The Zoya Factor (24 page)

I was going through the list of movies on the first leg of the flight, when someone passing through to the rear went, 'Zoya?'

It was Vishaal, looking very sporty in white Dockers and a white-and-blue cricket sweater.

'Hey!' I beamed up at him. 'You're going for the World Cup too?'

He nodded, grinning.

'Because of Nike?'

'No, yaar,' he said, looking at the row behind me and waving to Monita. 'Hey Mon,' he said. 'Hey monster! (This to Armaan who frowned at him sleepily.) Because of biscuits. Didn't you notice that large uncouth contingent in Niceday tee shirts who just pushed their way past you?'

'No, actually,' I said, 'but why are you going with them?'

I learnt that Vishaal had worked his ass off on the Niceday Khao, World Cup Jao promotion. It had been insane. Apparently, they'd shot thirty-three short films over three days.

'Balaji, Thind and Harry,' he said, shuddering. 'It was like getting pieces of wood to emote.' Anyway, the films had turned out really well and the contest was a big success, so the client decided that Vishaal deserved a World Cup trip too. 'So, here I am,' he said, 'with the fifty fastest biscuit-eaters in the country for company. But, of course, I don't get to travel in style like you, you lucky little shit!'

He had to go to the back then and join his Niceday gang, who were fully in the mood to cheer. They were chanting, '
Gandhigiri
,
Mohabbat
,
Love to alls
-
our cricket team will break your balls
,' as the plane took off.

Rinku Chachi curled up and went to sleep after the breakfast service and Mon was busy watching cartoons with Armaan. I shifted about in my seat, tucked my blanket in tight and thought of the days ahead, lying back in the semi-darkness and just letting my mind wander.

I'd watched the opening ceremony of the World Cup and a bit of the first match on TV - defending champions Australia against the other home team, New Zealand. The crowd had been massively excited and I had got very nervous looking at the scale of the event. And even though Dad assured me no team had lost in my presence, I was still a bundle of nerves. God, how could Khoda and Zahid and the rest of them handle this level of stress?

I gloomily reflected that Khoda probably handled it by working his way through proudly slavish
toinnngg
babes, Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, Bollywood heroines and chubby lucky charms, the way Armaan was working his way through the packet of airline peanuts behind me...
. Crunch crunch crunch
and then an urgent ringing of the bell, 'Can I get another packet, please, Auntie?'

I had talked to Zahid about my anxiety while we'd been delivering pizza and he had just said, 'Some people say you should try and block out the crowd. Pretend
ki
they are not there. But I don't.
Kyunki
tension can work for you. You can use it to make you play better. If whole-of-the stadium is booing me also, I just think
ki, theek hai
, I will prove all these
behen-ke
-excuse-me-please fools wrong.'

Which was all very well for him to say, but
I'm
not going to be playing,
na
! Just sitting there and praying to God that my luck holds. There was zilch I could do really, except maybe eat a lot more than usual at the breakfast table. And though everybody'd advised me to just relax and have a great holiday and not take this thing too seriously, I was completely stressed about it. I tell you, it's really weird to put on the TV and hear Charu Sharma and Imran Khan discussing the Zoya Factor, like it was something real. Of course, they were kidding around and saying that kidnapping me and asking the IBCC for a fat ransom was a good idea,
ha ha ha,
but it was pretty unnerving.

Anyway, the first India match was a fairly low-profile one, against Zimbabwe, at the Gabba in Brisbane. Our flight was headed there after a stopover in Singapore. The Gold Coast is just a two-hour drive away from Brisbane apparently and is supposed to be this cool place packed with casinos and adventure theme parks. Mon was keen to take Armaan there to ride the roller coasters and stuff, but I was not as keen. My
life
was a roller coaster.

We landed late in the evening. I think it was 7:30 p.m., Aussie time. It was a super-smooth landing and the lights over the city looked really pretty. I grabbed my bag and complimentary Bvlgari toilette set, bade farewell to the flight crew at the door, and stepped off the plane jauntily enough. But then the fact that I was in another country, a First World country chock-full of unilingual white people, suddenly hit me. There would be white people manning the Immigrations desk, I thought wildly. White people driving about on the roads like everybody else. White waiters in the cafes. I would have to
tip
white people! People who knew only one language...which was
weird.
Because, hello, what would they switch to if they started getting pally, or angry, or fell in love? Suddenly, I just wanted to jump back into the plane and head home.

But of course, I couldn't. I took a firm hold of Rinku Chachi's hand - catching our reflection in a mirror just then and realizing that we both looked really short and brown in this sea of white people - and followed the stream of mostly white people through the bewildering corridors to Customs.

There were huge signs with the word 'quarantine' everywhere, warning us to declare any plant or animal extract items or be fined fifty thousand Aussie dollars. There were also big white translites welcoming all the cricket-playing nations to the ICC World Cup 2011. Just like the ones in Dhaka, actually. That made me feel a bit at home, and Rinku Chachi ended up having a long conversation with the Immigrations guys, who were all very cocky as Australia had won the last three World Cups. No other team could boast of such an achievement. The West Indies, however, had come close once, winning the World Cup twice in a row and making it to their third consecutive Final at Lords only to lose to India (on my Happy Birthday), to Kapil Dev's Eleven, in the lowest-scoring final ever.

Even the quarantine guys insisted India didn't have a chance. It seemed as if our team was the underdog of the tournament. Most of the junta didn't even know the names of our players.

