The Benefit Season Read online

  ‘When are you planning to ask for Aarti’s hand in marriage’, auntie asks me disarmingly.

  ‘Auntie’, Aarti screams, ‘don’t ambush the poor thing’.

  ‘Okay, fine, I’ll ask later then’, auntie entreats, ‘but Aarti talks about you all the time. Not just now, or recently, but ever since she was a toddler visiting me during her vacations. Inseparable, you two, haven’t you been?’

  Aarti looks over at me and gives my hand a squeeze while I blush.

  ‘Even her papa talks about you quite a lot.’

  It’s my turn to ask for a shot now, after this blow. I wonder what choice expletives the old rogue has used for me. I try to recall his favorite terms of endearment for me; surprisingly nothing comes to the befuddled mind presently. I wonder why she let me take her niece out after what the old man would have said about me.

  ‘He’s pretty fond of you, it seems, and proud too. He calls you a self-made man, and says you are the son he never had.’

  I am stupefied. I nearly choke on the drink but control myself. And all this, while I believe the grand old fool thinks I am an abomination to him and to his, and a dodgy contender for inheriting the kingdom of god.

  ‘He’s not one for wearing his affections on his sleeve’, I mutter.

  ‘He’s a gruff old man, with little use for useless form. All bark no bite’, auntie says. ‘ He didn’t hesitate one bit when I told him Aarti was going out for dinner with you. He said he trusts you completely with his daughter’.

  To be fair to the old man, he packs a fair punch with his vocabulary, especially when it concerns directly addressing me with a certain sense of endearment. On my back however, he seems to be a doting chief. How could I have been so blind to his charms, beats me fair and square? Aarti is already giggling, seeing my mortified expression. This one night has been too much for both of us, and I feel it is well nigh brought to a satisfactory conclusion; as I cannot handle any more heavens opened and revelations beheld.

  I rise, and bidding goodbye to the ladies, beat a weary retreat.

  ϖ

  Chapter 5

  The Twelfth Man

  “May the Twelfth Man save the game…”

  (Anonymous)

  I have just rolled into office and knocked the groaning, hung-over guy in the next cabin with a crushed paper ball when I receive Monal’s summons through her nerdy assistant, who I believe has been lurking in the dark corners, timing me. I wonder if Monal sleeps in the office, with her assistant that is. They are always in before you, no matter when you blow in. I hastily dig Aarti’s photo out of my satchel and place it in a corner after clearing the muck on my crammed desk. I skate on the shiny floor to Monal’s office, knocking a sheaf of papers off a tall girl’s hands.

  ‘You have fine taste indeed, Mr. Pasricha’, the back of her head says.

  I smoothen the pleats of my tailored, bourgeois trousers with my palms and find nothing remarkable in them: no genie to be awakened there. ‘ I can’t afford fine taste ma’am’.

  ‘I was referring to women- your taste in women- not clothes’.

  ‘Ah, that.’ The Mr. Pasricha has come back; am I relieved, or am I disappointed- I’m not sure. But I did expect things to be taken to another level- of comfort zone- I’m happily engaged, you might recall. With her it’s a roller coaster ride; one moment you are on a high, the next, you’re in a free-fall.

  ‘Are we resting on our laurels, Mr. Pasricha? Done, are we? The new lands; no more to be found?’

  To be frank, I thought so. But I manage a faint, ’ no ma’am’.

  ‘Well then?’ She raises a brow at my reflection in the window. I don’t notice when she moves away; I am still staring at the window when she snaps her fingers at me from her chair; ‘ I am here now’, she says.

  There are some other things I haven’t noticed as well. For one, there is a seedy character sitting on a sofa in the far corner of Monal’s office. And two, there is a seedier character sitting to the left of the first party.

  ‘Sit you down’, she commands and tosses a folder across at me. ’ Do you know who he is’?

  I nod. He’s the captain of the India under-19 team, who has just returned from a world cup victory at South Africa. He is a known punisher of the ball and his average run rate has been in the order of a couple of centuries. He is a tempest come at the crease and his ways at the slips are of the whirlwind. He rebukes the bowlers, dries up their wickets and brings the floods of chastised balls to the stands. He is my man. He is Mukut Chand, whom I have been chasing unsuccessfully for the last several weeks. He is guarded over by an overzealous uncle who won’t let the boy out of his sight for one unearthly wink. Nor will he deign to speak to agents of commerce like me. The uncle has carefully quarantined the boy from all social contact, and hoards him like grain in a famine. The company had assigned me to secure the boy’s promising future, and interminably entwine it with theirs. So far, the boy has evaded contact.

