The Zoya Factor (26 page)

We watched as Khoda hooked the ball away and headed smoothly down the pitch.

Shanta made a small, satisfied noise and sat back. 'He needn't bother,' she said, 'that's four runs for sure.'

I looked at her curiously. 'Is he really such a good player?' I asked, as neutrally as I could.

She looked away from the screen and back at me. The Niceday guys were screaming
'Chauka!'
in the background so she had to raise her voice to be heard. 'The best,' she said. 'He's finally about to come into his own. This World Cup is crucial for him.
And
he's a nice guy.'

Meanwhile, Hharviinder Singh was blissfully slamming the ball right around the stadium. Khoda was giving him 'solid support' according to the commentators.

I finally allowed myself to relax and when Shanta went off to join her press buddies, I pulled out my own phone and scrolled down to the message Khoda had sent me this morning. Yes! There it was - I hadn't imagined it. Just looking at it made me feel a little dizzy.
Relax, we'll cream them.
Well, that part of it was coming true right in front of my eyes, but what about the really interesting nextbit?
Meet me later?
What did that mean? Did I have a date with him? A Friday night out with Captain Coldheart? And what about the best bit right at the end?
Love N.

Not just plain
N.
Or,
See ya N
. Or,
Cheers N
.

Love N
.

Okay, Mon's told me that in Bollywood
everybody
ends all their text messages with 'love
'
followed by their initials, even the GET messages they send to their phone company when they want to check their missed calls, but Nikhil wasn't from Bollywood! So
Love N
must have meant something, don't you think?

Mon and Armaan came back and sat down next to me so I put my phone away hastily. I felt weird around Mon, since she'd got it into her head that she was my 'chaperone'. Strangely, she spooked me out more than Rinku Chachi did. I decided to venture out of the plush VIP box and see what life was like in the rest of the stadium.

I was halfway out when a hot little hand grasped mine and I looked down to see Armaan trotting beside me. 'I have to go to bathroom,' he said. 'Take me.'

So I took him to the girl's loo, hauled off his shorts and Spiderman chaddis and plonked him on the pot. He looked very confused and asked me, 'Should I make?'

'Sure,' I told him. 'Go ahead, make.'

And that's how I ended up getting thoroughly splashed with susu at the Gabba, in Brisbane, Australia.

Armaan was more mortified than me. 'You only told me to make, Zoya,' he said tearfully as I rinsed my ganji and dried it under the hand-dryer.

'I know, baba,' I told him resignedly. 'I'm sorry, I forgot boys don't sit down and make. Don't worry, and don't look at me till I put on my shirt!'

The score had moved considerably by the time we emerged. I bought Armaan a drink with 'Woolloongabba' inscribed around it and we took a little walk.

'Hey, Zoya!' someone yelled. It was Vishaal, sitting amongst his contingent of biscuit-munchers. 'Come sit with us!' he yelled, putting out one arm for us to grasp.

So we jumped up and sat with them. A happy-looking pot-bellied sanitation engineer from Gajraula, UP, smeared tiranga face paint on Armaan's cheeks and offered me some genuine Bikaner bhujia and Old Monk Rum and
Zing!
premix. I handed Armaan the bhujia and took a large swig of the rum. The alcohol burnt my innards and made my eyes water. As I brought the bottle down, spluttering slightly, the stadium exploded. Nikhil had hit a six close to where we were seated and Armaan leapt to catch it and missed and we all rose up in a huge Mexican wave and chanted, '
Nikhil Khoda dat gaya, Zimbabwe ka phat gaya!'

It was awesome.

Things got a bit tense when Hairy finally got out at 85, and Navneet Singh got out for duck right after. But it steadied after that.

Armaan crunched steadily through two packets of bhujia and two of Niceday Jimjams as Nikhil, Saif and some new dude I'd never heard of called M. Mussaffar piled up a total of 310 for India with one last over still to play.

