grinned, exposing his sickle-shaped dimples, and making Manju’s ears expand with shame. ‘I heard you smashed your bat after the interview. Is that true?’