Red Card

by Kautuk Srivastava

  She beamed at him, amused by her own cleverness. It was refreshing to see such childlike glee in a woman so old. Besides, Rishabh was simply relieved that she hadn’t caught wind of his super secret love affair.

  ‘No, miss, everything is okay.’

  ‘Good. She’s having a positive effect on you.’

  She beamed harder. Rishabh stared at her, mouth agape. Their cover had been blown! He didn’t know where Kaul Miss stood on class romances, so he stood silent, shuffling his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry. If I cared so much, I would have changed your seats a long time ago.’

  Rishabh stepped closer to the desk. ‘Miss . . . how did you find out? Did someone tell you? Was it Purohit?’

  Kaul Miss laughed. She had a hearty, boisterous laugh that drew the attention of the entire classroom. She glared at the rest of them and said, ‘You people eat your food. Do your work.’ Then she rested her chin on her downturned palm and looked up at Rishabh with ancient, twinkling eyes.

  ‘I have been teaching for two decades. I’ve seen countless children pass through this classroom. Each batch as filled to the brim with hormones as the last one. I see them fall in love. I see them stare at each other from across the classroom. The boys are more obvious, the girls are more cunning. And they all have one thing in common—they think that us teachers are either blind or stupid. They think we will never find out. The two of you are always red like tomatoes. It’s hard to miss that colour.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You are not as smart as you think. Kaul Miss is an old fox, remember that. She was here before you came and she will be here long after you are gone. You remember that.’

  ‘I will, miss.’

  ‘And I like that girl. Good monitors are rare to find. You treat her well, otherwise . . .’ She wagged a mock-threatening finger at him.

  Rishabh blushed and nodded.

  ‘And cut down on this football business. It’s too late in the year for silly games.’

  ‘Now you’re asking for too much, miss,’ said Rishabh, grinning,

  ‘Uffo . . .’ Kaul Miss sighed tiredly. ‘Every batch listens to Kaul Miss less and less.’

  The most surprising reaction came from his teammates. He broke the news to them as they were warming up for training one chilly morning. As soon as they heard that he was dating Barkha, they burst into a chirping that out-chirped the seventeen mynahs that were pecking at the earth a short distance away. Rishabh probably imagined this, but he thought the mynahs looked annoyed at the racket they were making. Up until then, he had assumed that a bunch of footballers that prided themselves for being tough young men wouldn’t revel in gossiping. But seeing their eager eyes and hearing their prying questions made him revise his opinion.

  ‘When did this happen?’ quizzed Tejas.

  ‘More importantly, why did this happen?’ asked Bhupinder, who instantly disliked anyone whose GPA was higher than 3 (Barkha’s was a 4 point something). Bhupinder felt that scholars were part of the establishment. They were bland ‘sell-out’s who had bought into the academic system and were not to be trusted. Few knew it then, but he was showing all the makings of the first-class hipster that he would eventually become.

  ‘She’s really nice once you get to know her,’ said Rishabh defensively.

  Purohit snorted. He continued to stretch with a distant look of deep dissatisfaction stamped on his face. Puro’s reaction was typical of the person whose best friend had suddenly acquired a girlfriend. Rishabh seemed totally absorbed in her. He’d stopped loitering down the corridors with Puro in the lunch break, choosing instead to sit and chat with that girl. After school, too, he’d go off with Barkha, and Puro rode the bus back alone. When they spoke, they talked off superficialities—studies, training, match scores. Rishabh would keep the marrow of his thoughts and feelings for Barkha. He now found it easier—and more exciting—to talk to her. Her sympathetic cooing and thoughtful inputs towards even his most inane revelations enthralled him. This was usually the case when young boys first had a deep conversation with a girl. They suddenly realized the callousness of boyish conversation.

  For the first time in his life, Rishabh was made aware of aspects of life like emotion, affection, empathy and understanding. For once, he could be vulnerable about his hopes and fears, his insecurities and afflictions. Discovering this was new and thrilling, and he found himself spending more and more time glued to Barkha at school. But he hadn’t stopped to think about the toll this was taking on his best friend. He’d assumed Puro would understand that things had changed, but Puro didn’t. He simply missed his friend and wished he could say as much.