  ‘Where are we on this case?’ Monal wishes to know.

  ‘ The boy has no cell phone, no landline numbers, and he’s never alone. Even at the nets. He has this uncle; coach of some kind in a village school; who trails him like a shadow, and won’t let anyone come near him.

  ‘Now why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Grapevine says that the elder sibling, also a promising athlete, also in the care of the alleged uncle, was lured away a long time ago with the promise of a bright future by agents like myself and ultimately, unable to handle the freedom of choice, the boy succumbed to the lure of bedazzling city lights and the weaknesses of the flesh, to find an early end in a sad gutter after a massive drug overdose. Now the uncle, apparently wracked by guilt, is in no mood to offer up the second brother also to the gluttonous ways of the city; hence the seclusion.’

  ‘Can’t we buy him or something? Everyman has a price’.

  ‘I believe the man to be above frivolous considerations such as money. He truly believes he can serve only one master, and god it is. And he finds it hard to invest his trust in city men- wily creations of god- in these difficult times’.

  ‘If he doesn’t need money, there must be something else’.

  ‘It’s not that he doesn’t need money. I’m given to understand, by most reliable men in the know, that his fiduciary situation is far from being worthy of emulation. He seems to be deeply in the clutches of an unscrupulous lender of monies in his village- bondage- we might say’.

  ‘See- such things still happen. What’s holding us back then? Can’t we work around the man’s morals somehow? If he doesn’t come to the phone, what’s stopping you from hauling your sweet posterior to where he lives, or works, or trains?’

  ‘I’ve tried that as well ma’am, several times. I’ve bribed the housekeeping, the cable company, the security and earned an unlawful entry at great risk to myself into his personal abode on several occasions, and pitched; pitched resolutely when he was showering, pitched shamelessly when he was sleeping, and pitched even when he was awake; but he has always managed to give me the slip, by raising the alarm, by escaping on the terrace, and even by spraying red chilies in ‘em eyes.’

  ‘Then what is the option?’

  The slippery characters, two in number, lean in for a hushed discussion. They reach a conclusion and draw in Monal for congress.

  ‘Why don’t you reach out to them in the dressing room or the player’s gallery? It’ll be hard for the old man to make himself scarce when a match is going on and his protégé is out there in the field by himself.’

  ‘Regrettably ma’am, I’m not entitled to enter the sanctum of the gods of cricket in various states of undress’.

  ‘Gentlemen here, will take care of that’, she says, obviously referring to noone in particular. As I look around for gentlemen in bewilderment, she motions with her eyes to the two scoundrels on the sofa as being the object of her affections at the moment.

  ‘ Fine then, in there I think he will have a hard time with his disappearing a
ct’.

  ‘Exactly what we meant! This man has just made it to the India XI. The IPL auctions are a couple of weeks away. We have every reason to believe’; the two wagon-robbers nod in unison; ’that this boy is sure to be put away for a princely ransom of a couple of crores. And then the endorsements will flood in like the wrath of god, drying up the riverbeds and turning the deserts into green whatnots. And sweet 30 % of all that reparation will be ours. And I want to be there when it happens, and I want you to make it happen for us’, she says.

  ‘ Am I given to understand that I have some leeway in making an offer to the uncle?

  ‘Let him name a price. And if you swing this: a penthouse, a sports car, a promotion etc. await you. Take it as your trousseau from my side‘, she chuckles.

  ‘Take it as done. Done it is’, I reply.

  ϖ

  The next morning the two iffy blokes are honking at the gates, to haul me to the Wankhede Stadium, India XI dressing room. They slip around my neck an ID card that says I’m a press photographer. One of them has an ID of a sports injury specialist and the other is some sort of media coordinator. They breeze me through the pearly gates with the smiling guards, whose grins get wider as notes are stuffed into their pockets, and plant me in the midst of a jam-packed dressing room. I sit around and observe. It’s unlike any dressing room that I have seen, and I have seen plenty in my short-lived career as a track and field guy. There are more officials than teammates in the room. Everyone is on the phone. Noone is gathered round in discussion on strategy, no coach is giving a last minute advice, noone is in prayer and surely noone seems to be in need of a pep talk. The senior players aren’t listening to the captain, the captain isn’t listening to the coach, and noone has anything to say to the junior players, who are huddling in a corner and hoping they have a lucky outing. The physio is stretching the nutritionist who is cramped after sitting still for hours on the couch watching TV. She in turn is telling him what to avoid to get rid of that paunch he’s getting for want of anything to do. My two escorts are busy speaking in sign language with the seniors, and taking instructions on their cell phones. It is more like a stock market than a place that grants privacy and room for contemplation to sportsmen engaged in grueling combat. I spot my man Chand sitting quietly in the far corner, listening to his uncle read from what I assume is the Gita. I head over to their corner.

