The Zoya Factor (13 page)

There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of Zoravar sucking noisily on the Dussheri. I just sat there and stared at them. I couldn't process what they were telling me - that I really could make people win matches with my very
presence.
'So, Dad, how many cricket matches have I attended in my life?' I ventured hesitantly.

He shrugged, 'Nothing pukka, but about...twenty?'

'More,' said Zoravar. 'Many more, if you count all the ones I took her to.'

'And the team I supported always won?' I asked disbelievingly.

Zoravar nodded blithely. 'Always. You didn't even have to stay for the match. I'd bring you in, make you have a Campa Cola or a snack with the boys, and then Eppa would take you home before the match began. That's because you were a real pain to have about the place, you always wanted to pee or puke or something.'

I ignored that last crack and said, 'So you never lost a cricket match in your life?'

He shook his head. 'I did. Lots of times, whenever Ma said I couldn't take you. In the cold weather in Kalimpong. And of course, at the IMA. But I never lost a match
you
came to, Gaalu
,'

'Your mummy did not like it, Zoya!' Eppa said loudly all of a sudden. 'She allvayz saying
ki
if this girl uses up all her good-luck vinning matches then no good-luck vil be left-over for her ownself only! Only bad-luck.'

Oh my God,
Ma
said that? What a scary thought. And strangely logical somehow. Almost karmic. I started feeling slightly ill.

'What rubbish you're talking, Eppa,' Dad said dismissively. 'Anyway, I just hope this whole thing doesn't get out of hand. People mustn't take it too seriously. I don't remember you ever losing a match for us, Zoya, but of course there will be a first time, someday.' He had put on his glasses and was frowning down at Zahid's picture. 'And what about this Pathan fellow?' he finally asked. 'If he's so rich why doesn't he get a haircut? Don't tell me you like him?'

I shook my head, 'No, Dad, I don't,' I said firmly and quite truthfully.

'Of course not, Dad,' Zoravar said as he got to his feet and stretched luxuriously. '
He's
not the one you have to worry about!' He sneaked a beady, knowing glance at me and then stuck out one sticky-with-mango hand, grabbed my dupatta from the back of my chair and started skipping with it.
'One,
two, three, four...'
he went, bouncing up and down, his stupid bathroom chappals slapping against the floor.

'Kya kar rahe ho,
Zoravar?,' Dad asked mildly. 'Don't exercise after eating, you'll feel ill...'

'Arrey nahi,
Dad,' my worm of a brother sniggered, skipping madly. 'I'm doing it for Gaalu. She likes
skippers,
you know!'

***

The Asian Age

Sports page

CHARMING TALES FROM HERE AND THERE

More strange things have been done in the World of Sport to woo Lady Luck than have ever been done between the sheets in a Jackie Collins novel, or for that matter, between the sheets of a bed at a downtown Bangkok motel.

Because Luck, and its close companion, Superstition, definitely have had a hold on the mind of competing athletes since time immemorial.

Lucky underwear, lucky songs, lucky
pets
(worn to the field under helmets and damn the RSPCA), lucky
bed-mates
the night before (specially popular on the Formula One circuit), lucky
wads of chewing gum
carefully tucked away in cling-wrap match after match, they're all part of Great Sporting tradition.

The Mojo derived from powdered bull testes has powered many a 100-metre dash at the Olympics and is supposed to confer an amazing 'spurt' of speed to the performer. It may be harder to get hold of than the more usual performance-enhancing steroids but has the advantage of being virtually undetectable in your urine sample.

And while on the subject, here's what Argentine goal-keeper Sergio Goycochea used to do before facing a penalty shoot-out: he'd step aside and
urinate on the pitch.
He was convinced this was the lucky charm that helped him save goals ever since he survived a penalty shoot-out (post a quick pitch-urination) against Italy in the semi-final of the FIFA World Cup 1990.

Luckily, the increasing level of television coverage (more than twenty-six cameras and counting) means that Goycochea had to ultimately desist from his 'charming' habit of treating the pitch to his 'golden showers'.

Talking of body-waste disposal, ex-Australia cricket captain Steve Waugh has a lucky snot-rag that he always carries on to the field with him. The 'good medicine' in the hanky (a present from his grandmother) played a vital part in making Waugh the most successful test captain in history with forty-one victories from fifty-seven Tests.

(Of course, other teams have tried repeatedly to steal it, but their attempts have been foiled by the fact that Waugh never sends it to the laundry.) In fact, cricket, so tied with tradition and history has an amazing list of definitely odd superstitions. The entire Indian cricket team once sat frozen in their respective positions in the dressing room at Lords, for the duration of an entire match (the Final of the Natwest Trophy 2002.) And we all know what a long game cricket is. One wonders if they were tempted to test the efficacy of a quick dressing-room urination while they were at it. Incidentally, they won.

There are opening batsmen (Sunil Gavaskar) who always walk in to the right side of their partner or they can't contribute much to the scoreboard; batsmen who have to touch the bales before taking strike or they can't perform well (Alan Knott) and fielders who have to raise their collars or they drop the easiest of catches (Mohammad Azharuddin).

At any time during a cricket game, you may be treated to the peculiar sight of a portly cricket umpire (David Shepherd) hopping from foot to foot, if a team is stuck at the Nelson scores of 111, 222, 333 (and, of course, the dreaded but seldom achieved number of the beast, 666). If he stops hopping before the score changes, so the superstition goes, he may precipitate a collapse, an injury, freak weather or any other calamity that could possibly strike a cricket side.