'It's unbelievable!' Vishaal yelled, and all of us leapt up and down cheering: 'India! India!' as some poor hapless Zimbabwe bowler ran up to feed a rampant Khoda another delivery. '310 for 4! Zoya, you've got to come eat with me before I do anything important in my life! Fuck. Where were you when AWB played Grey Worldwide for the Agency Cup, anyway?'

They finally finished off with 321 and then came off the pitch, looking sweaty but happy. Khoda spoke briefly to the anchors, but of course I couldn't hear what was being said, there being no TV in the Niceday enclosure. Then Armaan and I wandered back to our VIP box to find Chachi and Mon totally hysterical with joy at how well India was playing.

There was a really fancy champagne lunch laid out for us VIP types but I was too far gone on the Old Monk to appreciate it. Rinku Chachi loaded her plate with food, and then, finding it all too boiled and bland, kept trying to force it on poor Armaan.

The second half started while we were still eating and we had to scurry back to our seats to watch the Indians fanning out across the stadium into their fielding positions.

They showed Nikhil in close-up on the TV screen, he had the ball in his hand and was chucking it from hand to hand, his eyes narrowed to slits. Then he tossed the ball to Zahid who caught it deftly.

And then Zahid Pathan began that lithe, powerful run-up the girls all loved so much, his copper curls bouncing, and hurled the ball like a bomb at the poor red and green bakra at the other end of the pitch.

It was a massacre.

They were all out for 233, thus losing the psychological edge even for the matches to come, according to the commentator.

The Indians strutted back happily as the sun came down on the Gabba and the crowd cheered lustily. The choice for Man of the Match was obviously going to be Hairy - he'd made 85 runs in the morning, and had taken a couple of vital wickets too, when Khoda had tried something unconventional and given him the ball in the slog overs.

'He's a good captain, this Khoda,' Rinku Chachi said approvingly as we saw him vanish into the doorway directly below us, deep in conversation with the Zimbabwe bowler who'd batted so gamely in the last two overs.
'India toh aaj dat gaya.'

Armaan chimed in happily: '
Zimbabwe ka phat gaya!'

Mon looked at him, totally appalled.

We got back to the hotel in just under half an hour. The organizers had warned us about traffic, but Rinku Chachi said, 'What traffic? This whole country and all its cars will fit in our UP state only.'

As soon as we got back, I had a bath, brushed my teeth, dried my hair and started rummaging in my bags for the jeans and saucy little firoza-blue top I'd decided to wear after a painstaking mental review of my entire wardrobe while pretending to be absorbed in the second innings of the match.

Mon bounced into our room all ready to party at eight o' clock. 'C'mon. Let's go,' she burbled excitedly. 'There's a casino aboard the Kookaburra Queen at eight-thirty. Let's not miss it.'

She was looking really hot in a Goddess-like way, in a black sleeveless dress, her helmet hair clinging to her exquisite cheekbones. She smacked her lips to settle her lipstick, looked me over and nodded approvingly. 'Nice top, Zoya,' she said. 'I've never seen you wear it before.'

I tugged at the plunging halter top, trying to pull it closer to the waistband of my embroidered jeans. 'It's not too nangapanga,
na
?' I asked uneasily.

'No way!' she said, 'it rocks. Besides, you can cover up with your hair if you feel conscious. But you may want to take a wrap along, it could get a bit chilly on the boat.'

'Uh,
actually,
' I told her, a little self-consciously, 'I'm not coming with you guys on the boat.'

Monita had been busy fishing out her phone and cigarettes from her capacious 'mommy' handbag and stuffing them into her skinny 'party' clutch but at this she looked up at me, an arrested gleam in her dark eyes. 'Really?' she enquired. 'So where are you headed? And with whom? Or' - her eyes narrowed - 'is somebody coming here?'

In answer, I smugly held up my phone and showed her the message on it.

