‘What’s burl?’ I asked him.
‘Aussie slang, mate,’ Philip laughed. ‘It means give it a try.’
Ish offered to be the wicket keeper, but Fred told him to stay at the slip instead. Ali’s bowling was no match for these state level players. Roger slammed the ball towards the boundary several times. Once the ball came between Philip and me, and we had a tough time catching it.
‘Rattle your dags, mate,’ another fielder shouted at me. No one had to translate ‘hurry up’ to me.
I threw the ball back. What was I doing in the middle of this Australian ground?
As the day progressed, so did my Aussie vocabulary. ‘Onya’ was short for ‘good on you’, which meant well done. An easy ball was a ‘piece of piss’, while a good one ‘packed a wallop’. The mosquitoes were ‘mozzies’, and soft drinks ‘coldies’. When I took a loo break, Philip broke into some more slang. ‘You got to siphon the python, is it?’
It started to get dark.
‘Pack-up time,’ announced Fred though Ali hadn’t batted yet.
Fred raised his eyebrows at a glum Ish in the locker room.
‘I am fine,’ said Ish. Omi and Ali were taking a walk outside the club.
‘Fair dinkum?’
Ish looked up from his wooden stool.
‘He is asking if you are telling the truth,’ I showed off my newfound linguistic skills.
‘When is practice tomorrow, Fred, in English if you can,’ Ish said.
‘You a whinger?’ Fred said.
‘Whinge means…,’ I said as Ish interrupted me.
‘I know what whinge means, can someone please explain the point of calling a batsman from thousands of miles away and not making him bat?’
Fred smiled, ‘Oh, you wanted your little discovery to bat. What for? So he can hit a few sixes. You want the kid to be a show-off from day one?’
‘That’s not what I…’
‘Mate, I see a lot of talent. Every AIS scholarship kid has tickets on himself. If I don’t break their pride, they will stay hoons for the rest of their life. Sportsmen aren’t movie stars, mate. Even though your country treats them like that.’
‘But Fred…’
‘You Indians have good talent, but the training – trust me on that mate.’
‘We are only here for a week,’ Ish sounded helpless.
‘I’ll make the week productive. But today’s lesson was important. If he isn’t humble, he won’t last long,’ Fred said, then looked at his watch. ‘Promised the missus some time. I’m off like a bride’s nightie.’
‘Cheers!’ everyone cried. We clanged our dark brown bottles of XXXX beer, also known as ‘fourex’ stubbies.
‘Hi!’ our server Hazel, too hot to be a waitress, hugged Fred.
‘Oooh…,’ Fred’s students egged him on after she left.
‘No way, mate. The missus won’t tolerate me making eyes at anyone else,’ Fred said. ‘But you guys are single. You must have pretty girls all over you in India.’
Everyone looked at us.
‘We don’t have girlfriends,’ Omi said.
‘Why not? Indian women are hot,’ said Michael, rolling his eyes.
‘Too busy with work,’ I said.
‘Busy? Never heard a bloke too busy to root, mate,’ Roger said.
Everyone laughed. Root meant, well, whatever.
‘Check those honeys out,’ Michael said as four girls walked in.
‘The one in brown, she’s ain’t bad,’ Michael said. ‘NCR 5.’
‘NCR 10,’ Roger said.
‘And the blue one?’ Philip said.
‘She’s NCR 0. Bring it on, man,’ Roger said. Everyone laughed.
‘What’s NCR?’ I asked as there was a whiff of maths in the air.
‘NCR is Number of Cans Required. The amount of beer you need to drink to want to have sex with a girl,’ Fred said.
‘Michael dated an ugly bitch once. He admits it, NCR 40,’ Roger said. Everyone roared with laughter.
‘Here you go, hungry boys,’ Hazel said in a flirtatious tone as she passed the plates.
The Australians mainly ate meat dishes. We had stuck to a pizza as it was the only recognisable choice.
‘You got to do more protein,’ Michael said, his biceps flexing as he ate.
Omi said, ‘I drink two litres of milk everyday.’
