The Zoya Factor (33 page)
Authors: Anuja Chauhan
'Hi, Chacha,' I said cautiously.
'Zoya!' Gajju sounded excited. 'What is the true story? Everybody is asking me! They are saying you will know for sure!'
'Sorry, Chacha, what true story?'
'
Uff,
you don't know?'
'No,' I said puzzled.
He
tched
in an irritated sort of way. 'Hardin's e-mail. Get a newspaper, child. What is the use? You must know all these things. Information is power, you know!' And with that ambiguous remark, he cut the line.
Rinku Chachi snorted. 'Stingy as always,' she said. 'Worried about the phone bill. What did he want, Zoya?'
'He wants me to read the paper, Chachi,' I said, as puzzled as she was. 'Something about an e-mail...'
We grabbed one as soon as we could.
***
The Age
Sports Section
Dear Sir,
Twelve months ago, your predecessor met me in Sharjah and very kindly asked me to coach the Indian team in preparation for the 2011 World Cup. You accompanied him, and may remember that I had another, very flattering offer in hand at the time, but the youth, malleability and potential of the side and the promise of a free hand, won me over.
At that very time I had voiced a few misgivings about the process of player selection in India which is infamous across the ten Test-playing nations, to say the least. At that time your predecessor gave me the verbal assurance that your captain and myself would be allowed to pick the side we wanted without any outside interference. Advice of the senior players on the side, senior ex-players and the more savvy selectors was of course, most welcome, if it was without zonal bias of any sort.
A year has passed, and I am still to receive that assurance in writing.
I had also been apprehensive about the continued presence in our proposed World Cup squad, of a player who seemed to be lacking both passion and performance in alarming quantities. On top of that, he was plagued by constant injuries, wore a crepe bandage sometimes on his left arm and sometimes on his right and was an unsettling presence in the nets and dressing room alike.
His cynical attitude towards discipline, training and the noble concept of patriotism itself was having a bad influence on the youngsters on the side.
I expressed my doubts about his inclusion in the World Cup repeatedly, but was informed, by you personally, at the time of your installation as IBCC president, and by the chairman of the selectors committee on many occasions, that Robin Rawal's inclusion was non-negotiable.
Ever since our arrival in Australia his attitude has been arrogant and negative to the extreme. Tardiness and no-shows at the nets have been frequent. He has given interviews and made public statements that deviate diametrically from the point of view of the captain and coach. His sour demeanour and mysterious straight-from-the-mouth-of-Jogpal-Lohia utterances have been playing havoc with the morale of our young side.
This kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable from a player who has worn the country's colours for over nine years. And now he has upped his game from the merely irresponsible to the downright criminal.
I am not making the following allegation loosely.
I have just finished watching three hours of slow-motion television footage, capturing the dropped catch against Bermuda from every conceivable angle.
And I can confidently say that the blame for Tuesday's ignominious loss can be laid squarely at Robin Rawal's door.
Desultory fielding topped with a dropped catch that a child of five could have taken would be enough reason to have shown him the door from the playing eleven. Add to that his eleven runs in thirty-nine balls (two of them extras) and the fact that he got a set player run out when he was looking good for a big total at a vital point in the game and a clear case for criminal prosecution begins to emerge. I am aware of what everybody must be saying on the streets in India, and just this once, I tend to agree. Robin Rawal, Navneet Singh and Anzaar Ali should be recalled to India and investigated thoroughly for throwing matches.
Which is why I must state, in the strongest language possible, that it is no longer possible for me to function with this player on the side.
It is not fair to the rest of the side, which has worked long and hard to make India's World Cup dream a reality. It is not fair to the lads who lost their place on the World Cup squad so that there would be room for Rawal and his ilk. One more thing.
While I respect your religious beliefs, and those of the beautiful country of India, very much, the fact that you have foisted a so-called good-luck charm onto my squad at the behest of your guru, Swami Lingnath Baba, is causing me no end of discomfort. It's a flagrant departure from every cricketing norm to have a strange young lady present at our breakfast table.
The fact that she could not be present at the match in New Zealand is being touted as proof that 'her medicine is good'. This is sure to either make the side complacent, if she does make an appearance before a match, or eat into their self-belief, if she does not.
I am not asking for her to return to India. I am just pointing out that I am putting up with a lot of unorthodox practices already.
Please do not expect me to put up with Robin Rawal too.
Yours sincerely,
Weston Hardin
***
Mon read it aloud as we zoomed back to our hotel on the Met. It was potent stuff. We discussed it heatedly, all of us talking at once. Who'd have thought the strong and silent Wes Hardin had such depths to him? Had Rawal really thrown the match? Him and Ritu-dumper-Nivi and that quiet guy, Ali?
Judging by tolerant Indian standards
-
not Hardin's self-righteous Aussie ones
-
was it really such a horrible thing to do (throwing that match and getting rich, I mean)? Because we were in the Super 8 anyway! I'd been hoping for more or less the same thing myself!
Would Jogpal Lohia back down and send Rawal home?
No way, we all said immediately. So would Wes quit? Or deny the e-mail was actually written by him? And what was Khoda's take on the whole thing?
We pored over all the other related articles in the newspaper and speculated madly about
how
it had leaked,
who
had leaked it and so on.
