‘Never? You never miss it?’
‘Why … why … Sir Manju … why … would I miss that pro-puh-gun-duh and manipulation and mind-depopulation? I am no slave, Sir Manju.’
This was a new mannerism Javed had picked up ever since he’d started junior college in Navi Mumbai: a pout of his lips, an exaggerated emphasis on a random word in a sentence, followed by a spitfire burst of syllables, all delivered with a lopsided grin and an unstable head, a confounding mannerism which reminded Manju of the cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle.
‘By the way, you like this place? I now come here sometimes on the weekend,’ Javed said. ‘There is some energy-wenergy here, isn’t there?’
On the final step above the water, the two boys sat down.
‘The monkeys are terrible around here,’ Javed said. ‘Watch out for your phone and wallet.’
Javed gestured at the vast black water and the searing reflections of the white tubelights. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, Manju? Isn’t it gorgeous?’
‘Gorgeous,’ Manju repeated. ‘This is gorgeous.’ He pinched Javed’s jacket between his fingers, and squeezed the rich dark leather.
Javed chuckled. ‘Don’t rape my jacket, man.’ He snapped his fingers at Manju, who reluctantly let go of the leather.
‘The jacket isn’t gorgeous, anyway. I am. Yes or no?’ Manju smirked.
‘Give me an answer, Manju.’
Javed thrashed his legs about when he did not get an answer.
Gorgeous.
From the figure of Javed, who was now spreadeagled on the steps in his leather jacket and tight blue jeans, Manju’s gaze moved to the tank and its skin of glossy black water. Gorgeous. It turned into a milky-white cloud: he remembered a morning when thick fog covered the Western Ghats as their bus climbed up the road, and the only things piercing through the fog were giant roses — no, not a rose, a mountain flower larger than the largest red rose on earth — and Manju felt he was flying high over the earth. When the sun finally pierced through the fog, the first thing he saw, seated on a low mountain wall, its enormous wings folded and its eyes intent on the bus, was a vulture.
Manju smiled with pleasure, and leaned back in stages until his neck touched a damp stone step. He shivered. Stretching out his hand, he pinched Javed’s leather jacket again.
‘Let go of my jacket, man. You’re crazy.’
I’m crazy? Manju thought. That was what people called Javed. Your rich crazy Muslim friend. Radha had told Manju, with much glee, about a rumour circulating among the cricketers that Javed Ansari (though now an ex-cricketer, still very much the focus of gossip) had been caught by the police a second time. On Independence Day. He and his friends had been driving about Powai without a licence: caught, taken to the station, and then bailed out — once again — by his father. Manju had been waiting for Javed to say something about the whole affair.
‘Don’t call me names. I don’t get arrested by the police.’
‘Who told you?’ Javed looked at him.
‘Everyone in cricket knows. Mad Max Gang. You guys must be idiots. No one else in all of Mumbai gets caught by the police for driving without a licence. Just your gang.’
‘Fuck cricket.’ Javed spat out the words at Manju, staining his face with saliva. ‘Fuck them all. They have no right to talk about me. It’s all pro-puh-gun-duh.’
‘I know, I know. Tatas Batting, McDonald’s Bowling. If you think cricket is for idiots, why are you imitating the biggest idiot in cricket, Harsha Bhogle?’
When Javed became furious these days, his scalp went back several inches, and this hint of premature baldness highlighted the vein in his forehead even more prominently: how Manju loved the sight of that face — volatile, vicious, glowing with dark blood.
‘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.