The Zoya Factor (40 page)

Rinku Chachi stayed back to watch the match with me the next day but Mon, eager to escape my flu, took Armaan to the Gabba. We put on the TV bright and early and caught the commentators discussing me:

'So the Zoya Factor seems to be in abeyance today, eh Beeru?' Jay asked brightly.

'That's right,' Beeru nodded. 'Zoya's not well.'

Jay acted all fakely concerned. 'Yes, I believe she has an infectious bug?'

'That's right, but don't let your hopes soar too high, Jay. Besides, the doctors say Zoya will be fine day after tomorrow.'

Jay made a wry face and tried to say something but Beeru cut him off by saying playfully, 'She went pubbing with some of your players last night. So...was there any sabotaging you want to tell us about?'

Jay looked pained at this. 'Scurrilous slander,' he said laconically. 'Vicious rumours.'

Beeru laughed. 'Vul, if India win today, Jay, at least you lot can't whine about unfair tactics or Indian black magic.'

Jay smirked good-naturedly. 'We were gonna win this match anyway,' he said. 'Only thing is, now you have a good excuse for losing.'

Beeru snorted and before he could say anything, Tim smoothly said, 'And here's the pitch report straight from Woolloongabba!' And they cut to the stadium, where the burly looking groundsman was standing with the other anchor, examining the pitch. It was a good pitch, apparently, which would hold up well and not deteriorate and provide a lot of spin, whatever that meant. According to the weather report we could expect warm sunny skies and clear weather, with a maximum temperature of 37 degrees. And then it was time for the toss.

Khoda sauntered in with the chubby-cheeked Aussie captain. He asked for heads and the umpire tossed.

And for the first time during that World Cup, Nikhil Khoda lost the toss.

Hah!

The great Indian Crab Mentality surfaced in my heart, but only half-heartedly. Khoda looked pretty unaffected though, and when the Aussie captain said he wanted to bat first, he told the umpire he'd been looking to field first, anyway. Then they sauntered off and after a short ad break, in which I swallowed my antibiotics and found a whole roll of toilet paper to blow my nose into, the Aussie openers came out to bat.

They hit the ground running. The ground blazed with boundaries in every direction, fours and sixes reigned and the Aussie supporters went nuts cheering. Thind and Zahid tried to stem the flow valiantly but by the time fifteen overs were done the Aussies were 122 for no loss.

'At this run rate they'll close at almost 500,' Rinku Chachi said despondently, looking up from her phone calculator. 'Oh Zoya, beta, get well soon!'

I nodded irritably. My head was splitting, my eyes were watering and I think the flu had somehow affected my heart's functioning - I found I actually sort of almost wanted India to win. Without me. Really. I'd become noble overnight. I said crossly, 'Oh, don't be silly, Chachi. Nikhil
sambhal lega.
He'll do something. There's a long way to go yet, you know!'

On the field Nikhil was scowling and getting his boys into a huddle, his eyes blazing. The commentators, Jay and Beeru, were of course thrilled with the competitive cricket on display and insisted that it was all because I wasn't there.

'That's the trouble with depending on lucky charms, Beeru,' Jay said, a little pompously. 'You lose faith in yourself. This hardly looks like the same side that decimated West Indies four days ago. It's pathetic.'

'I think you're right, my friend,' Beeru said sombrely. 'The Indians are looking sadly at sea. Their ship is pitching and rolling and Nikhil Khoda seems to have lost his compass.'

'You're very nautical today, Beeru. What's up?' Jay asked

Beeru sighed. 'I've just got a sinking feeling, that's all,' he said.

Get lost, Beeru,
I thought, blowing my nose so hard that my eyes started to water.
You don't know your ass from a hole in a sambar vada. The boys will pull it together. They will. They will.

And surprisingly enough, they did. Right after the break for drinks, Khoda shifted the field around and put hairy-baby Vikram Goyal in and he proved to be awesome. He contained the Aussies brilliantly and then Zahid took two wickets in quick succession. Balaji came in for a short but effective spell and then Harry did some hardcore unsubtle bowling and picked up a couple of wickets too. Suddenly, the Aussies were 181 for five in thirty overs. Pretty soon it got so bad the Aussie crowd started leaving, but it could've just been because prime sunbathing time was over.

I abruptly stopped feeling noble and started feeling awful that India may actually win without me. The speed with which I was switching sides was making me giddy.

Meanwhile Jay and Beeru were doing some quick backtracking:

'Yes, well, I did think they wouldn't be able to maintain that pace for long...' Jay said shamelessly.

Rinku Chachi snorted. 'Looking at how they are licking up after spitting!' she said, 'I'm going to the loo, beta.'

The Aussies were all out for 223, their lowest in this World Cup, and the ad break had begun.

We ordered lunch and sat down in front of the telly again fifteen minutes later.

The panel with Jay and Beeru was back and Beeru was gloating shamelessly. 'What happened, Jay?' he crowed. 'What was that fall-down effect we just saw, eh?'

Jay put up a spirited defence but his heart wasn't in it. 'Lots of cricket left in the game, mate,' he said doggedly. 'That pitch is turning something wicked. Wait and watch.'

So we all watched as Harry and Shivnath strutted out cockily and took their place on the pitch. They got off to a solid start, piling up runs steadily. There was no hurry, of course, the required run rate was an easy 4.1 and getting lower with every delivery bowled.

They kept cutting to Khoda in the players' balcony and I couldn't understand why he was scowling so awfully, waving a red plastic stick with his hands. With a pang of regret I recognized the back-scratcher-cum-fly-swatter we'd bought together. Wes looked pretty worried next to him.

'Good performance by India today,' said Jay grudgingly as the camera zoomed in on Nikhil till we could see the stubble on his jaw in gorgeous detail. 'Young Nick Khoda found his compass again, what do you say, Beeru?'

