Aravind Adiga - Selection Day

‘Fuck you,’ Javed said. ‘Stay here and rot here.’

And there were footsteps. Should I make the effort to run, Manju, tired from cricket practice, asked himself, or just wait till he comes back?

He waited: and sure enough Javed came back, and stood over him with folded arms.

‘I do not sound like Harsha Bhogle. Just say that, and I’ll go. And I’ll never see you again.’

‘It’s not that easy to leave cricket behind, is it, Sir Harsha Bhogle Ansari?’ Manju winked at him.

Javed nodded, as if agreeing with Manju.

‘You want to hear a poem, Manju? A Bhogle poem?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Listen:

‘“Twilight is my mother’s favourite hour.

When I stand in it I am in her power.”’

Manju couldn’t breathe. He stood up at once and climbed two steps to bring his face level with Javed’s.

‘That’s my mother! You bastard! You unwrite that poem at once. At once.’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, Sir Manju.’

Disdain, as Javed smiled, seemed to exude out of him like a musk, a secretion of his endocrinal glands, like something — Manju thought — you could milk out of his body and sell in small glass bottles in Bandra. (‘Contempt: A New Fragrance for Men.’) Plunging his face into his black leather jacket he laughed into it. U-ha, U-ha, U-ha. By now Manju was familiar with Javed’s gruff cackle, both mocking and self-mocking — at once taunt, defiance, confession and plea. It was his way of saying, Yeah, I stole it, sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, fuck you.

They were even: friends with each other again. As they left Banganga village, and went through Walkeshwar, the lower part of Malabar Hill, they could see the lights of south Mumbai below them.

‘Come over to Navi Mumbai this weekend. Tell your father you have a cricket camp in Pune or shit.’

‘What about your father? What will he say if I come and stay with you?’ Manju asked.

‘He wants to see you. You know what my father calls me at home? The Nurse. Javed the nurse. It’s true. After my mother left him, I’ve been taking care of him.’ Javed stretched his neck from side to side; his voice softened. ‘When he falls ill, I put four Disprin tablets in a glass of water and bring it to him. Now my father says, Javed has forgotten me and is only a nurse to this Manjunath, so I want to see my competitor. Come this weekend.’

He reached over and touched Manju’s face, and the boy’s body warmed at his touch.

Someone blew a sharp horn; right behind them, traffic was moving down Malabar Hill.

When Javed lowered his hand, Manju picked up a stone and threw it at the city.

‘Can’t come. I have Young Lions . They’re doing a new television programme.’

‘You?’ Javed turned. ‘Wasn’t it Radha?’

‘This time it’s me.’ Manju tried to throw another stone, but Javed held his arm:

‘Are you happy to be on television? Tell me the truth.’

‘No. I’m stealing from Radha again.’

‘Don’t lie.’

‘I’m not a thief. Radha is the Young Lion.’

‘I said don’t lie to Javed. Are you happy to be on TV?’ Freeing his arm, Manju threw the second stone at Mumbai.

‘Yes!’

•

The thunderous opening chords of Richard Strauss’s ‘ Also sprach Zarathustra ’ fill the darkness. A single stump stands in the middle of a pitch.

We hear footsteps, as a boy in cricket whites comes running with a red ball in his hand. Leaping high with the red ball he rolls his arms over. The inspirational music reaches its crescendo as the stump is knocked over.

VOICE-OVER:

Three years after the original groundbreaking Young Lions programme, we revisit the boys on whom we were the first to cast a spotlight. Will the pace of Deennawaz Shah triumph over the quicksilver footwork of T.E. Sarfraz, and can either of them match the mighty forearms of Manjunath Kumar?

YOUNG LIONS: THE NEXT GENERATION BURGEONING LEGENDS

MONDAY 6.30 P.M. REPEATED ON WEDNESDAY

We discovered our first Young Lion this evening three years ago in a slum in Dahisar. Today, he lives in a good neighbourhood in Chembur: proof of the magical power of cricket to uplift lives in today’s India.

In this clip, taken at the Catholic Gymkhana, 23 April this year, Manjunath Kumar shows us why he is so special: the ball, pitched short, moves into him at 110 kilometres per hour. Observe how the Young Lion’s first movement is across the line, ‘I intend to pull this,’ but then he braces his ribs, ‘I will let this go by,’ only to turn his wrists at the final instant, and send it flying down to the fine leg boundary: ‘Fooled all of you.’ Cricketing experts describe young Manju as cunning, deceptive and brutal. Before we talk to him about his practice methods and cricketing secrets, let us see him handling the full-length delivery. This next clip is from MCA, 14 February, Valentine’s Day…

A Portrait in Numbers: Manjunath Kumar

Young Lions Expert Panel Ranking: 2nd

Height: 5'2''

Weight: (no data)

Average (within India): 46.70

Average (outside India): 45.00

Strike rate (per 100 balls): 91.40

Highest score (within India): 497

Off-side to leg-side scoring ratio: 38:62

Coach ranking (city-wide survey of school coaches): 2

Peer ranking (city-wide survey of school cricketers): 19

How angry my brother must be after seeing that programme.

•

The net is held aloft by bamboo poles; inside the net stands Radha Kumar. Blue helmet, trembling bat. The net makes a box around him, as a draughtsman makes cubing for a study of his model. Now a red ball comes at Radha, who lifts his shoulders and lets it go. All around the net, people take a step back. The ball hits the net, it vibrates; the onlookers draw closer again. The batsman shuffles his centre pad, his pads, and then, after sweeping the ground with his bat, suddenly removes his helmet, throws it to the ground, and waits. Now the spinner bowls at him. Down the pitch, cover-driven.

Standing behind the net, Manju feels his big brother’s familiar timing. That remains. What is gone is the power that accompanied the timing.

To Manju’s left, a girl in a grey T-shirt stood watching him: her thick hair, freshly shampooed, parted down the middle, was drawn over her shoulder in a neat, glossy swoop, like an eagle’s folded wing.

Like all celebrity sportsmen, Radha Kumar was allowed the luxury of a pitch-side girlfriend, even if there was some ambiguity about the status of their relationship. Running her fingers now and then through her glistening, geometrically perfect length of hair, Sofia kept watching the younger Kumar, oblivious to the handful of male spectators who were watching her.

‘I’m going to pitch it short, Radha. Helmet.’

As Radha bent down and reached for a blue helmet, his eyes met his younger brother’s.

Radha Krishna Kumar: now a former Young Lion.

Manju smelled fear. He could smell his brother’s sweat: and of the seven types of sweat, this was the one signifying fear. Yes, fear : Manju smelled every fear in the world coming from his brother’s face; and smelled every fear in the world coming from his brother’s bat.

‘Duffer! Duffer! What have you done to your batting?’ Tommy Sir had come to the nets yelling at the top of his voice.

‘You changed your grip! You cut your backlift!’

‘My father. Coach Sawant,’ Radha explained. It had been a decision taken jointly by Sawant and his father, based on computer analysis of Radha’s recent dismissals, the backlift should be sacrificed for a longer stay at the crease.

Tommy Sir placed his hands on the netting and shouted at the boy inside.