The Zoya Factor (14 page)

After the initial rush of hearing myself discussed on TV wore off, I started feeling really pissed off with the guy. (It didn't help that the
yeh toh bada toinnngg hai
ad came on in the ad break right after.)

I mean, this guy had lost me the
Zing!
assignment I loved because of which my promotion was pretty much nixed this year. He had made nasty insinuating remarks about me. And it was all his fault that every time his mug came up on TV, my moronic brother made idiotic baboon-like gestures. And now he was sitting there on the news and being all gracious while the truth of it was that he didn't want
anybody
to get the credit for his stupid team's victories besides himself.

I decided I hated his handsome guts and went to bed in a state of total indignation.

***

7

I attended a Junior Maximilk research session the next day. It was an interactive session, held in the little drawing room of a tiny second floor flat in Lajpat Nagar. These sessions have to happen in an unintimidating sort of setting, kind of like what the subject's own house is like, otherwise the data gets skewed. So our twelve carefully selected subjects, from the Socio-economic Category B+ (education: graduation, family income: Rs 30,000 per month or less, language of choice: Hindi) had gathered in a room with one three-seater and two one-seater sofas, with a twenty-one inch TV in one corner, printed polyester curtains, an oil painting of a babe in a ghagra with a matka on her head, and a small carpet down the middle with a low table topped with a brass vase with plastic flowers. We had just played them a recorded script narration when my phone rang.

I flushed bright red, muttered an apology and hurried out of the drawing room, bumping into one of the two one-seaters as I did so. My phone didn't recognize the number, but I recognized the voice that went, 'Zoyaji? Hello, Zoyaji?'

I stepped out onto a shady-looking balcony where a massive water cooler rumbled noisily. 'Zahid?'

'Zoyaji? Are you on a motorboat?'

'No, on a balcony,' I said waspishly. 'Why are you ji-ing me, Zahid? I'm supposed to be your girlfriend.'

He cleared his throat nervously. '
Arrey nahi
, these newspaper people are crazy. Zoyaji, you have to do something for me, something very, very important.'

'What?' I snapped, but half-heartedly.

'I don't want to discuss over phone like this,' he said. 'Let's meet somewhere and talk.'

'Okay,' I said hurriedly. 'Message me. I can't talk right now.'

Zahid's message said:
bed@7.
I stared at it in complete incomprehension for a while till I decoded it to mean that I was to meet him at The Bed Lounge, a desperately trying-to be-in nightclub in Gurgaon.

I entered the nightclub at seven sharp and looked around. It really
was
shady. The kind of place where Dawood and Monica would have partied in the good old days. There were all these huge four-poster beds everywhere, with curtains drawn around them, so you couldn't see what the hell was going on inside. It was very, very dodgy.

'Psssst, Zoyaji!'

I turned around to see Zahid lurking behind the curtains of a 'bed'. With relief I noted that it wasn't really a bed - there was a cosy table for two inside the bed frame, with plates all laid out for dinner.

I clambered over the bed frame and took my chair. 'Isn't this a great place?' Zahid asked, enthusiastically. 'My close friend from school owns it. He's asked me to drop in whenever I can.
Kehta hai
it's,' he pushed his hair back, self-consciously, 'good for business.'

I pulled up a chair, 'It's straight out of
Shantaram
,' I told him, giggling a little as I sat down.

'What's that?' he asked, puzzled.

'A book,' I replied. 'A bestseller, actually.'

'I don't read books,' he said.

Okay, so much for that line of conversation. 'So what's up, Zahid?' I asked him resignedly. '
Kaise ho
?'

He flashed his gorgeous smile. 'Fine. And you?
Sab khairiat?'

He was kidding, right? I laughed ironically, but I don't think he got it. 'Yeah, everything's just great. So why did you want to meet me?'

He rumpled his copper curls in an uneasy kind of way and then said, 'I want to invite you to eat breakfast with ten of my friends.'

No subtlety about our Pathan. No beating about the bush. He was seeing only thee eye of thee cupbirrd, wasn't he, just like his captain. 'No way,' I said.

'Please, Zoyaji,' he went, 'just one last time. It's very, very important to me.'

'Listen, it's very sweet of you guys to have so much faith in me, but my job and my privacy are very important to me. You guys have band bajaoed both.'

'Zoyaji!' Zahid made a dismissive gesture with a large calloused hand. 'What is privacy?
Arrey
, where's your patriotism? You have been specially blessed so that you can serve your country!'

I shook my head. 'Zahid, I'm sorry. It's late. In fact, I wish you'd told me what you wanted over the phone. I would have said no then itself.'

He hadn't heard a word I said. Instead, he just started shredding his paper napkin efficiently to bits. 'What is this about your post?' he asked. 'What has happened?'

I told him.

He looked totally shocked. 'Skipper complained to your client? I don't believe it.'

Yeah, of course he would think the sun shone out of the (admittedly cute) Khoda posterior. I sighed tiredly: 'It's all true, Zahid.'

'
Phir toh
you have to meet him!' Zahid said animatedly. 'Ask him why he did it. Demand your old job back. Sort it out,' he urged, and then added with a subtlety that surprised me, 'over breakfast.'

'Does Nikhil-sir know that you're inviting me?' I asked him.

He nodded.

'And he's okay with it?'

'Then what!' said Zahid roundly. 'In fact, he said it was an excellent idea and that he was "all for it".'

Amazing huh? The mighty sure had fallen, if not on TV, in private at least. 'Okay, then I'll come,' I nodded, feeling an absurd upswing in my mood. I didn't dare analyse why the thought of meeting that horrible Nikhil Khoda again was so oddly invigorating....

