Red Card

by Kautuk Srivastava

  Rishabh’s crust of daytime indifference had finally cracked when he’d heard that coaching was resuming. For the first time in days he’d felt excited. He’d realized again that the world had colour. He’d hummed songs in class, much to the annoyance of Barkha. But as he’d been packing his kitbag the night before training, the dread had returned. He’d recalled the coach’s glowering face, his stony eyes, his shrivelled mouth. I’ll have to say sorry, Rishabh had thought. His own disappointment had been so great that he had forgotten about the disappointments of others. They had swum to the fore now as he’d zipped up his bag and perched on the windowsill.

  His teammates had forgiven him, he knew. They had looked him in the eyes, clapped his back, squeezed his shoulder, ruffled his hair and had variously said, ‘Forget it’, ‘We understand’ and ‘Next time you get a card, make sure you do more damage’. The coach’s mind, however, had remained beyond prediction. None of the boys the coach had let go of had ever returned to the fold. He wasn’t the benevolent sort; less forgive and forget and more retaliate and remember.

  Rishabh hopped off the windowsill. Well, I’ll find out tomorrow, he had said to himself as he’d headed to bed.

  The coach had been reading a newspaper in the shed next to the ground. Rishabh and Puro were the first to arrive. The coach had looked at them over his reading glasses. If he had been happy to see them, he did not show it. Rishabh’s stomach did a somersault. Beside him, Puro cried out, ‘Sir!’

  The coach nodded.

  ‘How are you, sir?’ asked Puro, shaking the coach’s hand.

  ‘First class,’ said Mehfouz.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Rishabh tentatively.

  ‘Morning,’ croaked the coach. The morning chill clung to his voice. In fact, it was so icy that Rishabh felt he needed to wear a sweater just to hear it.

  They had waited for the others to trickle in. Puro had been happily chatting with the coach, his innocence making for easy conversation. Soon more boys wandered in. Rishabh had been surprised to see the junior team had also been called. They bobbed in, chattering, energetic and excitable. Every boy had been greeted with a warmth and cheer that the coach was withholding from him. Rishabh suddenly felt distant from the merry group. He couldn’t join the boisterous banter. He dragged his bag a little away from the assembly and laced up his boots in silence.

  The coach told them to gather around him once they were on the ground. His jaw worked like a piston, his floppy hair wafted on the wind and his eyes bore into his team.

  ‘I know you didn’t want it, but players need to take breaks. It was a difficult tournament, but you know what I’m happy about? You all gave full effort. Maximum. Whatever happened in the final, happened . . .’ The coach’s icy stare glided over Rishabh, who dropped his eyes to his studs. ‘But from our side, we did our best and that is what matters. Trophies matter a little more, but it’s okay. You did well.

  ‘Now, remember, you have to practise so we are the champions next time. Understand? We cannot come second again and again. Otherwise life will just go past you. Understand? You will think, “Arre, there is a lot of time!” and then one day your time will be up. Whistle is blown. Game is over. Understand?’

  The boys hadn’t really understood, but the coach took their perplexed faces to mean yeses and continued. ‘Good. From now on, the junior team will also train in the morning.’ He looked at Joy Chakraborty, the speedy junior captain, and said, ‘I want you players to observe your seniors. Watch what they are doing. Learn. And senior team, you have to help the juniors. Now, start warming up. Purohit, lead the senior team on that side.’ He pointed towards the bus stop end.

  Rishabh had been peeling away with the rest of the seniors, when the coach had called out, ‘Aye, Rishabh! You are not there. You will be with the junior team.’

  Everyone had stopped. A flurry of emotions had flitted across Rishabh’s face: confusion, surprise, incredulity, shock, worry, grovelling and, finally, humiliation.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Don’t waste time. Go with the juniors.’

  Veer Chanchalani, a sixth standard pipsqueak, sniggered at the suggestion.

  ‘Why, sir?’

  ‘You don’t know why? You want me to say in front of everyone?’

  ‘If you don’t want me on the team . . . I’ll leave . . .’

  The coach didn’t answer immediately. His eyes smouldered under their hoods. He uncrossed his arms across his chest and placed them on his hips. Rishabh thought, How much drama this old man does!

