The Zoya Factor (47 page)

She laughed and said, 'England. Obviously!'

Vishaal laughed too and introduced me. 'Zoya, this is Gabrielle. Gabrielle, Zoya.'

I shook hands with Gabrielle politely.

'So who's your favourite player, Gabby?' asked Vishaal. Gabby wrinkled her brow. 'Him,' she said reverentially, pointing to one of the Brit openers, playing without a helmet, so that we could all see his bizarre skunk-like hairdo.

'Oh, him,' Vishaal nodded unenthusiastically, adding very casually, 'Are you here with friends?'

She shook her head, tucking a stray wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. 'No, no, I'm all alone,' she said.

'Not any more,' Vishaal said gallantly and she blushed a delicate rose pink, looking shyly at him from under her lashes.

Great,
I thought miserably,
sab ki
setting
ho rahi hai
. Vishaal and Gabby, Zahid and Ritu, Mon and her hubby. Even Sanks was cosying up with Rinku Chachi. And Armaan was busy teaching little Aman a song. They were hopping up and down the steps nearby and little lisping snatches of
hand-grenades-and-people-with-AIDS
wafted up to me in the gentle breeze.

I watched the English side pile up their total at an un-alarming pace and reread Nikhil's last sms. The words -
All my love, N
- sent such a surge of happiness through me that I felt almost dizzy. He was a mere speck in the distance, a blue blur fielding at short square leg, way down in the middle of the field but they kept showing him on the TV screen every now and then. He was looking all grim and focused, scowling in the sunlight, his eyes scanning the field constantly.

All eyes on thee cupboard,
I thought dreamily.
But tonight I'll have your full attention, Nikhil Khoda.

The match rolled on, slowly and uneventfully. Jay and Beeru tried to liven it up by talking about the celebrity types who'd come to watch it. They pointed out Russell Crowe and the governor of New South Wales and any number of Bollywood stars and sparred at length about who was going to win the five-buck wager.

Thind finally struck in the 14th over, and the stadium exploded with chants of '
Indiya! Indiya!'
One of the openers departed to be replaced by the seriously hot English captain. Gabby stopped talking to Vishaal and started concentrating on the game.

Nikhil gave Vikram Goyal the ball, and the run rate, which was low in any case, now dipped to an all-time low.

'This is Goyal's USP, isn't it, Beeru?' Jay said as the camera followed Vikram's queer, lopsided, run-up down the pitch. 'He doesn't often get wickets, but he sure can bring the scoring to a crashing halt. Handy with the bat too, I believe.'

'Yes, vul, he's very young too, only seventeen, Jay, and he's in a hurry. He's definitely not going to let us miss Zahid Pathan today, that's for sure. And why not? When there's a fire in your belly you'd be a fool to consult a gastro...'

Jay didn't reply and I didn't blame him. I mean what possible answer can you give to a remark like that? The hot-looking English skipper seemed to have Vikram's number though, because he blasted his third delivery away for an awesome six over the covers.

Beeru changed tracks smoothly and shamelessly started talking about how inexperienced Vikram was. 'That ball was looking like an alcoholic, it was so high!' he rhapsodized. 'A clumsy delivery from young Vikram Goyal that was shown absolutely no mercy by the English skipper. And India is sorely missing Zahid Pathan here today at the Sydney Cricket Ground!'

The rest of the over was a total disaster. When it ended England were 93 for 1 in 17 overs and the run rate had jumped to well over five.

Zahid's face had turned ashen. He'd been chatting happily with Ritu, but now he hurried over to me, lifted Armaan onto his lap and settled down right next to me, groping for my hand. 'What?' I snapped at him nastily, moving my hand away.

'Nothing,' he said meekly. 'Cheer, no, for India!'

I turned around to give him a piece of my mind, but he was looking so stricken that I didn't have the heart to do so. I realized that he was in exactly the same boat as I was.

If India lost he, too, was going to think it was all his fault.

'Lots of cricket still to be played yet, Zahid,' I told him comfortingly. 'And why are you looking so sad, anyway? I thought you didn't like Goyal?'

'Zoya, what are you saying?' he said, genuinely hassled. 'He's wearing the blue uniform! We are all in this together.'

Armaan, feeling the tension, had stuck one grubby forefinger into his mouth. 'Are we going to lose again, Zahid?' he asked in a doctor-tell-me-the-worst-I-can-deal-with-it kind of way.

'
Arrey
, of course not,
mere sher!
' Zahid said heartily.

Armaan sighed and turned to his two-year-old brother. 'We're going to lose, Aman.'

'Okay,' Aman said stoically.

The energy levels were definitely low. All round us English supporters were waving their flags, yelling and stamping and taking off their shirts.

Vishaal's Gabrielle was on her feet, whooping every time Balaji's ball rose to make contact with her idol's bat.

It went on like this for what seemed like forever. Their score climbed steadily and the run rate stayed well above five right through the slog overs.

Vishaal passed me to go get a couple of beers for Gabby and himself and mouthed,
I think I'm in love,
as he went past.

I leapt to my feet and followed him. 'Really?'

He turned and grinned. 'Really!
Wham!
It was like a thunderbolt. She's a simple girl from a small Irish town, you know. Very conservative. Educated by the nuns. I mean, look at the way she's dressed, it's way more modest than what even
you've
got on!'

I glanced down at my shorts and ganji and said, 'Yeah, wow, well good for you, Vishaal.'

He grinned, pushing his hair back from his brow boyishly, 'Yeah, true love, finally, huh? You know, suddenly even the Nike film getting bombed doesn't seem so bad...'