Ish sat next to Fred. I could not hear their conversation. However, I saw Ish’s frequent nods. I left the Aussie rooting stories and moved to Ish.
‘If you’re the bowler and you’ve got the ball in your hand, you’re controlling the game. You’ve got to make sure the batsman knows who’s the boss,’ Fred was saying. ‘Same for Ali. He doesn’t just need to hit shots, he needs to show the other team who is the boss.’
‘Right,’ Ish said.
‘My players will eventually figure out new ways to bowl to Ali. A determined mind can counter a gift. A champion has both.’
Ish nodded.
‘Hi Govind!’ Fred had spotted me. ‘Don’t want rooting tips? We are just doing boring coach talk.’
Ish’s chest swelled with pride as Fred had called him equal in role.
I remembered something. ‘You mentioned a scholarship yesterday. What’s that? In fact, how does the whole sports thing work in Australia.’
‘You want to know why Australia always wins?’
‘It doesn’t always win,’ Ish said.
‘Not always, thank goodness. We love to dominate opponents, but also love a fight. When there’s a challenge, it brings out the best.’
‘Yeah, even if not every time, Australia does win a lot. Every Olympics, there is pile of medals for Australia. In cricket, the domination continues. How come, Fred?’ I said.
‘Plenty of reasons, mate. But it wasn’t always like this.’ Fred sipped his sparkling water. ‘In fact, in the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal, Australia didn’t win a single medal.’
‘But you guys did well last year,’ Ish said.
‘Yes, in Sydney 2000. Australia won 56 medals, only after USA, Russia and China. All these countries have ten times as many people.’ He paused. ‘Aussies saw the Montreal fiasco as a national shame. So the government set up the Australian Institute of Sports or the AIS and initiated the world’s best scholarship programme.’
Fred finished his glass of water and continued:
‘And today the AIS has hundreds of staff – coaches, doctors and physios. They get two hundred million dollars of funding and have excellent facilities. And at the heart of it all, they offer seven hundred scholarships a year.’ Fred pushed the spaghetti plate towards me.
I listened as I struggled with the ribbon-like pasta. I calculated how seven hundred scholarships for twenty million people would equate to for India. That was the equivalent of thirty-five thousand sports scholarships a year for India to match the ratio.
‘What’s the scholarship? Money?’ Ish wanted to know.
‘Not just money, mate. It is full on. Expert coaching, accommodation, travel to tournaments, sports science, medicine – you name it. And the best part is to be part of that community, where everyone has a singular commitment to their sport. I can’t describe that feeling,’ Fred said, as his eyes lit up.
‘I know the feeling,’ Ish said. Even though Ish’s eyes aren’t blue, they shone as bright.
The waiters cleared our plates as we finished our food.
‘Any famous players from this scholarship programme?’
‘Heaps. Michael Bevan, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne…’
‘What are you talking about? These are all cricketing legends,’ Ish said.
‘Legends – that’s a good word,’ Fred laughed. ‘Hope I get there someday.’
‘You have a scholarship, too?’ I said.
Fred nodded.
‘You are already a legend, Fred,’ Ish said.
‘Nah, I’m starting out. And let me tell you boys, the w
hole legend bit is far-fetched. You take a bit of talent and mould it properly, and good stuff happens. In that sense, Australia can create legends.’
‘And we can’t,’ Ish asked.
‘Well you could, though right now you rely on talent more than training. You have a big population, a tiny number of them are born excellent. Like Tendulkar, or may be like Ali.’
‘Yeah, but,’ Ish boxed his left palm with his right, ‘imagine what would happen if we could have this kind of training in India.’
‘Cricket would be finished. India would dominate and teams like us would be nowhere. At least for now we can call ourselves ‘‘legend’’.’ Fred hooked his fingers around the last word.
Ali did bat the following days. Every bowler went through the shock of being slammed for sixes. However, Ali kept the showbiz low and played a steady game. He crossed fifty runs in a couple of innings. On Friday morning Ali hit the ball for a defensive shot. The ball didn’t go far. Ali decided to stay at the crease.
