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 walclass="underline" 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.’
After they descended from the taxi, the little wheels on Javed’s cricket kitbag rattled along the street; Manju, his own cricket bag slung across his shoulders, followed a yard behind him. They had reached one of the crowded by-lanes of Fort. The rattling stopped: Javed had lit a cigarette.
He turned around and smiled, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. ‘I had a brother once. A big brother.’
‘Was he a cricketer too?’
‘No! He was too smart for that. Usman was five years older than me. One day he went up to the top of our building and jumped.’
Manju cringed, and avoided the smoke.
‘Jumped?’
‘Jumped. Usman was a great guy, fun guy. He wanted to have fun but they wouldn’t let him. My father built a shrine to him in the backside of our building. Hurry up, now.’
KAJARIA CEMENTS said the sign above a dark door that led into a stairway. Manju could already hear Javed’s shoes booming up the stairs.
He followed.
Below a framed sign that said
Drugs and Alcohol have no place in society
sat a woman wearing half-moon glasses. She put her elbows down on the pages of her book and looked over her glasses at Manju. Her look said: don’t do anything silly in here.
Behind the woman, another corridor began; Manju could see the first three of a series of blue doors. One of the doors was open; and when he looked inside that door Manju had his first glimpse of the pile of human debris that was growing under Mumbai cricket.
A tall bony man with a goatee stood at a window, looking down on Horniman Circle. ‘Got anything for me, buddy?’ he asked, and at first Manju thought the question was directed at him.
In another corner of the little room, Javed shook a packet of cigarettes teasingly, and tossed it into the air. As soon as the bony man caught the packet, he slapped both hands back on the windowsill, as if he were in constant danger of falling over.
‘Manju,’ Javed said, ‘this is Shenoy.’
‘Which Shenoy?’ Manju asked, and then his mouth opened.
… Fastest ball …?
Javed nodded.
Some Boys Rise, Some Boys Falclass="underline" Legends of
Bombay Cricket and My Role in Shaping Them
Part 21
Date: 4 September 1996. Place: Bombay Gymkhana, Selection Day. A young man comes thundering down to the stumps, turns his arms over, and bowls a ball. No speedometer was possessed that day — but it is believed by every single observer that it was the fastest ball delivered in our city. Who was this boy? T.O. Shenoy. And who discovered his talent?
Ex-Speed Demon Shenoy struck a match and glanced sideways at Manju, who recognized the look: fatigue, the fatigue of meeting people all day, every day, who want more from you than you want from them.
Waaan-waan-waaan! Javed began showing off his Freddie Mercury dance-number; Shenoy walked over to a bed in the corner of the room, lay down, smoked, and spied on them through the corners of his eyes.
The blue door creaked. The woman came in, holding her glasses in one hand, and waving the cigarette smoke away from her nose with the other. ‘Who brought cigarettes? Who? This boy is a recovering alcoholic.’
Behind her, his back pressed to the wall, Javed, smiling a guilty little smile, put a finger to his lips. He looked as if he had suddenly shrunk in size, and turned into a small, scared rodent-like creature.
‘I brought the cigarettes,’ Manju said.
‘You should be ashamed — get out. I told you: this boy is a recovering alcoholic.’
Saying nothing till they were safe in the street, Javed laughed.
‘What a bitch. Right?’
Manju looked Javed up and down. Now he wished he hadn’t lied to protect this grinning, insufferable show-off.
They were walking through the humid garden in the centre of Horniman Circle which was full of flowers and dark leaves and crows grown as fat as eagles, while straight ahead of them, a row of classical Greek pillars glistened between thickets of bamboo: the Asiatic Society’s Public Reading Room, standing beyond the garden above a broad flight of steps.
‘How did Shenoy end up there?’ Manju asked as he followed Javed up the steps, to a black door.
‘Same way you’ll end up, unless you leave cricket. Then that fat woman will come in and shout at you every day. Get out of it now, Manju.’
At the top of the steps, one cricketer sat down, and the other remained standing.
‘Me?’ Manju gaped. ‘You were the one who told me to bat well and go to England.’
‘I’ve become more advanced now, Manju. You’ve fallen behind. Cricketer.’
‘Shut up,’ Manju said.