Minutes passed, and he was still alive, so he decided to approach a more familiar god. Wallet in hand, he went to the prayer room with the image of Lord Subramanya in its small oil-coated stainless-steel altar.
Mohan Kumar moved coins, into a line, till they made six rupees, and pushed them before Lord Subramanya. It was an offering: a new secret contract he was proposing to God. Mohan Kumar was reinstating ‘Because’. Because I am giving you this money, God, you must make my sons cricketers, God.
Looking at the coins, Mohan re-counted them subaudibly, and slipped three back into his pocket.
Only one son this time.
One week after Selection Day
‘Wake up.’
‘Hm.’
‘Get out of the car. We’re home.’
All through the early-morning train ride Manju had stayed awake; but the moment he saw Navi Mumbai shining beyond the Thane Creek, his eyes began to close. A dark station with giant columns; an anonymous crowd; and then, detaching itself from everyone else, as his heart beat faster, Javed’s dark face. With his powerful arm around Manju, Javed led him out into the car park. They got into a car, and Manju slept at once.
‘We’re home, man. Wake up,’ Javed said, shaking him by the shoulder.
Getting out of the car, Manju followed Javed into a building where a man in khaki saluted them both. An old woman opened the door of Javed’s flat: and they walked into a sunny room smelling of fresh red sofa. Manju sat on a hard chair opposite the sofa to remove his shoes.
‘Who else is here?’ he asked.
‘This is my place, I told you. If a cousin is visiting, Dad sends him here. Otherwise it’s only me.’
Leading Manju into a room with a bed, Javed opened a wardrobe and showed him what was inside: a stack of shirts.
‘These are mine. You can wear them all.’
Then Javed pointed to the bed. It was covered in a golden bedsheet.
‘Yours.’ And then he went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. ‘I have to brush my teeth. It’ll only take a minute. You can go to sleep now.’
Afraid he’d crumple the immaculate bedsheet, Manju lay down slowly and stretched his legs.
‘Javed,’ he shouted. ‘Are you going to sleep here too?’
‘No,’ the voice boomed back from the bathroom. ‘My father said you could stay here, but only if I slept at night in the other place. My family flat. He doesn’t want me to become gay. Changes his mind on the subject from day to day. Once, he even went to a store and bought condoms and left them on the table. Other times he threatens to send me back to Aligarh. Like there’s no gays there. Ha!’
Javed came out of the bathroom, combing his fingers through his wet hair.
‘One day I’ll take you to meet a gay mullah, Manju. You should see these fellows in UP. They’re just … fantastic.’ Javed bit his lower lip; sickle-shaped dimples winked from his cheeks. ‘Half the mullahs there are gay. Half. You go into any madrassah and the man with the big beard makes the boys sit on the floor right next to him, and calls them nearer, nearer, and then tells the girls, you go sit far away.’
Manju, for the first time in his life, seriously considered conversion to Islam.
‘Do they all look like the Nawab of Pataudi, these gay mullahs?’
‘No, only I do. Idiot.’
Javed sat by the bed, smelling of wet hair and a light musk cologne; Manju smiled and closed his eyes. Without opening them, Manju drew nearer to Javed, nearer the cologne. His finger ran down his friend’s neck to his chest.
‘Stop doing that.’
Pushing him away, Javed stood up; he clacked his tongue. ‘You’re going to change your mind in two minutes. I know you.’
Manju opened his eyes. ‘I won’t change my mind.’ Javed regarded him with a frown, and then looked away.
‘Anyway, the first thing is to say goodbye to cricket. I have a plan.’
Manju sighed. ‘What is this plan?’
Simple: Manju was not going to leave Navi Mumbai today under any circumstances. The cricket people were not going to get their hands on him.
Before he let him sleep, Javed asked Manju to surrender his cell phone. Sixteen missed calls. And twelve text messages.
‘Is this Tommy Sir’s number?’
Manju said nothing.
‘You can’t talk to Tommy Sir, or he’ll spin your head and make you go back.’
‘I’ll kill Tommy Sir if I ever see him again. Seriously.’
‘Cool it, dude. You’re tired and confused. You’re talking crazy.’
Unable to sleep, the young cricketer thrashed his legs on the golden bed, till he heard Javed say, ‘There’s something underneath it. Put your hand down there.’
Manju’s hands searched — and came out with a comic book.
As he lay in bed and read about the Fantastic Four, a sparrow flew into the room to sit on the blades of the ceiling fan. The stumpy fan trembled as the bird hopped from one blade to another. Watching that old fan, which seemed so familiar, Manju felt as if he had been living in that room for years and years.
Covering his face with the comic book, he breathed in and out, his eyes still open. He was so tired of batting out of, breathing out of, living out of, going to sleep out of rage.
•
Around eleven, wrapped in a golden bedsheet, Manjunath awoke.
Javed was sitting by the bed, examining his cell phone with a grin.
‘Tommy Sir has called you two hundred and forty-two times since you got here.’ He chuckled. ‘He’s still calling you. You can still go back.’ Javed offered him the phone, which was ringing again.
Manju shook his head. The sparrow was still up there on the ceiling fan.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes,’ Manju said. He let Javed keep his cell phone, and said, ‘I finished Fantastic Four. You have X-Men?’
•
The next day was Friday. While he was brushing his teeth, Javed said, sure, it was okay for him to go to Mumbai: no danger from cricket now.
He took the train to Matunga station. At Ruia, he was called to the principal’s office; Tommy Sir had informed them that he had run away.
‘I am not living with my father, sir. I am sixteen and a half years old.’
The principal pinched together the wings of his nose and shook his head.
‘My father is a violent man, who has beaten me in the past,’ Manju told him. ‘He may try to do so again. Being also an unintelligent man, he is unaware that I am now stronger than he is, and I might accidentally hurt him, or even kill him. In which case my only regret would be wasting the rest of my life in jail over a man like my father.’
His fingers still pinching his nostrils, the principal’s mouth opened.
Manju took the train back to Vashi, and walked down the road, past the Golden Punjab Hotel, to Javed’s flat, to give him the good news: the college had agreed he need not live with his father.
But when he returned to Javed’s flat there was another teenager sitting on the bed with the golden bedsheet, and sharing a cigarette with Javed.