  ‘Arre! It’s unbelievable!’ Rahul whistled.

  ‘What? That I would ask her out?’

  ‘No! That she would say yes.’

  Rishabh flung a pebble at Rahul, who dodged it.

  ‘How long before they break up?’ Sumit asked of the boys.

  ‘Why would we break up?’

  Sumit laughed a grim one. ‘Come on. You both are too different.’

  ‘But opposites attract,’ argued Rishabh. ‘Don’t they?’

  ‘Yes. But similar sticks together.’ It was the coach.

  The team quit bantering and snapped into warm-up positions in record time. The coach shook his head.

  ‘So who’s the lucky man?’ he asked.

  Everyone unanimously pointed at Rishabh. The coach clapped his hands. ‘Of course it’s Rishabh Bala. Persistence paid off?’

  ‘Er, not exactly, sir. It’s not the same gir—’

  But the coach carried on. ‘Good timing also, haan. Team, come closer. Juniors, keep stretching.’

  The senior team swarmed around the Mongoose. Rishabh still felt an electric buzz of happiness over being part of this hive again. He liked his juniors well enough now, but he would never want to be banished ever again.

  The coach spread his arms out. ‘Are you boys ready to play?’

  The team declared that they were indeed ready.

  ‘Good. Because the next tournament is in December. It’s a big one. You know where it is being held?’ He took a dramatic pause, leaned in, curled his lips and growled, ‘Kamani Krida Public School!’

  Spontaneous whoops and jeers of varying degrees of aggression erupted from the boys, drawing the judgement of the mynahs once more. On their first day of training after the MES debacle, the coach had told them to train with sincerity because another tournament was around the corner. He had promised to supply more details soon.

  ‘This is the one I was talking about. We have one full month to prepare. It’s time for revenge. What say, Rishabh?’

  Rishabh shook his head. ‘Sir, I’m not dating that girl,’ he said diffidently.

  ‘Oh,’ said the coach, ‘you found another girl?’ His features hardened. ‘How many girls will you fall in love with? You’re falling in love or buying onions?’

  The players laughed. The coach flashed an impish grin. ‘You’ll date all the girls or you’ll leave some for them also?’

  ‘Sir, please, yaar . . .’

  The coach put an arm around him and, in an instant, gripped his head in a lock. ‘Aye, you date any girl you want. Date the teachers also, but—’

  Savage oohs and aahs escaped the boys at the mention of dating teachers. If a collective thought bubble were placed over the heads in that congregation, then only the face of Avantika Miss would occupy it.

  ‘. . . you owe the team a victory. You will pay your debt?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ squealed Rishabh. He was in such close proximity to the coach’s armpit that he finally figured out how the coach managed to wear the same blue tracksuit every day. The trick was that he didn’t wash it.

  ‘What is this choo-choo you are doing like a mouse? Say clearly. You will score the winning goal?’

  ‘YES, SIR!’ he squawked.

  ‘Rest of you?’

  ‘YES, SIR,’ came the chorus.

  The mynahs took flight but not before shaking their t
iny heads at the barbarians they shared the ground with.

  Kamani Krida Public School was like chewing gum that had got stuck to the sole of Rishabh’s life. There was no ridding himself of their sticky presence. No matter how much time passed, Sanghvi was fated to duel Kamani Krida as if they were two arch-enemies: Real Madrid and Barcelona, Batman and the Joker, Clinic All Clear and Dandruff, Eklavya and Rishabh.

  The more Rishabh thought about this, the less sense it made. How had the universe presented him with this opportunity? He was going to be up against the team that had ruined his year, up against the boy who had made his world bleaker.

  He remembered the fiery eyes of Eklavya Bhamtekara from when they had scuffled outside Oswal’s. His pride had burned in his sockets. Rishabh wanted to extinguish the blaze. He wanted to see Eklavya suffer. There would be nothing more satisfying than watching Eklavya’s insufferable cockiness be confronted with defeat. He wouldn’t know how to react. Like a star dying out, he would implode. Rishabh became consumed by the tournament. A month seemed too long a time to wait.