  ‘I want you to train with the juniors. If you don’t want to, then you can leave.’

  The coach had come straight to the point. Rishabh’s bluff had been called. The power had never vested in him, and the coach had uncloaked this fundamental flaw in Rishabh’s assessment. It was time for plan B: outright begging.

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry! I just really want to play, and I promise I will make up for my mistakes if you take me back in the team.’

  ‘I don’t trust you in my team. When I trust you, you will play in my team.’

  There was a collective sharp intake of breath from the players. If this were a soap opera, the camera would have cut to their faces: a shocked Rahul, a disagreeing Puro, a smirking Chanchalani. The coach’s statement had hurt Rishabh. He had never prided himself on being the best player on the pitch, but he sure did count himself among the most reliable players. He had never skimped on effort, had always followed orders, he had never even been late to a single training session. His dedication to the game had never been in question, until this moment. It was like Gandhiji being told, ‘You’ll be back in the movement once you prove your love for the nation.’

  ‘Sir, please, I’m really sorry . . .’ Rishabh had sputtered with downcast eyes.

  ‘Sorry? For what? You don’t know only what you did wrong. That is the main problem. When you realize it, then I will accept your sorry. Okay, everybody, debate is over. Chalo, start moving. Come on, come on.’

  The senior team had started moving and buzzing like a beehive as the junior team had bobbed away in the opposite direction. The coach had headed to the shed to get rid of his windcheater. Rishabh had stood alone in the middle of the ground. He’d seen the sympathetic glances from his teammates, and it had enraged him. He’d wanted to punch Rana for thinking he needed pity. He’d felt alone, helpless and embarrassed. He’d cursed under his breath and jogged over to train with the juniors.

  Rishabh felt ridiculous towering over them as they stretched. They twittered around him. He knew what they were talking about but it seemed different. It was like listening to a language he understood but in a dialect he didn’t. He was only four years older than the youngest kid on the team, but in school years they had a gap of a couple of generations. He was most conscious of his age when they spoke about football. The rug rats only spoke about three teams: Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. They never spoke of technique or skill but only about wins and losses. Rishabh was listening to Shubham Chettiyar—a short boy with terrible posture and an annoying habit of stopping his sentences exactly at moments of the highest suspense—talk about the last Chelsea game.

  ‘You should have seen how Drogba scored. Lampard got the ball and . . .’ Shubham blinked and swallowed while everyone waited expectantly. ‘Gave a long pass to him and he . . .’ Rishabh clenched his fist. ‘Took it on his chest like this . . .’ Here Shubham broke the line to demonstrate. He leaned back awkwardly, almost falling over in his recreation. Then he scrunched up his face, received an imaginary ball on his chest and kicked some air into an imaginary goal. Then he wheeled away to celebrate the goal he had scored in his head, doing his best Drogba impression. Rishabh shook his head. What an insult it was to Drogba to have Shubham imitate him.

  ‘But Chelsea are so boring,’ offered Rishabh.

  All heads turned to him. He hadn’t said a word for the longest time, and they had all concluded that he was an uppity senior who thought it beneath him to mingle with
them. They ogled at him now, not knowing what to make of his comment. Finally, a tubby boy spoke up. ‘No, they are not.’

  ‘They only win matches 1–0,’ said Rishabh sagely.

  ‘So what? At least they win matches,’ retorted Chanchalani.

  Rishabh hadn’t known he was capable of hating someone as quickly as he’d begun hating Chanchalani. Everything about him—from his cheeky little face, with his hair combed in a Hitler-style side-parting, to his whiny, high-pitched voice that fluted annoying half-formed opinions—made Rishabh want to lay him down with a swift uppercut. But that day he’d managed to keep control of his right arm, instead choosing to expose the imp’s ignorance.

  ‘What about winning with style? Playing with flair? Look at Arsenal. They were unbeaten for a whole season, and they played beautiful football.’ Rishabh thought he had eviscerated Chanchalani, but he’d thought wrong.

  ‘You’re an ASS-nal fan! Ha ha! And they lost to Chelsea! Stupid, loser ASS-nal!’

