He found the coach overseeing the bandaging of a cut Bhupinder had sustained over his right eyebrow. It had happened when Bhupinder had leapt for the ball along with Eklavya. Eklavya had jumped with his elbows spinning like the blades of a chopper. His elbow had crashed into Bhupi’s face and bust it open like a watermelon. So many Sanghvi players were bruised, battered and bandaged that they looked less like a football team and more like the casualty ward of an army hospital.
Rishabh made his way to the coach and hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I should have done better.’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘The goal, sir. They fouled me . . . But I could have still done something, sir . . .’
‘Look at me,’ said the coach. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Sir . . . I will make up for it.’
‘It is NOT your fault. I saw what happened. They didn’t tackle you. They mugged you. There were at least three fouls committed on you and one criminal assault. It was not your fault.’
Rishabh remained silent.
‘Don’t think about it, Rishabh. First, have water, rest your legs and sit with the team. I’m coming in one minute.’
Mehfouz Noorani took a minute to gather his thoughts. It was a rare situation for a coach to be in. At one–nil, the team had far from lost the match, yet they seemed beaten. They had lost their vitality. Their faces were glum. Their bodies were broken. He could see the throbbing pain in their calves pulsing all the way through their drawn-back lips and narrowed eyes. The most foreboding realization for the coach was that he could ask nothing more from them, because they had nothing more left to give.
He squeezed his lower lip and brushed his moustache with his fingers. His eyes fell on Rishabh, who was busy drenching his ankle in whatever remained of the Relispray. He recalled the look in the boy’s eyes as he apologized for a mistake he hadn’t committed. It was a stark emotion, reflected deeply in the clear pools of the boy’s eyes. It was fear.
As he peered at the rest of his team, he saw that fear had cloaked them all. They were afraid to lose. They were afraid of being fouled. They were afraid of disappointing him, the coach. They were boys pretending to be men, failing in the face of fear. And an idea formed under Mehfouz Noorani’s orange mane. He clapped his hands and said in a loud, uneven tone, ‘Team! Make a circle around me.’
The boys hurried to attention and surrounded the coach. Mehfouz Noorani beamed at them. He took a deep breath. ‘Boys,’ he began, ‘that was a good half. You are still in the game. As a coach, there is nothing I can change. That is why I want you to change as players.
‘Aye! Let me finish,’ barked the coach when he saw the exchange of perplexed glances.
‘I have seen thousands and thousands of teams, but I have seen few like you. You know what’s so special about you? You boys are good individually but much better as a team. And what is even more rare? I have never seen anybody have more fun than when you people are together. You are all idiots.’
He laughed. The boys sniggered. They adjusted in their places. They sat up and leaned in closer.
‘That’s what makes you special. I have seen you play. I know what you are all capable of. When you people enjoy playing is when you play the best. That other team is playing ugly, ugly football.
‘These other boys are kicking and fouling and cheating. That is ugly. You go on that pitch and show everyone how beautiful this game can be. Play your game. Enjoy yourself. The winners never made this sport beautiful. The results never made it worth watching. You know what makes it beautiful? The passing. Giving what you have to someone else. The teams that conceded but never gave up. The players that danced after they scored. Our spirit is more powerful than our situation. Isn’t it amazing to see how much happiness we are capable of sparking off? That is why football is called the beautiful game. Because when it is played right, it can teach a man to live. It has taught this man,’ said the Mongoose, jabbing his index finger into his chest.
‘Sir . . . you have taught it to us,’ said Rishabh. The rest of the team heartily agreed with this assessment.
‘Good,’ said the coach. ‘So will you enjoy yourselves?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Will you have as much fun as you can?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Will you play the beautiful game?’
‘YES, SIR!’
‘And remember, whatever happens, I am proud of you boys and I have your back.’ He clenched his fist and thrust it forward.
The team applauded and hooted and jumped to their feet. They felt re-energized and ready for the second half.
‘I feel fresh!’ exclaimed Puro.
‘He’s like glucose for the soul, man,’ said Floyd.
And Rishabh felt he couldn’t have put it any better than that.
If someone ignorant about the score watches the two teams returning to the pitch, they will find it hard to tell which one was in the lead. Sanghvi walk on with their heads held high. They look serene. They flash ironic smiles as the crowd boos. They talk to each other constantly as they take their places on the field. They look composed. Their confidence shakes the screaming, jeering students in the stands.
The Kamani Krida players make their way to the pitch with swagger. Their eyes stare darkly from under their hooded brows. They sneer at the Sanghvi players. They take up their stations in silence. Eklavya and Nagesh plant themselves in the centre circle. Rishabh wonders if they practise being smug, because they’ve got quite good at it.
In the second half, Rishabh is on the flank adjacent to the stands. He can feel the hateful eyes trained on him. He can feel the contempt these people feel for him. It’s amazing how they’ve worked up so much emotion for a person they don’t even know. He continues loosening his body even as insult after insult washes over him. They don’t make him angry.
He looks in the direction of the onlookers and says, ‘I understand. I would also be this frustrated if I were studying here.’
The hive buzzes with consternation and hurls back more abuse in retaliation. The coach looks sharply at Rishabh and flashes a small grin. Before Rishabh can acknowledge it, the referee blows the whistle and the game begins.