  ‘Hello uncle’, I fold my hands in Namaste.

  From instinct the uncle rises to make a dash for the door but stalls when he realizes there is no getting away from me this time.

  ‘Who let you in?’ he looks around for help from any quarter to evict my unlawful intrusion but finds noone is interested in us. ‘So you are a journalist now! God save the press corps!’

  I figure it’s high time I gave up the aggressive salesman pitch and stopped making him feel cornered. I grab his hand holding the Gita and put it on my head. ‘Uncle please; swear on the Gita that you will give me just five minutes of your time’.

  ‘You stubborn fool! All right! Spout your lies and deception’ he says. Chand grins widely.

  ‘Uncle’, I begin’, ‘please tell me what have you got against me’.

  ‘You rich city guys will never understand what a poor man’s life in a village is. Then what’s the point?’

  ‘Uncle, I am neither rich nor a city guy. I am a poor man without a father; trying to stand on my two feet, like Mukut here. But unlike him I am not lucky enough to have the support of a wonderful uncle like you. So please discard those ideas from your mind that I belong to some other world.’

  The old man melts somewhat. He seems open to hearing me out.

  ‘Please tell me what is worrying you.’ I place the Gita on my head. ‘I swear, that we mean the very best for your boy here’.

  The man stares at his sandaled feet and struggles with his thoughts; finally he looks up and says,’ I am afraid my boy will be taken away from me. I made a promise to his father, my elder brother, god bless his soul he’s no more. I broke that promise once and I lost Mukut’s elder brother to the ways of the city. I cannot now afford to lose the last of his sons, and the last of our hopes.’

  ‘But I am not taking him anywhere! All I ask is you let us manage his affairs. I don’t know who met you and gave you this impression. But we’re different…’

  ‘Everyone says they are different. Even that man did. But you are all the same- greedy and selfish’.

  ‘ I am not here to take away anything from you, or break your family; just give me a chance. If there is a problem, maybe we can help you with it’.

  ‘Ha! You have no idea what problems poor village folk have’.

  I have a good idea, but I am not telling him any. ‘Try me, uncle. Please tell me. Even if I can’t do anything, at least you will feel lighter. I promise you, if after today you say you don’t want to see me again, you won’t’.

  The man knots and unknots the frayed ends of his white cotton scarf- confused where to start.

  ‘It’s ok uncle, what harm can he do?’ Chand says. ‘ I think he’s like one of us’.

  The uncle looks at his protégé, and begins to speak. ‘Well, my brother has three daughters, elder to Mukut here. You know how it is; to marry them off and for their dowries he took farm loans from the cooperatives. Then he took more loans from the local moneylenders to repay the farm loans. When the interest became larger than the capital, and it all ballooned beyond his capacity, he took more loans. He got trapped in the vicious circle and when he had nothing left to mortgage…he committed suicide so that the family wouldn’t suffer any more because of him. You see, the govt. loans get written off but in the village, the moneylender’s loans don’t. Proud landlords that we were, we are servants now in our own farms. My wife, and daughters- I have six of the fairest, are now working the lands and houses of the lender’s for two meals a day only. I have avowed that I will repay my brother’s debt and earn back our family lands, name and honor. I have been allowed to leave my home so that I can try and repay the debt. My family is still held hostage in the village- they can’t leave, or they’ll be killed. Mukut has never stayed back at the village since he was in Military School, so they couldn’t get a hold on him. So now you see, why I can’t afford to take chances with Mukut- he’s our only hope. I have sacrificed my own family so that I can make something of this boy.’

  ‘If you let us manage him, you will have your land and your honor again. And your family will be together again’.

  ‘We have survived difficult times so far, and we can do it in the future as well. Leave us to our destiny’.

  ‘Just because Mukut has made it to the national XI, doesn’t mean that he’ll stay there till the next selections. Look at the competition, the political pulls; without solid support, how far do you think the boy will last out there’?