  The whole bunch of them exploded with laughter. Anger rose from Rishabh’s stomach like an acidic belch. He wanted to smash Chanchalani’s teeth into his oval face. Their mean-spirited cackling made up his mind for him. How dare these kids bully him? How dare they not respect him for the senior player that he was? He could outrun, outscore and outwit each of these runts without breaking a sweat. And yet they disregarded him to the point of laughing in his face. How low had he fallen?

  I’m done with this stupidity. I don’t deserve to train with these monkeys, he thought. Then he strode over to Chanchalani, lifted him by the front of his shirt and tossed him in a heap on the ground. The laughter stopped abruptly.

  ‘Okay, okay, don’t fight,’ said Joy Chakraborty nervously.

  ‘I’m a Madrid fan, just so you know,’ spat Rishabh in Chanchalani’s ears, who was now on the verge of tears.

  The coach had been putting the senior team through a drill and hadn’t seen the unfair altercation. All he had seen was Chanchalani being hoisted up by his teammates and Rishabh stalking across the ground towards the shed. He hadn’t seen Rishabh at training after that day.

  All of this had happened a week before they were to get their papers. Rishabh’s exit had made things mighty awkward for Puro. He liked his friend well enough and wanted to show solidarity, but he liked football a little better. He was so glad that they had finally cleared the air. He didn’t need another thing to worry about on the day they were getting their exam papers.

  Soon they found out that they were due to get all the papers at once in the lecture right after the lunch break. The news caused anxiety even in the most confident of nerds. For Puro, it was terrifying. He felt like a goat being told when Eid would be celebrated.

  ‘How many of your ships are sinking?’ whispered Puro.

  ‘What?’ asked Rishabh.

  ‘Arre, how many of your eggs are cracked?’

  ‘I have no idea what you are saying.’

  ‘How many baingans in your bharta, dude?’

  Rishabh whirled around. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  Rishabh had picked the worst possible moment to vent his frustration. It was the exact moment when Ramnarayanan Sir had stopped droning on about integers and had turned to the board to demonstrate something remarkably dull, causing a vacuous hush to fall upon the classroom. It was that fragile silence that Rishabh’s irritable voice had pierced.

  All eyes turned to him. ‘Fuck,’ hissed Rishabh. It was a whisper but was heard even clearer than the previous interjection.

  Mr Ramnarayanan gaped at Rishabh. The three lines of sandalwood paste on his forehead turned into exclamation marks.

  ‘Rishabh, what is this behaviour?’ demanded the portly maths teacher at long last.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ mumbled Rishabh.

  ‘I did not hear that. Please say it louder than your abuses,’ said Ramnarayanan Sir.

  ‘Sorry, sir!’ yelled Rishabh.

  ‘May we all know what made you use such beautiful, dare I say, poetic language?’ interrogated Ramnarayanan Sir with smug sarcasm.

  Rishabh heard some of the boys sniggering at the back of the class. ‘Nothing, sir. I was talking to Purohit—I mean Abhay.’

  ‘Talking to Abhay Purohit,’ repeated Ramnarayanan Sir, drawing himself up to his full height. ‘Once you see your paper, no, you will stop talking only.’

  Rishabh’s heart rate picked up. His palms turned sweaty. He had been most worried about his maths result, and the relish in Ramnarayanan’s voice sounded ominous.

  ‘And, Abhay, I feel bad for you, haan. I wish I could give you marks for talking in class. At least then you would get something.’

  With that, Ramnarayanan Sir turned to face the board with a chuckle and continued his calculations.

  ‘Arre, I was asking how many papers you’re failing,’ whispered Puro.

  Rishabh turned around and glowered at Puro, who bit his tongue in regret.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Puro. He shook his head and returned to finishing his masterpiece: a doodle of Pamela Anderson.

  The lunch break in the tenth standard corridor was a sombre affair. The anxious chattering of teeth replaced the usual scampering of feet. When the bell rang, the standard collectively gasped. The hour of reckoning had arrived. They dived into their classrooms and cowered at their desks. Time slowed to a crawl as they waited.

  Then they heard the footsteps. The teachers made their way through the corridor like a death squad. Their slippers slapped against the floor ominously as they stalked towards them with bundles of papers in their arms. They entered their classrooms. Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud went the papers in synchrony as the teachers dropped them on the desk.