Rinku Chachi got really hassled when she realized this and started giving them all a full who's-who lecture on the Indian cricket team but then had to pipe down when the burly quarantine guards and their sniffer dogs discovered a Lakshmi statue in her bags. The burly guards almost fell down and
died
when she told them airily that it was made of mud. We had to hang around for half an hour while they poked it and pried at it and put it through some complicated machines to check for mad cow disease and heaven knows what else. They checked all our bags after that. Armaan got all giggly and incoherent when Rinku Chachi's bags were rummaged through and her frilly undies were pulled out and shaken about. It was all a bit of nightmare. At last they finally repacked our bags and waved us through.

It was a long drive from the airport and the sun was setting over the hilly city of Brisbane. The roads were all uphill and down-dale, almost scarily so, and there was a river with lots of bridges over it. It all looked really idyllic, till the chauffeur told us that the quaint houses on stilts, called Queenslanders, which we were admiring, had massive carpet pythons living inside their roofs.

He also pointed out the Gabba to us as we entered the city area and drove down Stanley Street, one of the largest streets of the city which led on to Vulture Street.

Rinku Chachi got very excited. 'Stanley Street! See, Zoya, on TV they always say
ki
he is bowling from the Stanley Street end or the Vulture Street end!'

I nodded, and I had to admit that the stadium looked like a carnival, all lit up and gleaming like a massive doughnut, festooned with buntings for the match the next day.

At the hotel, the guy at Reception handed me a note from some IBCC sidekick saying they'd be picking me up for breakfast at seven o' clock sharp, so that put an end to any ideas I had of venturing out and discovering the city. I got an instant headache instead, wondering what I'd do if our team lost tomorrow itself.... I couldn't possibly stay on and abuse the Board's hospitality, could I?

Breakfast was strange. The car swung me in to the boys' hotel by seven fifteen and they were all sitting down and eating when Wes's sidekick ushered me in and I entered feeling suddenly over-bright in my patriotic orange tee shirt.

I hunched down into my hair and tried to shuffle in unnoticed but Hairy leapt up, screaming, 'Zoya!' and rushed forward to pump my hand, thus causing everybody to turn and look at me.

I smiled at him and tried to shake hands, but he just leaned down and lifted me off my feet. An extremely undignified little struggle followed where I tried to walk to the table and he tried to carry me, and basically it ended with me sort of stumbling up, breathless, hair everywhere, feeling like a complete clown.

There were several unfamiliar faces around the table, boys who'd joined this squad after tons of shuffling and selecting and politicking. I'd seen it all vaguely in the papers without paying too much attention. Now they all looked at me in polite, but barely masked, astonishment.

I smiled back at them brightly, recognizing Laakhi's friendly face amid the sea of sky-blue with great relief. Next to him was horrible Rawal, the shoe stealer. I think horrible Rawal rolled his eyes as I took a chair, as if he couldn't believe I was there for real, and I instantly started feeling like a total interloper, instead of an 'honoured' guest.

The mood around the table was...intense. The Men in Blue weren't exactly grim but they seemed withdrawn somehow, even Hairy and Zahid. They weren't laughing half as much as they used to in Dhaka, or even at the IPL benefit match.

Well, this was the World Cup.

Wes was really sweet though. He walked up and waved a yucky Iodex-y looking bottle in my face, and went enthusiastically, 'Here, have some Vegemite, Zoya! It'll put hair on your chest!'

'Thank you,' I said politely, eager to blend in, and started spreading the yucky dark-brown goo onto my toast. Then, trying for a casual tone, I asked him offhandedly, 'Where's Nikhil?'

'Here,' a deep voice said behind me and I spun around in my chair to see his lean, dark face smiling lazily down at me.

'Oh, hi,' I said inadequately, face fully hot, mortified that he'd overheard me asking about him.

'Hey,' he said, his brown eyes warm as they lingered or mine. Then, very casually, he leaned over me to grab a toast from the rack. The collar of his two-buttons-opened, freshly printed India tee shirt brushed the top of my hair. He smelt like new newspaper mixed with a nice smell of soap.

It was the tiniest of physical contacts, but it made my heart zoom. I realized for the first time how totally fixated I had been on this one moment for the last two months.

Still, I covered it up well. I smiled demurely, capped the Vegemite bottle and tucked a lock of hair unnecessarily behind my ear. Khoda, chewing on dry toast, walked around and dropped down between Wes and Laakhi, and then they all left me pretty much to my own devices.

I took a bite of my toast, my heartbeat slowing down to something vaguely approaching normal.

Oh my God, this Vegemite stuff was absolutely foul!

'It's an acquired taste,' Wes said, laughing at my appalled expression. But I just sat there with my mouth full of the awful goo, too scared to chew.

The others started laughing too, even Nikhil, and suddenly, I was sure it had been their little scheme to shut me up, which was mean of them because I hadn't planned on talking much, anyway.

I swallowed it down somehow, chucked the rest of the toast, and then quietly ate some fruit, feeling totally unwelcome while they talked around me.

A nice, pony-tailed waiter had just asked me if I'd care for coffee or passion fruit juice when Khoda stood up and went, 'Come on, boys, let's get on that bus.'

They got up with a general scraping of chairs and chucking down of napkins. There was a little commotion as Navneet Singh hurtled in, very late and had to leave without eating anything. Everyone said goodbye to me a little awkwardly except for Zahid who smiled gorgeously as always and Hairy who doubled back after everyone had left to make a mock-reverential dive for my feet. I hastily tucked my feet under me and waved him away, saying, 'All the best, play well.'

Then I sat back, wondering why I'd done this to myself, and sipped my passion fruit juice.

Yuck.

The passion fruit juice was worse than the Vegemite.