‘Run, it is a single,’ Ish urged from the boundary line.
‘Run Ali,’ Ish said again. Ali looked surprised at the instruction but ran.
‘Faster,’ Ish screamed, ‘don’t sleep.’
Ali ran faster as the fielder returned the ball to the bowler.
‘Jump,’ Ish said. Ali dived. He made the crease but fell with his full body weight coming down on his left ankle. As everyone rushed towards him, he lay on the ground clenching his teeth and holding back tears.
‘Oh, get up. No time for drama,’ Ish said.
‘Easy, mate,’ Fred said to Ish and signalled for a physio. Within minutes, a paramedic arrived and placed an ice pack on Ali’s swollen ankle.
‘Lucky it is not a fracture or dislocation. Looks like a ligament got some wear, mate,’ the physio said, applying painkillers and wrapping a crepe bandage. Ali leaned on the physio as he tried to hobble. ‘Give the game a rest for two days. You’ll be fine.’
‘Don’t worry, he’ll play in a few hours,’ Ish said with a sheepish expression. Guilt bubbled up his eyes.
‘Everyone,’ Fred clapped his hands, ‘let’s sit down.’
We sat down on the pitch around Fred in a circle.
‘You are big boys and tough players. You want to give it your all. But I can’t emphasise it enough – respect your body’s limits.’
‘I do,’ Ish said, feeling compelled to speak, ‘but there was a single there. And that is what we Indians miss. We don’t want to dive. We don’t want to take risks.’
‘The game is not about being macho. You can’t get caught up in the moment so much that you forget.’
‘Forget what?’ I said.
‘Forget that you got one fragile body. Lose it, and you are gone. You must safeguard it. And Ish, you must protect your student.’
Ish hung his head low.
‘I had just started my career when my nasty back almost finished it,’ Fred said. ‘I’d have been selling suits at a store for the rest of my life, as that is the only job I could get.’
He added, ‘I made the same mistakes, wanting to kill myself for the game I played that day. But if you want a career, think long term. Yes, passion is important. But the head has to be clear during the match.’
Ish apologised to Fred later in the locker room. ‘I’d never let Ali get hurt.’
‘The kid is good. I have a little surprise for him. You leave Sunday evening, right?’
‘Yes, in two days,’ Ish said. ‘Can’t believe the week went by so fast.’
‘Sunday breakfast is on me. I want you guys to meet someone important.’
Bondi beach is so beautiful that it needs a coffee table book of its own. First, the sky. The Australian sky is a different colour from India. It actually looks the same as the sky blue colour in paint shops and is so crisp that your eyes hurt. There is no pollution. The sea is visible for miles. At the shore, the Pacific Ocean meets the powdery sand to create perfect waves. They are strong enough to surf on, yet soft enough to make you relax.
But that summer, the nicest part about the beach was its people – those who were not men. That is, those who were women. Gorgeous and topless. And if you’ve never seen a topless woman in your life before, places like this did things to you.
‘There must be a hundred women here,’ Ish whistled. ‘And each one a knockout!’
It was true. It was like all the beautiful women in the world emailed each other and decided to meet at Bondi.
‘You want an umbrella?’ I said as we parked ourselves at a scenic spot. Six topless women played Frisbee there.
‘Wow, you can actually see their ni … wow,’ Omi pointed out helpfully.
‘There are a hundred women here. So we have two hundred breasts to look at,’ I said and was teased for bringing maths everywhere.
Having grown up in a place where sleeveless blouses cause scandals, tops-off is what an MBA type would call a ‘paradigm shift’.
‘I could not play with them. I’d never look at the Frisbee,’ Ish said.
‘Check that blonde one, wow, she is massive,’ I said. Oh well, when in Disneyland, play.
‘This is what heaven must look like. My eyes are tired from not blinking,’ Omi said.
It is funny but the bare-breasts became routine in a few minutes. I guess you get used to good things fast. I’d much prefer to see one topless woman every day for hundred days, rather than a hundred at once. I sat down on the sand. Ish and Omi soon went for a swim in the sea and to see if wet and topless women looked even hotter wet. Yes, we are a sick bunch.