  Kaul Miss leaned over with a mischievous smile spread across her face. ‘Come roll-number-wise and take your papers. If you want to cry, go to the toilet. I want no noise in this classroom.’

  Aabhas Acharekar was the first to the slaughter. All eyes were trained on his oblong face. He picked up his eight papers, his expression changing from hopeful to astonished to dismayed to horrified before finally settling on resignation. As he made his way back to his seat, the rows on either side whispered, ‘How much did you get?’ He swatted the inquiries aside with irritation.

  ‘ABHAY! Come fast!’ yelled Kaul Miss.

  ‘All the best!’ called Rishabh as Purohit shot past him.

  Purohit’s shoulders drooped as he reached the teacher’s desk. He scooped up his papers in a hurry. When he turned around, he widened his eyes and pulled back his lips in mock horror. The class laughed on cue. Rishabh knew he was doing his best to make light of the situation, but the results sure had rattled him too.

  ‘All my buffaloes are in the water,’ admitted Puro.

  Rishabh glanced at the open chemistry paper on Puro’s desk. It was a bloodbath. The entire script was marked in red. Pillai Miss had written more in the answer sheet than Puro had.

  ‘This is not good,’ muttered Puro, shuffling through the papers and assessing his marks. He hadn’t passed a single subject. His father’s face swam in front of his eyes, and he let out a low moan.

  Rishabh now waited for his turn, tapping his foot violently. At this point, simply passing all his papers would be an achievement. His stomach flip-flopped like a fish pulled out of water. Finally, Kaul Miss called out his name.

  He took a deep breath and stood up as Purohit patted him on the back. He strode forward, right foot first. It was silly of him to be superstitious, but he sincerely believed that his actions could still influence the results. That the marks were in a state of flux until his eyes fell on them.

  ‘You must work harder, Rishabh,’ said Kaul Miss in a low voice. He looked at her sharply. She pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘I expected more from you.’ With shaky hands, he snatched his eight papers and bolted.

  It was a disaster. He hadn’t failed, but he had done the next best thing: he had passed maths, physics and chemistry on grace marks. His English marks were the biggest surp
rise. His confidence in the subject was not reflected in the 61 marks he scored in it. But it was the snide remark at the end that enraged him:

  Keep answers brief. Use fewer big words.

  ‘Bloody Bobde!’ spat Rishabh. He couldn’t believe an English teacher was asking a student to use less English. Then he noticed the second remark:

  -5 for poor handwriting

  Ironically, this was written in handwriting so atrocious that it could only be justified if Bobde had written it with her left hand in the middle of an earthquake while suffering a stroke.

  ‘She hates me,’ whispered Rishabh. ‘Bitch.’

  ‘Rishabh!’ Barkha exclaimed and immediately slapped him on the arm.

  ‘Ow! Sorry,’ said Rishabh, massaging the stinging spot. ‘How many subjects did you top?’ He sounded bitter.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Barkha.

  Rishabh leaned over and snatched the papers from her desk.

  ‘RISHABH! Give them back!’ shouted Barkha, clawing at him. Her reaching fingers pattered against his arm.

  ‘Holy moly! 89, 92, 90—you got a bloody 90 in bio?’ exclaimed Rishabh.

  ‘It’s soooo bad!’ moaned Barkha.

  ‘I don’t know what your definition of bad is, Barkha.’ He handed the papers back to her.

  ‘How are yours?’ she asked, mostly out of courtesy, and she regretted asking almost immediately. To her relief, Rishabh brushed it aside with a smile.

  ‘Superb!’ said Rishabh. ‘My father always wanted me to get 37 in maths. And this 42 in physics was my mother’s dream.’

  Barkha laughed. It wasn’t one of those giggly, girly laughs. It was the full-throated barking of unselfconscious glee. It was probably the way the light fell on her, but for the first time Rishabh noticed how pearly white and perfectly enamelled Barkha’s teeth were. Look at those two in the front, he mused, they’re like pearls in an oyster. Not that he thought her face was an oyster. On the contrary, he found it rather appealing. Her clear, pimple-free skin (a rarity in their classroom) and neat bob caused his pupils to dilate. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed these things ever before.