She peered down at it short-sightedly and then slowly this huge grin broke across her face. But all she said was, 'Uh huh? And who might "N" be?'

'Naveen Nischol,' I told her sweetly. 'I'm his greatest fan. I'm in love with his pudgy face and flared pants and negligently knotted neckerchief.'

'Okay,' Mon grinned. 'Just make sure
Naveen
pads up before he bats, okay?'

So I sat down on the sofa, with my phone in my hand and waited for Nikhil to call. And waited. And waited.

Of course it would've been perfectly acceptable behaviour for me to call and congratulate him and gently remind him about our date but there was no way I could bring myself to do it. Not on top of that overeager
Where's Nikhil?
I'd come up with this morning.

So I made a deal with myself. If he didn't call by ten I was going to change into my pajamas and order Room Service. Decision made (more or less), I flicked on the TV and started watching the highlights of the day's match.

The two commentators, who'd been on all day, were still going strong, talking to a bunch of people in a live studio. I glowered at the two of them blankly, even as, at the back of my mind, I brooded over the Khoda no-show.

The programme was called '
Jay and Beeru ki Show le!
' - a name that made sense to everybody who hailed from the Indian subcontinent and to nobody else. Jay (Jason Plunkett) was a laconic English ex-captain, very dry and precise, and Beeru (Birendra Singh) was a motor-mouthed Indian ex-opening batsman, with a not very strong grasp of the English language.

Anyway, the Jay and Beeru show was on in full swing. Beeru was going on about how Nivi had not only got out for a duck but had also dropped two catches. 'Vul, all I can say is that Navdeep Singh is a bit of a slacker,' he said, shaking his head from side to side gravely. 'His captain should pull his socks.'

Jay nodded. 'I agree. I was surprised to see Nick Khoda giving the ball to Hharviinder Singh. Bit of a gamble, that was, wasn't it, Beeru?'

Beeru placed his fingers together, frowned broodingly and said, 'Vul, gumballs are like girlfriends, my friend.'

Jay looked at him blankly. 'Sexy?'

Beeru shook his head sombrely. 'Very, very expensive. But Nikhil's paid off today. Of course, Harry can bowl a little bit. He's done it in school and at A-level matches. It's a good strategy because it let them get an extra batsman in. And it did not affect his batting also! Hats off to him, that was a great knock he played today.'

'Well, one batsman who's on his way out of the eleven is Navneet Singh,' Jay said. 'He'll be lucky if Khoda plays him again in Sydney. That was an altogether pathetic performance today.'

Of course I couldn't help thinking at this point that Navneet Singh had missed having breakfast with me this morning. Maybe
that
had something to do with his abysmal show today. Okay, I know what Neelo would say.
You're becoming a victim of your own hype, Zoya.
But really, I was feeling so low and unwanted thanks to Khoda not showing up that I was ready to cling to any straw. If you thought about it, Hairy - my truest acolyte - had been Man of the Match today! So maybe I really was a kind of god-woman after all! I'd worn orange to breakfast today, had big curly hair and was doling out victory to my devotees and ignominious dismissal from the side to disbelievers!

Hah!

It was an intoxicating thought. But I couldn't hold onto it.

The fact that there were eleven matches to go for India in this tournament - that's if we
made
the Super 8 of course - dampened my spirits considerably. What were the odds of our loser team winning them all?

I sighed, ripped open a packet of minibar goodies and wondered if there was anything I could do to make my Luckiness last. I could pray, I suppose, but all of India was praying everyday, anyway. And what about the use-up-all-your-good-luck-on-cricket-and-be-doomed-to-bad-luck-in-your-own-life theory? Nothing was going good in my personal life, was it?

I mean, everybody else was at a floating casino having a blast, and I was overeating in a hotel room, after being urinated on by a five-year-old, waiting for a world-famous person to call me. God, I was such a loser. How much worse was it going to get, anyway? Maybe I was destined to help India win the World Cup and then
die
or something!