Zahid had said he'd send a car to take me to the match, which was being played at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Wednesday. I'd been in too much of a hurry to get home that night to even ask him who our team was playing against. And it wasn't till I was in a huddle with Mon, sipping coffee in the office, that I wondered what this match was about.

'Is anybody touring India right now, Mon?' I asked her.

She shrugged, 'I don't know,' she said. 'Let's ask the boys. Neelo!'

His head stuck out, giraffe-like, over the cubicle dividers. 'What?' he asked in a distracted way.

'What's this match on Wednesday? Who's India playing?'

'There's no India match on Wednesday,' he answered. 'Use your brain, Mon, if there was a match, we'd have been deluged with requests for passes by now.'

Hmmm, valid point. So what was Zahid up to?

I called him, but got his voicemail.

I hung up without leaving a message. And then decided to call Lokey.

'Joya!' went Lokey. 'Joyaji!
Arrey aap toh bade aadmi ban gaye ho!
How are you, madam Lucky Charm?'

'I'm fine, Lokey, listen...'

'If you want an agent, give me a ring! I'll get you a contract from Mohun's Cornflakes.' His voice went all announcer-like suddenly, 'Breakfast with Joya. Victory guaranteed! Get Set Jo!' He chuckled fatly, '
Aisa kuchh
, you know.'

'Ha ha,' I laughed weakly. 'Lokey, listen, what is this match day after at the Kotla?'

'Parson?'
He thought for a bit, then went, '
Arrey, voh
IPL
ka
exhibition
match hai
- for thee flood victims, you know. Champions Mumbai Indians are playing runners-up Kings XI Punjab
.'

He kept talking after that, going on about how I could endorse Natraj HB pencils too ('best of luck for your exams') but I wasn't really listening. I was thinking of that Raghav guy on NDTV going
Go Indians
(he'd meant the Mumbai Indians obviously), and Zahid, that snake, they called him the Sangrur Express, which made him Punjabi, right? No prizes for figuring that one out. In a moment of total revelation, I could see into both their minds clearly. Zahid was planning to get kissed on both cheeks by me, make a double hat-trick or something, win the exhibition match and pressurize Khoda into making me the national
animal
or whatever of Indian cricket. Khoda (far from wanting me to cheer his side on like I'd naively assumed) was planning to pulverize Zahid's side and discredit me as a lucky charm once and for all.
That's
why he'd said inviting me to the Kotla - to eat with the Kings XI Punjab team, of course - was a great idea.

God, he must really hate me.

Oh, well, the feeling was mutual.

I sat with Eppa in the garden the next morning. My dad and she had been doing a great job keeping the Chacha/Chachis off my case over the last few days. I don't know what they had threatened them with but they'd all given me a lot of space.

Eppa was spraying water on the cannas as I sat there thinking about what a messy situation I was in. It made a lovely soothing sound as it spattered the dark green leaves and a smell of first rain filled the air.

When she'd finished she said, echoing Zoravar really: 'Zoya Moya, everything okay, no?'

Boy, if only she knew. I just shrugged and bent to gather all the freshly fallen harshingar blossoms from the grass, and went: '
Haan
gorgeous,
sab theek hai.
' I handed her the flowers and she went in to say her morning prayers, humming the first lines of a hymn under her breath.

I wandered around feeling unwanted at work. The Maximilk team didn't really know what to make of me with all this stupid press coverage happening. In my super-sensitive state I was convinced that even my pals in the
Zing!
group resented me. Because junior servicing people don't really end up getting talked about on NDTV. Animesh was nice to my face but I was convinced he was moaning behind my back about having a freak like me in his group. I heard that jerk Shiven say that there was no wonder that true love had blossomed between me and Zahid Pathan, because he was a small-town, non-MBA-holding, sports-quota type and his English
sucked;
just like mine, apparently. 'They'll be so matching-matching,' he was saying to the guys in Research and Planning, 'they're from the same SEC, after all! D minus minus!' Then he cackled his stupid, shrill cackle.

I wanted to shove my ballpoint pen up his nose. Instead, I said snootily that I was expecting a call from Barkha Dutt, went into my cabin, and tried to write a new Chocolate Maximilk brief.

Which is when Zahid finally called me. 'Sorry, Zoyaji,' he said breezily. 'Team meetings you know.'

I didn't want to talk to him. I said, as shortly as I could, 'Zahid, you
snake,
I'm not coming to your match.'

He got very upset. He tried to persuade me for a while, and then infuriatingly, just when I was weakening and about to give in, he suddenly caved in, said 'Okay,
'
and hung up, leaving me feeling really KLPDed.

I slammed the phone down, a crushing feeling of anticlimax sweeping over me. My innings as an
important
person, as a national lucky charm, was going to be over before it ever really began.

I sank low into my chair, shook my hair forward so it obscured half my face, kicked my cabin door shut and did this really dumb thing.

I cried.

Bawled my eyes out, if you want to know the truth.

I know, I know. It's really uncool to cry in office. But, hello, I was really messed up.

Firstly, there was this whole Good Luck thing. It was totally seductive. I mean, who wouldn't want to believe that they're special? Maybe God
had
blessed me specially, to make up for my motherless, chubby-cheeked, twice-jilted, not-smart-enough-to-crack-the-CAT status. Maybe I really was a Goddess of the Pitch. I was born at the stroke of the auspicious hour and so my very
pores
breathed propitiousness for men in badly fitting, light-blue, microfibre, cotton-blend tracksuits. Maybe this was my ticket out of the boring, safe, middle-class life I'd lived so far. Maybe this was how I'd become rich and famous, appear on magazine covers, and have lean mean cricketers grovelling at my feet.