‘Did I ever tell you my story about Eknath Solkar, Manju?’ Tommy Sir asked.
But Manju, biting into a free samosa from the canteen of the MIG club, was concentrating on the pages of his textbook.
‘What’s the moral of Eknath Solkar’s story? Tell me. Every story has a moral. Stop reading that book.’
Like many middle-class Indians of his age, Tommy Sir could be curious only by being hostile.
Seizing the book, he turned it towards him, and read out loud from its contents.‘… Lesson 1: Linear Equations; Lesson 2: Highest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple of Polynom … Polynomin …’
Tommy Sir angled the book back towards Manju.
‘Every cricketer in Tamil Nadu now has a degree in engineering. At nineteen, they say, let’s assess the risk and reward in cricket, too much risk, so let’s go to America for college. Manju, you mustn’t do that. Did Sachin go to America? Did he finish Year 12? Manju: tell me one thing. When you bat does your science and mathematics help you?’
Chewing samosa, his cheeks full, the boy looked up from the textbook and examined Tommy Sir.
‘Yes,’ he said. And then, ‘No.’
‘Yes or no?’ Tommy Sir demanded.
But the boy meant, Yes is the answer, and No is the answer you want from me.
‘Once during a match with Cathedral I tried to calculate the angle of an extra-cover drive — 35 degrees from the wicket, and a cover drive — 45 degrees.’
‘Did that help bisect the fielders?’
‘Next ball I was bowled.’ Tommy Sir exhaled.
‘So you don’t think as you bat?’
‘I just let my mind go dark before I bat. If I think I always get out next ball.’
Tommy Sir placed a palm on the boy’s textbook.
‘Manju, look at me. Tell me: which club did Vijay Merchant play for?’
‘Fort Vijay.’
‘How many sixes did C.K. Nayadu hit against the MCC at the Gymkhana?’
‘Too many.’
‘Good answer.’ Tommy Sir raised his palm from the book — and lowered it again. ‘Who is going to break that record?’
Manju chewed his samosa.
‘My brother.’
‘Is your left thumb hurting?’
Manju stopped chewing: he looked at Tommy Sir.
‘You know that is what Javed Ansari told me after the match? He could see you were holding the bat with the right hand only. He thought you might have hurt your left thumb.’
‘That Javed is a liar!’ Manju stood up. ‘I scored faster than him today, so he hates me.’
‘Then show me your left thumb,’ Tommy Sir said. ‘And why were you turning the page of your book with only one hand?’
The boy slid both his hands under the table.
Outside, Mohan Kumar, who stood clapping as his elder son jogged backwards to build up his hamstrings, turned — ‘Missster Moooohan!’ — to see Tommy Sir charging out of the club, and dragging Manju along with him.
Holding Manju’s left hand up as evidence, he explained everything to the father.
‘Boy has a hairline. Still went out there and batted today. Why? Because he’s so scared of someone in his family.’
Manju saw Tommy Sir push his father back.
‘Shall I go to the police and tell them what you do to him? Shall I tell the social workers?’
And when the scout threatened to show Manju’s broken thumb to his friends in the Mumbai Sun, which would certainly result in a negative article about the father, which would certainly be seen by all the neighbours in the Tattvamasi Housing Society, and probably even by the general public of Chheda Nagar, Mohan Kumar folded his palms and begged Tommy Sir, reminding him he was just a poor man, a villager in the big city, victim of the chutney mafia, who had nothing, not even a friend in the world, and even agreed to leave the club at once, with the result that when Tommy Sir put the boy (along with his elder brother) into the auto that would take him express to Lilavati Hospital, he patted Manju’s cheeks and whispered into his ear: ‘Best fracture in human history.’
•
Lying in bed, Manju watched CSI Las Vegas. His brother was holding up an iPad to make it easy for him. In this episode, which he had seen three times before, an old woman was eaten alive by her own cats.
‘Is your thumb still hurting?’
‘No.’
Radha smiled, but as Manju watched the iPad, he watched Manju.
‘Why did you bat if your thumb was broken?’
Manju looked at the closed door. There was a man behind that door. He was the reason Manju did everything.
Radha knew this: yet he watched his brother.
‘Was there another reason? Did you also bat with the broken thumb just to impress Srinivasan Sir? He’s a selector, I’m the one who should impress him. After I got out, you should have got out. That’s your duty. Especially when a selector—’
From outside their bedroom, a voice shouted: ‘Complex boy!’
From the living room, seated on the sofa so he could observe his boys’ beds, Mohan Kumar said: ‘And he has to tell Tommy Sir a lie, that I bowled the ball in practice that broke his thumb. Would I do that to my own son? My own Robusta?’
Radha put the iPad down on the bed and smiled at Manju. And as his younger brother watched, he walked to the door of their bedroom, and slammed it shut.
There was a moment’s silence and then:
‘Radha, open this door at once.’
Before picking up the iPad, Radha leaned back and stuck out his middle finger at the closed door. When the banging began he shouted:
‘I’ll call Tommy Sir.’
The banging stopped. And then:
‘Are you two watching blue films in that computer that I bought for you which was meant only for cricket?’ From the other side of the door, his father’s high-pitched, almost hysterical voice continued to accuse his sons:
‘Blue films? Foreign films? Foreign women in foreign films?’
•
In the morning, when Radha shook him awake with news that their father had locked himself in the bathroom and was refusing to come out, Manju thought it was all his fault.
‘Appa, what happened?’ Radha stood outside and shouted at the bathroom door, trying to interpret the noises from within. ‘Who has gone to the police?’
Their father slipped the newspaper from under the bathroom door and shouted: ‘Javed Ansari has gone to the police. Read, read.’
Once or twice a month, their father became a woman. The boys studied the newspaper article together.
Our readers feed a Young Lion a few questions:
Q: What are your extracurricular activities?
(Soumya M., Navi Mumbai)
Javed Ansari: I am reading Peter Roebuck’s columns and George Orwell. I also write poetry, both with rhymes and the kind called free verse.
Q: Do you play sports other than cricket?
(Joseph, Dhobi Talao)
Javed Ansari: Balance is crucial. Every Sunday, I practise football in Priyadarshini Park with my friends. I have imbibed from my father, who is a freelance cricket commentator, a passion for fine words and poetry. ‘With a sword you can cut off the head of one man at a time, but with a pen in your hand you can cut off the noses of a hundred men at a time,’ says my father. My interests extend to music where my heroes are Freddie Mercury, Tupac Shakur and Eminem.
Q: How important is the big Selection Day? Does your whole life depend on being picked for the IPL or Ranji team?
(F. Jeevan and Ms Jyoti, Jacob Circle)
Javed Ansari: Success does not mean hurting myself or letting others hurt me. For instance, if someone breaks my thumb saying it is for the sake of cricket, I will take him to the police at once.