  ‘As long as it is god’s will! And his will is what we accept with gratitude’.

  ‘Do you think it’s fair to Mukut?’

  ‘What do you mean? You think I’m not doing all this for him?’ The man roars.

  ‘How long do you think the boy can take the pressure. There is the stress of playing on the field and then off it he knows he has to work towards the family debt. Do you think that will bring out the best in your boy? Why not let us take care of all his problems off the field and you and him work on his game?’

  ‘We have managed so far without you haven’t we? So leave us be’.

  ‘If you had your debts squared off, and your family here with you, don’t you think Mukut would do a far better job? He has talent here; we could bring in the pros that could tweak his technique and fitness, which would give him that edge. Don’t you think, Mukut?’ I turn to the boy. He seems to agree but can’t speak in front of the elder. He looks entreatingly at the uncle.

  ‘Don’t listen to him boy’, the uncle booms! ‘ Him and his cunning ways, and words sweet, silky and smooth as honey. Pay our debts and unite our families! I haven’t heard such yarn in my years. Str
ap ‘em up and git ye out to the field. And you, be gone with you, tempter from the dark!’

  I bend and touch his feet, and walk away. My two chancy companions follow me out. Next the doors is placed a visitors book. I shuffle through the pages and find the uncle’s address: “Village Kursi, Block Gondlamau, District Sitapur, UP.” I snap a picture of the address and joust past photographer punters on phone with their bookies, players tipping off on pitch conditions and managers betting against their own teams. Indians don’t lose matches; they simply tank them. Now that the matter of corruption in cricket is in the Supreme Court, we believe and hope only an outsider can do something for the beautiful game: May the Twelfth Man save the game!

  ϖ

  I ask my escorts if they can drop me at the railway station. They look at each other and nod. I call Monal and explain the plan to her and ask if she is okay with that.

  Like a true punter, she says, ‘what have we got to lose? Go ahead but be careful. Do you want to take anybody from the office with you? No? All the same, it’s best to have a local contact. You’ll know who he is by the time you get down from the train. I’ll handle the Mumbai part of the plan from this end. All the best; Ta da.’ And she’s off to her squash game at the Gymkhana.

  That’s what I love about this woman- a crystal clear mind, courage of conviction and instant decision-making; never an unnecessary doubt, and she leans in with you all the way. No wonder, she’s the envy of every player in our business.

  ϖ

  The train to Sitapur has the usual suspects: There is the fat-as-butter Sardarji drinking from the whisky bottle hidden under his bunk, while his curvy, obedient wife- her face covered by the pallu of her sari, serves him piping hot masala chicken. She shyly swills from the same glass whenever he offers it lovingly, after carefully maneuvering it inside the sari covering her face. The slippery conman with his drugged biscuits strikes up friendships with strangers- these days they have numbered biscuits, I’m told. Either odd or even numbered biscuits are injected with drugs; when the man opens a new pack that has already been tampered with, he inspires your confidence by eating the first biscuit before offering you the second one. And then he takes the third biscuit, before giving the fourth biscuit- drugged again, and so on till you are knocked off and he makes away with your luggage and wallet. A god man in saffron robes, speaking flawless English, is seated in the next cabin without reservation, on the bunk of some unlucky couple that is too reverential to ask him to leave. The god man ignores the brown skins and engages a couple of foreigners in obscure oriental philosophy, passing his gilt-edged visiting cards around, promising them salvation, and detachment from worldly possessions- which once detached, may be attached- to his ashram. A small-time politician with his posse of curmudgeon guards, talks loudly on his phone in another cabin that is stuffed with garlands of notes and marigolds showered upon him on the platform by the Director of the Primary Health Care Center that he’d just inspected. His guards pay close attention to the conversation and nod vigorously every time he boasts of an exploit to the other party. A voluptuous, coffee colored female, barely 15, dressed in a revealing low cut blouse and a colorful skirt tied at the start of her overfull hips, comes begging for milk for a rosy-cheeked baby perched loosely on a long arm. Single men tip her generously, while those under the powerful spell of watchful wives simply sigh and look on with longing, their fingers itching at the tips of their fat wallets. A party of singing and clapping eunuchs follows the beggar girl, welcomed by catcalls of some very lively college students travelling with us. The eunuchs pinch nipples of the delighted boys and raise their saris to show their genitals. After making away with most of the kids’ money, as charge for the show, the eunuchs move on, leaving our cabin in calm and peace.