'Or else he's steering by the stars, Jay,' said Beeru. 'He keeps looking at the sky all the time!'

Then a runner came on to the field with water for Harry and he clearly said something to him.

'Now what could that be about?' Jay said.

And Beeru responded, 'I think he's telling them to step up the run rate because he's worried about rain...'

The camera cut to Khoda and sure enough he was frowning up at the sky. With good reason. Grey clouds loomed over the Gabba.

'Oh no,' Rinku Chachi groaned and grabbed her phone calculator. 'Oh no!
Hai Ram
!'

'What?' I asked blankly. 'We're going to win, aren't we?' And then she told me that if it started raining nowand the match had to be stopped after 15 overs, they'd count it as a whole match. 'It's that bakwaas Duckworth-Lewis system,' she told me. 'When a match is interrupted by rain, they'll compare our score at 15 or 25 or 35 overs and
their
score at 15, 25 or 35 overs, and award the match to whoever was doing better at that point. And that, most probably, will be - '

' - Australia,' I said. My heart sank to my toes and then bobbed up again slowly.

They're going to lose,
a little crab voice in my head whispered gleefully.
You're safe.
Basically, Harry and Shivee had to take us to 122 in 15 overs. But it was going to be tough.

'Besides, it may not rain after all, you know,' Rinku Chachi said. 'Nikhil is only anticipating every possibility. Or maybe it will rain just a little and they'll continue play after a while...'

But, then, when they were 99 for 13 overs, there was a flash of lightning and fat drops of rain started to fall. They kept playing, however. Jay told the viewers that the raindrops looked bigger on TV than they actually were, as the camera lens magnified them. In fact, it was really just a tiny drizzle. But the Aussie captain was going for the jugular. He was splurging all ten overs of the Punjab Kings XI star, Kevin 'Butch' Astle, on this bit of the game. The boys struggled to take it up to 117 in 14 overs, 121 in 15 and 130 in 16. Then the rain stopped, a bit of sunshine peeped through, and we all relaxed a bit. The required run rate, if a whole match was played, was only two point something.

'Maybe India will get lucky after all!' Beeru sounded exultant, but he spoke too soon. Because the cosmos, as Lingnath Baba would say, has its own sublime, immutable, incomprehensible logic. As Butch started his run-up for the first delivery of his last over, the rain lashed down with a vengeance. Huge fat drops practically obscured the players from our view as they made a dash for the pavilion. On the players' balcony, Nikhil Khoda threw down the back-scratcher-cum-fly-swatter and stalked into the dressing room, his face like thunder.

Meanwhile, Jay and Beeru went on to say, 'What bad luck! Brisbane never has rain at this time of the year. What bad luck, what bad luck, what bad luck...'

I should've been there for breakfast,
I castigated myself self-importantly, quite enjoying the feeling of having been proved indispensable, again.
I should've worn a plastic sack or something and just gone.

Then the anchor, reporting live from the field, grabbed Nikhil in the pavilion and shoved a mike in his face. 'Do you think you had bad luck today because of the Zoya Factor?' he yelled above the sounds of lashing rain.

Nikhil shook his head. 'No,' he said steadily. 'We failed to anticipate the weather collapse early enough, that's all.'

That hit me so hard in my smug little gut, I almost threw up. The sense of not being needed, of not being missed was dreadful.
How could he anticipate a freak cloudburst?
I thought savagely.
How can he talk about me so dismissively? Doesn't he care about me at all?

I got up blunderingly, grabbed my wad of tissues and rushed out to the balcony to cry in the rain.

'Fuck
worth-bloody-Lewis!' said Rinku Chachi with feeling.

The anticlimax was depressing. We'd all been hoping India would win this match and be clear till the semis so we could all relax for the next week. But that was not to be. The balding doc came to see me again in the evening and declared me well on the path to recovery. Then, around ten o' clock at night, when Rinku Chachi went into the loo for a long shower, I had the most unexpected guest.

I got a call from Reception. 'Ma'am, there's a gentleman to see you.'

Nikhil!

'I can't see anybody,' I said, 'I'm infectious, but please give him the phone.'

'Ma'am, he says he wants to come up and see you in person.'

'Huh? Okay...' I said, hesitantly. 'Send him up.'

Maybe it wasn't Nikhil. Maybe Lokey was there to inform me that the Sheraan-wali offer had gone up in smoke.

But it was neither.

Clad in three delicious shades of saffron, tinkling gently with various charms and amulets, his hairy halo aglow, Swami Lingnath Baba stood in the doorway, smiling benignly. 'Can we enter?' he asked, pinning me with his hypnotic eyes.

'Uh...sure,' I said. The fever had left me a little weak and the strong waft of incense emanating from him dissolved whatever little opposition I might have put up. I sat down on the sofa and looked at him blankly. 'Uh...should you not be at your ashram in
Tundla
?' I asked.

He made a graceful sweeping gesture with one hand. 'The world is a small place...' he said, weighing every word. Then he made a sudden forward movement and I jumped back, startled. 'You are still indisposed, Devi?' he asked as he grabbed my wrist, only to take my pulse, I realized after a moment with relief.

His hand felt cool and dry.
No need to panic...yet,
I thought. 'Yes,' I told him. 'But the doctor says I should be well enough for the next match.'

Lingnath nodded. 'That is well. Your gracious hand should
always
be hovering in blessing above the heads of our team.'

My gracious hand was twitching to slap him at that moment. I controlled the impulse and said dismissively, if not completely truthfully, 'No, no, I don't believe in this superstitious nonsense.'

'No?' Lingnath raised both eyebrows in gentle surprise. 'Even when today, the heavens themselves wept because you broke your breakfast appointment?'