I noticed a brunette in an umbrella next to me. She wore a shirt on top of her bikini and had her back to me. Her long black hair fell over her thin back. She applied something in her hair, probably oil or lotion or any such thing that girls feel is essential to their existence.
Something hurt inside me. I felt like someone pounded my chest. The brunette rubbed her hair exactly like Vidya. I saw Omi and Ish splashing in the water at a distance. They laughed as they pushed each other down.
Random thoughts circulated in my head, like oiled fingers in hair. Wouldn’t it be nice if Vidya was here? Isn’t this what she longed for most? Freedom above all else? Didn’t she have the Bondi spirit, even though I’d have killed her if she walked around in a bikini. Wait a minute, I’d kill her or her brother Ish would kill her? Why should I care? But I did say I would kill her? And why am I thinking of her when there are so many beautiful topless women to distract me right now? And why do I think of her every night before I go to bed? And why does my mind not stop asking stupid questions?
If you began to miss a girl thousands of miles away even with naked breasts around you, something is seriously wrong. I opened my notebook that I carried everywhere. I wanted to make a budget for the next three months. I found a long strand of hair. It didn’t belong to Ish or Omi or me. Only one person that I knew had long hair. The notebook I had opened to forget her made me miss her even more.
Omi came running to me. Water dripped from him and fell on my legs. I closed my book.
‘The water is amazing. C’mon inside,’ he said, catching his breath.
‘No, I have work. I have to make a call,’ I said.
‘Call who?’
‘Suppliers,’ I said without making eye contact.
‘From here? Isn’t it expensive?’
‘Short call, need some coins,’ I said as I collected the change.
‘You are working on Bondi? Whatever, I am diving in again,’ Omi said and ran back to the sea.
I collected my belongings and walked back to the beach shopping area. I found a public phone.
I dialled her number.
Fourteen
The phone rang twice. I disconnected it. I thought about leaving the booth. I re-inserted the coins and dialled again.
‘Hello? Ishaan bhaiya?’ Vidya said as she picked up the phone.
The phone gobbled two dollars worth of coins.
I cut the phone again. Fuck, what
the hell was I doing?
I called again with fresh coins. She picked up instantly.
‘Bhaiya, can you hear me?’
I did the cheesiest thing possible. I just breathed. I must have come across as a pervert, but I could not find anything better to say.
‘Govind?’ she said, her voice careful.
Had she guessed my breath? What is with this kid?
‘Hi,’ I said. I could not contain myself any longer.
‘Govind, wow. I saw the international number. So, tell me?’
Of all the phrases ever said on the phone, I hate ‘tell me’ the most. Do I have to tell something just because I have called?
‘Well, I…’
‘How is Australia? Having fun? Tell me?’
I could kill her if she said tell me again. But maybe I should just tell her something, I thought.
‘Yes, it is nice. You will like this place,’ I said.
‘Which place? Tell more no? Where are you now?’
‘Bondi beach. It is beautiful. Such a perfect place,’ I said. Of course, I gave stupid descriptions. But you try to call a girl you are not supposed to call for the first time.
To add to the nervousness, the phone consumed coins at a ferocious pace. I kept adding more change as the damn phone ate a dollar every thirty seconds.
‘Wow. I have never seen a real beach in my life. How is it? Does the water never end? Can you keep looking until forever?’
‘Yeah, and the sky is endless too.’ Duh! Say something more than borrowing from her phrases.
‘Where are Ish and Omi?’
‘They are in the water. I am in a booth,’ I said.
She asked the one question I did not want her to ask.
‘So, how come you called?’
‘Oh nothing. How is the preparation going? Integration is quite important you know.’
‘You called about integration?’
‘Well, and other…’
‘Do you miss me?’
‘Vidya.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t ask silly questions.’
‘I miss you. A lot actually,’ she said. Her voice became heavy.
‘Ok, that’s well, that’s … wow,’ I said, champion of nonsensical, monosyllabic responses.