  He was so motivated that he mused, It’s a pity Kamani Krida isn’t up against us in studies. I would top the board if it meant beating that overage bastard. Trembling with excitement, he paced his room to walk the energy off, but it only fed off his emotions and kept building. He wanted to talk to Barkha. He needed her calm voice to soothe his rattling spirit.

  Calling Barkha was quite a task because of their strict no-calls-at-home policy. He first called Tej, who in turn called Riya, who rang up Barkha and told her to stay near the phone. Riya then relayed the message to Tej, who passed it on to Rishabh, who finally dialled Barkha’s number. It was a ten-minute ordeal but well worth the wait, because when she answered the phone, he felt like a Labrador whose master had come home.

  ‘Hullo! Barkha! Thank God you answered.’

  ‘Rishabh? What happened?’

  ‘It’s going to happen. I can’t wait for it to happen!’

  ‘Is this about that football match?’

  ‘It’s not a football match. It’s a tournament.’

  ‘Yes.’ One of the consolations of being on the phone was that Barkha could freely roll her eyes at his boyish touchiness.

  ‘Can you believe that it’s happening at Kamani Krida? How is that possible?’

  ‘There are only four major schools in Thane. KKPS is one of them, Rishabh. I can see it being very possible.’

  This was the trouble with dating toppers. They could never see the miracles of the world without ruining them with logic and common sense.

  ‘Noooo,’ moaned Rishabh, ‘it’s karma. That’s what it is. They cheated against us. Now they’re going to pay.’

  Barkha laughed. She found it adorable that Rishabh could make even the most random events about himself.

  ‘Is it?’ she humoured him.

  ‘Yup. I’m going to show that fucker Eklavya his place. Thinks he’s better than me because he’s dating my girl. I’m going to destroy him. Just you wait!’

  It was only when he’d finished that the words that had come out of Rishabh’s mouth reached his brain. He winced. There was silence from the other end. He could hear her breathing.

  ‘Barkha? Hello?’ he said. His voice trickled out of him.

  The lack of response cut into his chest.

  ‘Hello?’ he tried again. ‘Barkha, are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s not what you think. I said that out of habit.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Barkha, believe me. You know what happened. I got that card because of that guy.’

  ‘Is this really about the card, Rishabh?’ The hurt in her voice was palpable. The receiver was clammy in his hands.

  ‘Fully, totally, 100 per cent about the card. I don’t care about her. I don’t even care about her!’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Barkha, believe me. It’s not about her. I called you because I’m afraid. I know I seem brave and all, but I’m just scared about letting the team down again. What if I mess up? Then what?’

  Barkha closed her eyes. She held the receiver away. It was a good thing he wasn’t in front of her.

  ‘Then you won’t have to go through it alone,’ she said.

  Rishabh gawked at the wall in front of him. Her compassion made him feel even stupider. He thumped his chest in anger. How could he have made such a foolish mistake? He was still debating whether to tell her how special she was or to apologize profusely, when she spoke.

  ‘Rishabh, I have to go now. I’ll talk to you later.’

  The jarring static kept buzzing in his ear long after he’d kept the receiver down.

  The ties that bound lovers together were woven with the threads of trust and delusion. After that fateful phone call, Rishabh had stretched the tie to its limit. It had begun to fray. Subsequently, Barkha was not herself in class. She grew quiet and became withdrawn. It hurt Rishabh to see her suffer, but the more he tried to make amends, the more demure she became. She treated Rishabh as if he were speaking in a foreign language—she would listen attentively but with a blank, confused look on her face, and if she answered, she did so in monosyllables. One day Rishabh penned a heartfelt ode titled ‘My Aching Heart’ and this time sneaked it under her desk after the last period. The next morning, he found it lying on his desk, tightly crumpled into a ball. If anything, it only made his heart ache more.

