‘Why did you and your brother write on my chest-guard?’ he asked. ‘Do you even know what it means, that thing you wrote?’
How Manju ran. He ran, under the makeshift arch, over the coloured bricks, through the school gate, and back to his classroom, Class 9, Section A, where he waited for his English class to start. Even in class, there was no safety, because a few minutes after the lunch-break, a peon turned up at his desk to summon him with a crooked finger: ‘Patricia Principal wants to see you. Now.’
Two Powers ran the Ali Weinberg International School. One Power was seen. In her air-conditioned office, Patricia D’Mello sat beneath a framed black-and-white photograph of M.K. Gandhi, father of India, and a colour photograph of the Unseen Power, Karim Ali, father of modern education in the suburb of Bandra. (The students, naturally, assumed there had been ‘hot stuff’ between the Seen and Unseen Powers at some point in ancient history.)
Expecting to find Javed Ansari already in the Principal’s office, Manju discovered that only he had been summoned. Moreover, Principal Patricia looked pleased. She was a plump woman with jowls, whom the students saw in the assembly hall on Independence and Republic Day, when she delivered solemn forty-minute speeches about patriotism and universal love that often turned sentimental and ended with references to herself as the ‘mother of all those gathered here’; but in the privacy of her office she assumed a paternal, punitive avatar.
‘Good afternoon, Principal Patricia.’
He held his broken thumb against his chest for her to see.
The Principal lowered her glasses and smiled at him, several times.
‘Manjunath,’ she said, dragging the final vowel wide. ‘Do you know something about me?’
She smiled at him.
Shit, the boy thought, imagining that this was the start of some particularly baroque punishment.
‘I too once had a future, Manju.’ Removing her glasses, the Principal looked at a corner of the ceiling and smiled.
‘People thought I had a future as a writer, Manju. I wanted to write a great novel about Mumbai,’ the Principal said, playing with her glasses. ‘But then … then I began, and I could not write it. The only thing I could write about, in fact, was that I couldn’t write about the city.
‘The sun, which I can’t describe like Homer, rises over Mumbai, which I can’t describe like Salman Rushdie, creating new moral dilemmas for all of us, which I won’t be able to describe like Amitav Ghosh.
‘The sun, which I can’t describe like Akira Kurosawa, rises over Mumbai, which I can’t describe like Raj Kapoor, creating new moral dilemmas for all of us, which I won’t be able to describe like Satyajit Ray.
‘I filled five hundred pages like this, Manju. Five hundred. I called it Phraud. In the end I gave up writing and thought, let me do some good to society, let me teach young boys.’
Realizing that his broken thumb would not be needed as an excuse, Manju lowered it from sight. He understood that some extraordinary and unknown event had ushered him and Principal Patricia into an unprecedented intimacy.
She placed her glasses back on her nose and smiled.
‘You and your brother Radha Krishna — you two are not phrauds. What Radha did today in the Oval Maidan, that was remarkable. Founder Ali himself called to tell me, Manju. The Founder called! He was so proud of you two Kumars — and of me. A new city-wide cricket record!’
She put her glasses back on and smiled, so Manju felt he had to say something.
‘Yes, Principal Patricia.’
‘Global cricket record. Isn’t it?’
Manju tried to read the Seen Power’s mind, as she kept smiling.
‘You do know what your elder brother did today, don’t you, Manju?’
•
On his way home to Chheda Nagar, Manju had the sweetest experience a younger brother can: a woman stopped him to ask for directions to the Tattvamasi Building. ‘Where that boy lives — you know, the one who broke the batting record, you know, the chutney-seller’s son.’
‘My father,’ Manju announced, ‘is a businessman in gold and real estate. Radha Kumar, the global-record breaker, is my brother. You may walk behind me.’
When they reached the building, they found the living room already full of people; some of them saw Manju and cheered, Hero! Hero! — ‘Not this one, not this one,’ Mohan Kumar corrected them, ‘this is tomorrow’s hero’; and on the television, a news reader was announcing,
‘Not only is this the highest score ever recorded by a batsman under the age of sixteen in Mumbai, this is also the first time in the history of our inter-school Elite Division cricket that 300 runs have been scored by a batsman in one day’s play. The young magician of the cricket bat, Radha Kumar, of Ali Weinberg High School, spoke to our correspondent …’
More guests came, and more after them; and at 9 p.m. Anand Mehta himself turned up.
‘This man,’ Mehta told the people gathered around Mohan Kumar, ‘is the only other man in Mumbai who has no inhibitions. He is the only other man creating new value in a dead city.’
While Manju brought him white bread to snack on, Anand Mehta talked superman-to-superman with Mohan Kumar, suffering the others, mere humans, to stand around them eavesdropping. ‘Entrepreneurship. Most of what we hear about it in the media is absolute bullshit, Mr Mohan. Don’t invest in a new business in India. That’s some shit we feed the Yanks and Japs. Real money is in turning around old businesses, because the heartland of this country is a Disneyland of industrial disasters: thousands of socialist factories, sick, or semi-sick or partially shut down.
‘See, Mr Mohan, Mumbai is finished. Proof. Other night, I’m visiting my aunt. Lives in the ground floor of Pallonji Mansion. You have to do these things, go see these bores once a month, to make sure the maid hasn’t murdered them. Usually, all you get from these ladies is the usual South Bombay talk: Haan, girl is looking for a husband in Carmichael Road, maybe even Altamount Road, but certainly not beyond Pedder Road. But this time — this time, I go there, and my old auntie is talking politics. First time in her life. She looks at me and says, “Anand, Anand, did you know Bal Thackeray is slowly dying?” So what? I say. Indian politicians always die slowly, unless they’re Gandhis. And she says, “Anand, Anand, when the Permanent Boss is gone, who will take care of the city?” And then it hits me. My God, it hits me, Mr Mohan. What is Bombay? Shit scared. Deep down no one is khadoos. They’re all waiting for a Daddy Figure to hold ’em and protect ’em and maybe even hump ’em. That’s why I say, we in the city of Mumbai know the future is in distressed assets because we’re living in one. Get it? It hurts — but it’s the truth, right? That’s why, I said, Goodbye, Mumbai. I’ve got an inside man in north India, an IAS officer’s son, and we’re going about the city of Dhanbad looking for old industrial plants to turn around.’
Chewing a lump of white bread, Mehta sprayed his host with hard truths and moist starch, and asked periodically that Mohan Kumar’s cell phone be extracted from its handkerchief cover (his own phone had broken down, he explained). As Mehta made calls, and told people that ‘his investment’ had broken a global record, he kept chewing, seemingly bent on devouring all the bread in the Kumar home.
At nine thirty, Mohan Kumar, scratching his ankle with one hand, raised the other and gestured, like a statesman, for the people to behave themselves and quieten down, and confirmed the buzzing rumour.
‘Please keep it to yourself, but it is true: Shah Rukh Khan has asked to see Radha. It is true.’