I nodded sympathetically. Then Zahid yelled for me and I hurried back to my seat. 'What
is
it, Zahid?' I said testily.

'Concentrate,
Zoya!' he said. 'The game is slipping away from us.'

God alone knows what he expected me to do. I sat down and looked out at the field, trying not to absorb the stress he was radiating. Beeru and Jay were doing some serious analyses:

'England's really intent on taking that trophy home this time, Beeru.'

'Yes, we're definitely seeing some very superior batting today, Jay. India are doing their best, I can't fault them really, but England look all set to end with much more than 300 in their kitty and as the groundsmen said earlier today, the pitch is going to deteriorate towards the evening.'

'So, was putting them in to bat such a good decision on Nick Khoda's part?'

Beeru said Khoda was playing to his team's strengths and that the Indians had chased well right through this World Cup. Then Jay started going on about how Nikhil hadn't lost a single toss right through this tournament, and Beeru corrected him to say that he had actually, twice, and then Jay went on to add, 'Never after breakfasting with Zoya.'

And then they got into that whole damn dreary debate again.

Jay said that if India won today too, then Australia (or South Africa, whoever won the other semi) was going to raise a huge stink about India's voodoo doll, and the unfair advantage of the Zoya Factor.

Beeru told him that it was appalling that an educated man like himself was talking like this, and Jay said that if he (Beeru) was so educated surely he wouldn't mind if Zoya was 'rested' for the final. Beeru started to say something in return but just then Jay said (way too triumphantly for a neutral commentator) '
that looks like a big one, yes it is!'
and as Zahid cursed loudly beside me, we saw Vikram Goyal's delivery soaring way over Nikhil's outflung arms and on through the boundary.

The skunk-haired heart-throb got a standing ovation; he'd definitely arrived at his century in style.

Vishaal, on his return from the snacks counter laden with beers and crisps, looked hassled to see his new English friend Gabrielle jumping in her seat, whooping madly. He slid in next to her, treading over Sanks's toes, grinning a good sportsman-spirit type of grin and started trying to hand her a beer, but she pushed him away and got to her feet. Then, chanting 'God Save the Queen' in a high, unsteady voice, she ripped open her long canvas overcoat to reveal that she was stark naked underneath, and leaping lithely over the railing, sped across the outfield, weaving her way past a startled Laakhi, and headed straight for the skunk-haired opener.

The crowd roared its approval, and a million cameras flashed as she streaked past the Fly Emirates guy and closed in on the skunk-head.

He had his bat up in the air, acknowledging the roar his century had evoked and hadn't quite realized that the crowd wasn't cheering just him any more. As Vishaal's Gabby grabbed his arm and spun him around, his eyes widened in total shock and the next moment she was laying the wettest smooch ever on his sunblock-slathered lips. By the way, she'd pulled off the ultimate matching-matching coup. She was sporting a skunk-style hair-do too, but not on her head....

'The lady seems to be feeling the heat, Beeru,' Jay said suavely as a couple of security guards hot-footed onto the pitch, bearing a big blanket.

'Er...yes,' said Beeru in a stunned sort of voice, sounding shocked to the core of his middle-class mind. But then he rallied valiantly, 'Vul!' he said, sounding more urbane by the second. 'Vul, vul, yes! It's a' - he was obviously trying to think of something super-witty to say, you could practically hear the wheels of his mind whirring - 'it's a display of naked emotion all right,' he proclaimed finally.

Vishaal, of course, had heard none of this. He was still standing exactly where Gabby had left him, his eyes twin pools of regret, clutching her discarded trenchcoat to his broken heart....

They closed at 331 for 6, and the mood amongst the India supporters got pretty grim. Zahid said he'd go sit with the team and insisted I tag along with him. 'Just come and say hi to everyone, Zoya,' he said when I protested that this was against the ICC rules.

We walked out of the main pavilion and down to the dressing rooms. People kept waving to us. It was strange the way everybody in light-blue shirts was looking at me - with a desperate look in their eyes, like they expected me to wave a wand and pull off a miracle or something. I kept my eyes glued to the floor till we entered a long, echoing corridor, hit a big wooden door and Zahid said, with fake heartiness, 'Here we are!'

I could hear a low murmur of conversation from inside and suddenly felt like I couldn't possibly go in. There had to be a limit to this whole stupid charade. I shook my head, 'No way, Zahid,' I said. 'I can't.'

He shoved his hands into the small of my back and tried to propel me forward, the way he had when he'd talked me into bungee jumping. 'C'mon, c'mon.'

But this was way more serious than that.

I pushed him away, turned around and started to hurry back to the main pavilion. He called out my name a couple of times but he didn't follow me. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because the corridor seemed never-ending. I'd just started to panic when I rounded a corner and practically collided into somebody. Pulling back a little, I registered that it was that chubby baby-with-pubic-hair, Vikram Goyal.

'Zoyaji,' he said surprised.

'Uh, hi, Vikram,' I said relieved.
'Kaise ho
?'

He looked at me, a little blankly. Then, of course, I realized it had been a dumb thing to ask; he'd had a terrible first half. The English attack had broken the back of his bowling. How insensitive of me to go
kaise ho?
to him.

I started to say something soothing, but then the blank, bewildered look left his eyes to be replaced by a fully attentive, rather cunning one. 'Please wish me luck,' he said, his just-broken voice wobbling unpleasantly.

'Best of luck,' I said brightly.

He shook his head slowly. 'Not like that,' he said. '
Theek se.
Properly.'

'Best of
luck?'
I ventured, ending the sentence on a high instead of a low, as I edged away from him, hoping a variation in cadence would satisfy him.