Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

Oh, my Darling, my Cricket. Phixed and Phucked. Tommy Sir wanted to cry.

How did this thing, our shield and chivalry, our Roncesvalles and Excalibur, go over to the other side, and become part of the great nastiness?

He put both his hands on the windowsill for support, and leaned forward. You could hear it already, the whispering and the bargaining, the lies and corruption: it has just begun, and before the sun rises again, India will be sold and India will be bought, many, many times over. Tommy Sir smelled shit on the night air.

‘Manjunath Kumar,’ he said, and drew on his cigarette. As he exhaled, he saw the boy as though in one of Van Gogh’s paintings, smiling, backlit, meteors and shooting stars and falling stars behind him, the whole whirling universe, waiting for the boy to turn around and see . When you are that age you can go anywhere, become anything. ‘Manjunath Kumar,’ the old scout said again.

But when he raised his eyes from the street to the sky, Tommy Sir saw the full moon and thought of the Bandstand. Foam and spume washed over the young half-naked bodies, and in the dark he saw three digits, like a price put on all he had missed out on in life.

604.

Tommy Sir looked at the glowing tip of his cigarette. He dispersed, with a quick movement of the cigarette, the stars and galaxies behind Manju’s head.

I’ve waited more than forty years to paint you, and now I’ll paint you better than Van Gogh himself, my little cricketer.

604.

Return from England and set a new batting record for me.

Turning away from the window, Tommy Sir shouted:

‘I’m coming to the kitchen, Lata, I’m warning you. If you’ve done the dishes, I don’t want to see any lights left on in there. What was the electricity bill last month, can you please tell me the exact figure?’

With a final look at the full moon, he extinguished his cigarette on the windowsill.

•

A month passed before Radha asked:

‘How is Manju?’

‘In England,’ Mohan Kumar said, yawning on the bed.

‘I know that, Father,’ Radha said, as he picked up his cricket bag. ‘What is he doing there? You talk to him on the phone, don’t you?’

‘You said you didn’t want to talk to him. I brought the phone to your ear and said, here is your brother, talk, ask him for batting tips from English county cricket, and you said, no.’

Radha said nothing as his father got up and began talking about Manju’s life in the home of the game. Seizing one of the bats from near the fridge, Mohan Kumar demonstrated: See — see that fiendish Duke ball, keeps low, wobbles in the air, does things that it never does in India — but see how my Manju’s wrists have tamed the red ball, disciplined and broken its Britisher pride.

Letting his father make a fool of himself, Radha took a bat and left for practice.

The front door of his home, all of Radha Krishna Kumar’s life, had opened into a tunnel, which had led, via a fast train, straight to a cricket maidan or a practice net.

But today he took a left turn on his way to the train station and wandered to the compound of a Ganapati temple that also housed a cybercafe, with a black glass door, outside which lay a pile of men’s slippers.

Removing his shoes, pushing open the black glass door, Radha went into the cybercafe and discovered what it was that all the other boys in the world had been doing in their spare time.

While he had been fending off hard red balls thrown at his face by his father, they had been playing a video game that involved open-hatched cars, athletic women in skirts, and lots of shotguns. It was apparently called Grand Theft Auto (San Andreas) .

Closing the door behind him, Radha put on his shoes and picked up his bag to return to cricket practice, when all at once, the temple bells rang.

Six weeks in England. Six weeks alone in England.

Radha Kumar shivered. Dropping his bag and pushing his way back into the dark cybercafe, he asked the boys:

‘Will you teach me to play this game?’

TENTH STANDARD BEGINS

MANJUNATH KUMAR IS BACK FROM the UK

After spending one and a half months at the J.F. Browns International School, Manchester, playing cricket and attending classes, Manju Kumar has just returned to Mumbai. To give you the correct perspective on the activities of Manju in the UK, here are his observations as narrated orally to Shri Pramod Sawant, his school cricket coach.

‘In just six weeks I can say with the utmost confidence that I adapted superlatively to England. The scorecard speaks for itself. 1446 runs at an average of 45 is very respectable. Beyond the cricket field, I also attended classes at the school, where I showed a particular relish for science and mathematics, and made an effort to read the British newspapers every day. I visited a planetarium and two science museums. I most humbly thank Mr Karim Ali for giving me this exquisite opportunity to experience first-hand the uplifting culture of the United Kingdom.’

Members of the media may see Master Manjunath Kumar at the Cricket Club of India, where he will hold a press conference.

Contact:

Shri Pramod Sawant, ‘Head Coach’

Shri N.S. Kulkarni, ‘Designated Mentor’

‘Day-to-day life in England: your conclusions?’

‘It rains all day not just in the monsoons like here.’

‘What was the food like?’

‘The cheese is smelly.’

‘It sounds like you were homesick and eager to return to Amchi Mumbai.’

‘Every single day I missed my father and brother. Every single day I prayed to God to bring glory to my school even in the UK.’

‘What are your observations on the differences between India and England in terms of cricket?’

‘For them, it is just a game.’

(Well said.)

‘Will you go again to the UK?’

‘Certainly. As part of the Indian cricket team.’

(Bravo!)

‘Did you chase any English girls when you were there, Manju?’

‘Some things are best left private.’

(Ha ha!)

•

‘Press conference?’

‘He was brilliant, I say. A natural. Told them exactly what they wanted to hear. And all in a strange British accent. It’s called Mancunian. He said this in the press con. And furthermore: “I am looking forward to playing in the Kanga League. It will be a huge challenge to bat again in tropical conditions.” Tropical conditions! Boy from a slum says all this in English!’

‘Press con? You should have told me, Tommy Sir. I am now the brand ambassador for South Australian red wines in India. Remember the time I took a planeload of children from Mumbai to Bowral? It did wonders for my profile in that part of the world. I could have arrived, dramatically, at this press con, like the Santa Claus of South Australian Red Wine if only you had communicated.’

‘Next time. Because guess who wants Manju to be their mascot? Kolkata. In the IPL.’

‘Great. He can start paying me off right now.’

‘No, no, I won’t allow it.’ Tommy Sir wagged a finger. ‘That boy should not be exposed to the IPL at this age. He’ll pick up bad habit after bad habit. All those foreign cheerleaders. Too much sex in cricket these days. He’s just a boy.’

‘Cricket, cricket, cricket.’ Anand Mehta yawned indulgently. ‘… what a circus, anyway.’

‘A what?’ Tommy Sir inquired.

‘The slum kids beg you for money, you beg me, I beg my classmates, it’s just a big circus. Cricket.’

Tommy Sir left without saying goodbye.

Anand Mehta smoothed his moustache with a finger, and smiled. You had to feel sorry for that old man — so easy to hurt him, just say something bad about a game invented by medieval shepherds in Essex or Doublesex or some other such sex. Ridiculous creature, this Mister Tommy: all the insights and follies of a child, never traded in for the insights and follies of an adult. Anand Mehta yawned again.