  Thankfully, for Rishabh, things were looking up on the football pitch. He enjoyed training in the crisp winter mornings. The boys were playing well together. Even Jaykar had seamlessly integrated into the team. But the major revelation of these practices was the blistering form of Amar Verma. The slender, soft-spoken Vindhya house left back had long been warming the benches. He had pace and intelligence, but he’d just never seemed to assert himself in matches before. However, in these November sessions, he had finally come into his own. He played like a dogged defender and his devilish speed made it impossible to get around him.

  ‘Where were you all these days?’ said the coach, smacking him on the head.

  ‘Here only,’ said Amar in his lilting Uttar Pradesh accent.

  ‘Arre, where was this form?’

  ‘Sir, it came from Siddhivinayak.’ He joined his palms and uttered a soft prayer.

  It turned out that Amar’s parents had taken him to Siddhivinayak Temple in Prabhadevi, so that Ganesh could knock some sense into the boy about his studies. Little did they realize that in his private chat with God, he had asked instead for a chance to play on the school team. With God literally on his side, Amar’s confidence had soared to the point where he was on the brink of replacing Vade. Meanwhile, his parents continued to wonder what else they would have to do to get one good hour of studying out of him.

  Rishabh should have known that the going was too good to last. Soon the football team would face a major setback. All thanks to Pinal Oza and his fragile right hand.

  Being made of churan, Pinal Oza’s bones were genetically predisposed to getting pulverized. The Ozas were a brittle bunch. His grandmother, Saritaben Oza, had undergone two hip replacements. His father suffered from chronic slipped discs. Pinal Oza himself couldn’t remember a single year of his life during which he hadn’t had a cast on some part of his body. This had reached a point where those close to Oza were bored of writing lewd messages on his pristine plaster casts.

  Therefore, when Tejas flicked a ball upward, which struck him on his wrist, Oza immediately knew it had cracked. He howled in pain and hopped up and down, clutching his limp wrist.

  ‘It’s broken!’ he screamed.

  ‘What rubbish! The ball barely touched you.’

  ‘It’s gone!’ wailed Oza.

  The coach cleared the mob around the writhing Oza.

  ‘Show me the hand,’ he commanded.

  The coach had seen the ball that had hit Oza. It was going slower than a bill through Parliament. He was convinced that there was no way the impact could have done mo
re damage than a slight sprain. So when Oza presented his arm, the coach immediately grabbed the wrist and manoeuvred it to the left and the right and then up and down. If the wrist wasn’t broken before that, it sure was then. In sheer agony, Oza kicked the coach on the shin, freed his paw and, bellowing, ran down the pitch to the infirmary.

  The next day, his mother stormed into the principal’s office screaming so loudly that if the football team had heard her they would have thought she had broken a bone too. Mrs Asha Oza was livid. She accused the school of negligence. ‘HOW,’ she thundered, ‘WAS FOOTBALL PRACTICE STILL ALLOWED TO TAKE PLACE SO CLOSE TO THE BOARD EXAMS?’

  Her son had fractured his right hand, his writing hand. He had almost jeopardized his entire career by kicking a ball around. Thankfully, the doctors had assured her that his wrist would be in fine condition well before the exams. But who would have taken responsibility if the Oza bones hadn’t been so used to fusing up quickly, thanks to the repeated damage. ‘Tell me, madam principal, would it have been you or that lafanga football coach?’

  It was powerful rhetoric powerfully delivered. The principal was moved to action. She promptly called Ghadge Sir to her office and, venting her own ire, demanded that the school cease football practice for the tenth standard with immediate effect. He in turn rained the news on to the boys.

  ‘There wheel be no more phootball phor tenth shtandard boys phor resht oph year.’ He had predicted the outcry that followed, so he swiftly added, ‘This is order phrom principal. Iph you are not liking it, please talk to her itselph.’

  ‘Sir, please,’ they begged.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sir, last tournament.’

  ‘NO! I SED NO!’

  The team wrote a letter to the principal but received an unequivocal response in the negative. She wrote back saying that if any tenth standard student was found practising on the school premises, the culprit’s parents would be called and they would be suspended—the culprits, not the parents, of course. Furthermore, letters had been dispatched to their homes, informing their parents that football practice stood cancelled for the final year students. The quashing of the team was complete.