Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

•

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa … Wah, Wah, Wah Waaaaaaaaaaaa …

He concentrated on the Sea Link bridge: the white mesh of wires over the central pier throbbing in the sunlight like plucked string, until he could almost hear it buzzing across the water. He felt Javed touch him on the forearm, recoiled, and moved away.

Slices of coconut flesh clustered by the shore at Dadar beach; marigold petals and plastic garbage floated further away. Immersed to his waist, a bull-necked brahmin turned round and round in the water, scattering the coconut and petals each time he dipped.

Right behind the praying brahmin, jumping on the wet stones for special effects, ‘J.A.’ was demonstrating a dance done by Freddie Mercury, who was a poet, and a Parsi, and a gay. He had just downloaded the video on his new cell phone. He kept going, Waaaaaaaa, Waaaaaaa, Waaaaaa , until he stopped and shouted, ‘Hey, Glottalstop, is this a boycott?’

But Manju had already left the beach.

‘Yesterday in Vashi train station you were like Tarzan, and today you’re boycotting me? Why?’

Four pale legs with claws stuck out from beneath a black taxi, as Manju left the beach and walked to Shivaji Park.

‘I’m not doing any boycott.’

The benches at the park’s entrance reeked of molasses; a man lay in a puddle.

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he heard Javed say.

But the previous night, lying in bed, smelling the sweat and cricket practice from his elder brother’s tired body, hearing the breathing from his open mouth, Manju’s mind had been penetrated by doubt.

Why is he being so nice to me? Maybe, Manju thought, because this Muslim boy had always been greedy for that thing around which this dark enterprise of cricket sponsorship revolved, Manjunath Kumar’s forearms — these Bradmanesque, Tendulkaresque forearms — and maybe he wanted to snap them like a pair of kebabs and chew on them. And post a photo on Facebook.

As he walked he saw a condom on the ground, and stopped. He turned around to see Javed, waiting by one of the stone obelisks near the park’s entrance, tap meaningfully on the stone, and go into the park.

Manju turned and walked back to the sign taped to the obelisk:

Professor Joshi’s Tutorials

ICSE, IB, SSC (English Medium)

Limited number of students (max 10 per class)

Another notice was stuck to the bottom of this notice:

Swiddish Massage

Experienced Male Masseur

Home Service Only

Call 9811799289

And at the bottom of that notice, in Javed’s handwriting, was written:

YOU ARE SLAVE

In the shade of the trees at one end of the maidan, the cricketers sat on plastic chairs, their pads and gloves spilling out of their bags and getting mixed up. Manju stripped off his shirt, and put on his chest-guard, and then his forearm guard. Beside him, Javed, stripped to the waist, was doing the same.

Fully dressed, the two batsmen walked towards the green cricket pitch, when Manju stopped, held up his bat, as if he were talking to it, and shouted:

‘I am not slave , okay?’

‘U-ha, U-ha.’

Manju looked at Javed.

‘Did you take me to see Mr Seth and tell him to say all those things because you want me to give up cricket?’

Again: ‘U-ha. U-ha.’

‘So you can take my place on the team?’

Now Javed stopped laughing and looked at him — before he threw his bat on the ground.

‘Manju, this is the last season for me.’

‘Last season?’

‘I told my father. No more cricket.’

So Manju also dropped his bat.

The number of open middle-order batting slots in the Mumbai Ranji team had just increased by one. He had to tell Radha the news.

Bending to pick up his own bat, Manju also handed Javed his. A woman wearing an ochre sari walked between them.

‘Why?’

The umpire clapped.

‘Whatever it is, discuss in the tent, not on the pitch.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Manju said, loud enough for all to hear.

‘Time them out, Umpire — time them out!’

‘Look,’ Javed told Manju. ‘Do you think I’d lie to you? About anything ?’

‘No,’ Manju said, and then tried to understand.

‘But if you don’t play cricket, what will you do?’

Javed gave Manju his answer, and then shouted at the fielders, silencing them.

At the non-striker’s end, Manju stood with an open mouth. Behind him, he heard the fast-bowler’s feet pound into the earth. Beyond the park, a saffron pennant fluttered from the top of the Veer Savarkar monument. Three urchins had enriched the slips cordon; as the wicket-keeper scared them away, their mother tried to sell oranges to the umpire. A young man with kajol around his eyes sang in falsetto as he loped around Shivaji Park. Manju had never seen these things before in a game of cricket.

And when Javed Ansari, who for so many years had been the most elegant young left-handed batsman in Mumbai, took a crude swipe at a wide ball and missed it, drawing chuckles from the fielders and a remark from the umpire, Manju knew for sure that he had not been lying (and would never lie to Manju); as he raised his head to hide his smile from the rest of the world, he saw the saffron pennant beating in the wind like Javed’s answer to his last question:

Everything.

•

‘That Mohammedan boy is the one telling Manju, give up cricket and go to college. Science! 2,500 rupees for lab fees; 1,500 rupees for a dissection box. To cut open cockroaches! You know he is in trouble with the police, this Mohammedan. He has a gang and they smoked ganja one day and drove their bikes full speed through Navi Mumbai. Without a driving licence. Through red lights. His father is a rich man and paid the police to let him go. Big thief walks free.’

Back home in Chheda Nagar, Mohan Kumar was delivering a full report on the evil named Javed Ansari to his neighbour, Mrs Shastri, who had again ventured into the Kumars’ home with her boy, Rahul, the would-be cricketing star.

Collating reports from Tommy Sir and Radha, Mohan Kumar had created a full mental picture of Javed: now, as he looked about the home he had made for his sons, his rich imagination searched for metaphor and symbol. Got it! One summer many years ago, in his village near the Ghats, standing outside the biggest bungalow for miles around, the official residence of the criminal court judge, Mohan had seen the bushes by the gate shaking. Out came a brown furry thing that leapt up on the compound wall: a mongoose. With his instinctive dislike of rodents, Mohan took a step back, but could not stop watching: for this little fellow was almost human in the way he studied the judge’s compound this way and that, all the time flicking his enormous tail this way and that. Behind him, another, more timid mongoose waited, until the gangleader turned and gave him a nod; then the timid one leapt up on the gate, and the two of them raided and raped the criminal court judge’s garden.

‘Yes, this Ansari boy is a mongoose — a cunning furry mongoose — and only a snake can save my family now — a snake,’ he said, as Mrs Shastri, her hands folded on the top of her son’s head, nodded.

•

After their cricket match ended, Javed took Manju in a taxi all the way to Horniman Circle in the city. He did not tell Manju where they were going, but instead kept explaining his reasons for giving up the game.

‘It’s all pro-puh-gun-duh these days.’

‘What is that?’ Manju asked.

‘Pro-puh-gun-duh,’ Javed said. ‘It’s all corporate propuhgunduh. Tatas batting, Reliance bowling. Cricket is just brain-control; and no one is going to brain-control Javed Ansari. You went to England, but I was the one who was thinking for six weeks.’