Investigative journalists scrutinized the Rawal-Lohia friendship from the day it began, saying they'd been as thick as thieves for years and that he'd tried really hard to get him made captain, and that Rawal had named his first child (from his ex-wife) after the old man. They were both from Rajasthan and Rawal was Jogpal's first big discovery.
They'd met when thirteen-year-old Rawal smashed a six through Jogpal's fourth floor drawing room window during a game of galli cricket. The big man had come out, given the little street urchin a blistering tongue-lashing, then tossed the ball back to the kids and asked Rawal to play a few strokes....
It was a sweet story. I had a vision of a husky young Rawal and a slimmer, beardless Jogpal walking arm in arm, bats resting jauntily on their shoulders as the sun went down behind them over the spectacular Jaipur Fort....
Cho chweet.
Rinku Chachi said, 'D'you think they're
gay,
beta?'
I groaned. 'No, I don't think they could be gay, Chachi, okay?' I said. 'Maybe... maybe he's on the take too, huh? How about that? Maybe they all divvy up the money the bookies shell out?'
And then Monita's eyes widened. 'Hey, maybe
he
tore out the visa from your passport!'
***
Of course I phoned Nikhil the moment we got back,
He didn't sound at all surprised. 'Hi,' he said, lightly. 'Been reading the papers?'
'Yes, of course,' I said. 'How are you?'
He laughed. 'Great, actually. I've no idea how that e-mail leaked. But I'm happy. It's quite a relief actually.'
'How's Wes?' I asked.
'He's right here,' Nikhil said. 'He's been singing philosophical country songs all morning.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose,
did you know that one, Zoya?'
'Are you
drunk
?' I asked, horrified.
He chuckled. 'No, of course not. I wouldn't hit the juice over Robin Rawal!'
'Where's he?' I asked.
'I don't know. Shut up with his godfather in his fancy suite, I guess. Would you believe he hasn't spoken to either of us since this news broke?'
'Maybe he'll give a press conference,' I said.
Khoda said, 'You know what? You could be absolutely right.'
'What about Wes?' I asked. 'Is he talking to the media?'
'He's switched off his phone,' Nikhil said. 'He still hasn't recovered from the fact that somebody leaked his confidential e-mail...'
'Tell him, I'm flattered he doesn't want me sent home too,' I said, 'and listen, Monita's got this weird theory. She thinks maybe Rawal tore out my New Zealand visa.'
'Really?' Nikhil said. 'D'you know one paper in Lucknow is saying you're on the take too and that you tore out the visa
yourself?'
Oh my God, I'd never thought of that!
Then Nikhil went, 'Another call coming. I have to take it. Don't give any quotes, stay put in your hotel and
-
I'll try to come see you in the evening, okay?'
'Okay,' I said, but he'd cut the phone already.
We stayed in our rooms and watched TV. The leaked e-mail scandal was on all the sports channels. In India it was the only thing the junta was talking about. Zoravar called me, on a crackly, buzzing connection from Poonch and yelled down the line, 'Shame on you, Gaalu! Taking ghoons from the chaddiwallahs! All my buddies are shunning me here.'
I told him to shut up and get lost, but he went on and on for a while, hiding his concern for me under all kinds of inane utterances. 'How are
you,
anyway?' I asked him finally. 'All quiet on the western front?'
'Eastern, actually,' he said. 'Yeah, everything's quiet. Major snowstorms, of course, but I still have all my fingers and toes and am making good bowel movements every five days.'
'Gross!' I said. 'Your tent must stink.'
'No, no, Gaalu,' he assured me. 'Our sleeping bags are totally airtight, you know. They just balloon up slowly in the night, and sometimes I wake up floating in the air on all that hot gas. The guys have to shoot me down.' I groaned, he chuckled and said, 'Be good, okay. And tell Rinku Chachi to remember she's a married woman. Tell her to leave all those hunky West Indian players alone. If her foot slips, we will not be able to show our face to the clan in Karol Bagh...'
He kept chattering away about inconsequential things for a while, but he wasn't fooling me. Sure enough, as he was winding up, he asked casually, 'So, did you think about what I told you last time?'
I said sweetly, 'No, Zoravar, I didn't,' and hung up on him.
I got a lot of calls after that from numbers I didn't recognize (journos, I assumed) and ignored them all. The list of all the Super 8 teams was almost complete, there were just a couple of matches left to go. The next India match was still three days away, and on TV, the sportscasters were speculating madly about who the playing eleven would be.
By seven-thirty in the evening I figured Nikhil was too busy to come over and got into my baggy pajamas and sat on the floor to put coconut oil in my hair. Rinku Chachi got behind me on the sofa and started giving me a teeth-rattling champi, talking about her daughter Monya, so far away in boarding school.
That's when this breaking news came on and a thin Aussie sportscaster said: 'Indian Southpaw Robin Rawal finally broke his silence with a press conference this afternoon, saying that' - they cut to Rawal-the-creep's ugly mug talking into like a
million
channel mikes
-
'he was sure that the leaked e-mail was the work of mischievous elements and had not been written by Weston Hardin at all and was confident that Hardin had the utmost faith in him. He said there was no question of him returning to India, and that he was looking forward to putting the bad memories of New Zealand behind him and giving a cracking performance in the Super 8s for the benefit of fans of the game everywhere.'