Sadistic batsmen, or those with a grouse against the umpire must be sorely tempted to let the score stand for a bit and watch the umpire hop.

Or maybe they're as anxious to get off the unlucky Nelson as he is. Because, no matter how good the preparation, no matter how talented the sportsmen, there
is
an unknown, unpredictable variable to all sport.

That variable kicks in for some and not for some others. That variable is the difference between winning and losing.

That ingredient X, which sportstars alternately swear by and scoff at, is Luck.

***

I just couldn't get over what Dad and Zoravar said to me that night. It was so weird, it was like I'd discovered I had a third eye or a second nose or something. You know, another whole organ I didn't know about.

I could make people win cricket matches.

Not a great power to have, one would think. Not quite up there with making the lame walk or the blind see. But, hello, we're talking twenty-first century India here. People who can win cricket matches are just about the richest people in the country today.

The thing is, could it actually be true?

Could I really do it?

Why
me?

Because, there's nothing very special about me - is there? I mean, okay, I was born on 25 June 1983 but isn't there one Indian baby born
every second
? That means there were 86,400 kids out there with the same birthdate as mine, if I was doing the math right. That's hardly a Unique Selling Proposition!

Dad of course swears that I was born at the very
second
the last wicket fell and therein lies my luckiness. He says the gynaecologist was hovering in wicket-keeper stance before my mom, shouting encouragement, shifting her weight from foot to foot, gloved hands spread out to catch me, and that I plopped out just as India clinched the last wicket.

And the other thing that Eppa had come up with? That was just plain spooky. But so
fair,
somehow. Like a natural progression of
lucky at cards, unlucky in love.

And if you stopped to think about it, nothing good had happened to me since I started breakfasting with the team, had it? Khoda had bawled me out, I'd practically lost a job I loved, nasty gossip had come out in the press about me... hey, it was a miracle my bumpy plane back to Delhi hadn't crashed, scattering my remains across rural Bihar....

And things got worse the next day. The office gang told me that
Sonali's Gupshup
article wasn't the only one.
Lots
of channels had covered the story on the news. Zoravar called at work and told me he'd seen Khoda fielding questions on Star News. Then the Aaj Tak guys gheraoed Zahid somewhere and he tried to pull a no-comments but then suddenly broke and told them all about my 'lucky' kiss and the hat-trick that followed. Then they dug up some old army uncle who said he remembered how some inter-regiment five-dayer had turned totally after I up-chucked a mixture of apple juice and Cerelac on the captain's shirt over breakfast on the last day's play.

And while I was stuffing GCBs into my face in office the next afternoon, my cellphone rang and some clipped-sounding dude said he was from NDTV and wanted to ask me to come on his chat show panel tonight. I panicked completely, said
no thanks
and switched off my phone.

Sankar, of course, was totally ballistic on the subject. 'The problem with you girls,' he yelled at Monita and me as we cowered in her room, 'is that you can't keep your mouth shut. How the hell did this get out?'

Of course I was asking myself the same question. I played back the whole set up in Dhaka in my mind...the team, Wes, Lokey, Vishaal.... It could've been anybody.

Anyway, I figured it would die a natural death soon. I just had to pretend I lived in a circus for a little while.

That evening Nikhil Khoda was on the news. We all watched it together. It was some sporty show and Khoda was being interviewed by one of those guys who sound eerily like Prannoy Roy. They discussed all kinds of other stuff and then the guy asked Khoda about me. Well, actually, what he said was: 'So what's this about a lucky charm, Nikhil?'

Khoda, looking darkly dishy in a white-collared shirt open at the throat, said easily: 'Well, I don't believe in luck, Raghav. I feel the only way we achieve anything is by working hard, focusing, and keeping a cool head on our shoulders. Good luck is a short cut. I don't believe in short cuts. Bad luck is an excuse. I don't believe in excuses.'

Wow. He looked hot saying that. I felt a peculiar mix of Lust and Loathing as I looked at him, wondering if he'd made that dialogue up right there or rehearsed it.

'But what
about
the loss to Bermuda
then,
Nikhil?'asked the Prannoy clone, steepling his fingers and stressing all the wrong words, just like his boss.

'Well, there were a lot of reasons. Bermuda played extremely well, the crowd was backing the underdog, we lost the toss and certainly the boys were starting to place their faith in something other than their own abilities.'

'And Zahid's hat-trick?'

Nikhil's face hardened. 'Zahid Pathan got five wickets including a hat-trick because he is an extremely talented bowler. He insults himself if he believes otherwise.'

Raghav nodded several times and shuffled some papers around on his desk. Then he asked, 'A lot of cricket fans want Zoya Solanki' - Eppa gave a little scream hearing my name on TV - 'to be given some
kind
of an official designation and be allowed to
travel
with the team. What's your view?'

Nikhil wrinkled his brow thoughtfully - the Lust and Loathing mix sloshing around inside me intensified a little - and shrugged. 'Well, I think it would be detrimental in the long run. Ours is a superstitious country and a precedent like this could lead to chaos in the future.' Then he added lightly, 'Besides, a very busy career girl like Zoya,' - he shook his head and smiled a little and I got the oddest little goosebumps watching his lips curve around the syllables of my name - 'may not be willing to travel all year round with us.'

'Well, thank you very
much,
Nikhil. And best of luck to the Indian team for the benefit match then.' The clone giggled a little and pumped his puny fist into the air: 'Go Indians!'