Kamani Krida pick up from where they left off. They knock the ball around as much as they knock people. Their centre midfielder, Prateek, puts a palm over Tejas’s face to prevent him from getting the ball. Another time, Purohit and the Kamani Krida number 19 both vie for the ball as it soars in the air. They jump together, except that Puro leaps like a footballer and the number 19 springs up like a trained assassin. He has his boot out, and it slams straight into Puro’s chest. It’s a tackle so vicious that Puro goes down and rolls a couple of times, screaming and holding his chest. Puro is not one to fake injury, so his reaction is worrying.
More worrying yet is the reaction of the referee. He waves for the players to play on. ‘Foul!’ scream the Sanghvi players. ‘FOUL!’ screams the coach. But the referee only stops play when Dutta clobbers a clearance into the stands. Puro is still on the ground. The Sanghvi boys congregate around the spot. Bhupinder, Rahul and Paras cordon off Puro from the attention of the Kamani Krida players. The referee asks for Puro to be removed from the field.
‘He’s halting the game,’ he says in a slick, pitiless voice.
‘It’s what you should have done!’ Floyd says and receives an icy stare for his troubles.
Rishabh helps Puro to his feet. ‘You okay, champ?’ he asks.
‘Yeah,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘But we have to be careful. This ref isn’t right.’
Rishabh agrees with the assessment. If anything, Purohit has put it lightly. The referee isn’t just ‘not right’, he is plain wrong. He has displayed a glaring and blatant amount of partiality. He blows the whistle if a Sanghvi player even moves in the general direction of a Kamani Krida boy. Meanwhile, Purohit has suffered a challenge that was intended to break all his ribs, and still the whistle remained clutched in the referee’s
closed fist. This is the story of the entire match, where challenge after challenge from Kamani Krida has gone unpunished. In effect, Sanghvi realizes, they are playing against twelve people.
‘It doesn’t matter!’ screams Puro when he’s caught his breath. He directs his words to all the Sanghvi players. ‘As long as we can run, this match is ours!’
‘YEAH! YEAH!’ returns the cry from Dave. ‘Go, Sanghvi!’
If the injustice of the referee is meant to have a demoralizing effect on KKPS’s opponents, then the plan has failed spectacularly. The foul on Puro galvanizes the team. Their anger makes them more focused. It starts with Rana, who snatches the ball from Nagesh and calmly boots it forward. Floyd makes a trademark powerful run that sends Kamani Krida scrambling, before laying the ball off to Rahul. Rahul takes a shot that thunders off the bar and goes out for a throw.
The crowd gasps. Their team has been picked apart in an instant. Kamani Krida are shaken by Rahul’s efforts. They find it harder to pass the ball around. Rishabh nicks the ball from Eklavya and delivers a cross that Paras puts wide.
‘He is less your striker and more our defender,’ hisses Eklavya.
‘Just like the referee is more your player than our referee?’ says Rishabh.
‘Oh, did we make it that obvious? We like you, Rishabh. We thought we’d get you a card.’
‘So sweet. If you had done this much for Tamanna, maybe you wouldn’t be single.’
Eklavya shoves him in the back. ‘You’re not going to walk off this pitch on your feet.’
‘Yeah. I’ll be carried off it by my friends when we win.’
‘Only if you’re friends with a stretcher.’
He runs past Rishabh but not before kicking him hard in the back of his thigh. The pain is sharp and the first of many attacks that Rishabh is to sustain over the next ten minutes. Eklavya smacks him on the back of his head. He tackles Rishabh with only the faintest interest in getting the ball. He pulls Rishabh’s jersey till it rips near the collar. And all through the abuse, Rishabh doesn’t react. He bites his tongue, grits his teeth and carries on playing.
It is the complacency that the Kamani Krida players have about the referee that will be their undoing. It begins with a move started by Tejas. He dispossesses Nagesh and, with his glorious left foot, floats a long ball to Paras. Paras knocks the ball down Purohit’s path. Rishabh, sensing an opportunity, breaks into the D. Puro spots his run and perfectly passes the ball to his path. Rishabh traps it and drags it to the left, into space. The lithe Kamani Krida defender, who’s been on Rishabh’s tail since he got the ball, decides he’s had enough of chasing and scissors in from the back. He doesn’t get the ball but sends Rishabh skidding face down across the hard, abrasive ground. It’s a shameless foul inside the box.
‘PENALTY!’ scream eleven voices in unison. The referee turns down their plea and the match is about to resume, when the linesman, who saw the incident at close quarters, runs on to the field, his flag streaming behind him.
Elton D’Souza, the linesman, is an honest official from the Referees’ and Linesmen’s Association of India. He’s completed his B license and is working his way up to becoming a referee. He has a sense of justice and duty that hasn’t been seen in the world since Yudhishthira exited the scene at the end of the Mahabharata. Elton is horrified with the way the match is being officiated. He has quickly caught on to the fact that the decisions the referee has been making are overwhelmingly in favour of the home side. It is everything that he stands against, for it maligns the game and brings disrepute to the refereeing community.
Alas, being a mere linesman, he doesn’t have much to do beyond raising his flag for offside. He has been standing by the touchline and waiting for the moment when he can intervene. Finally, that moment has arrived in the form of a hideous tackle. Now Elton stands in front of Mahoob Riaz, the bald referee, and says, ‘Give them a penalty. I saw it from up-close.’
‘It is not.’
‘Mr Riaz, it is as clear a penalty as there can be.’
‘You will decide that or I will decide that? Who is the referee and who is the linesman?’
Elton has had enough of this beak-nosed, bribe-taking hairless man. ‘If you don’t give them a penalty, I am reporting you.’
Mahoob Riaz glares at the young linesman. Two righteous eyes stare back at him unflinchingly. Mahoob Riaz has got a fair sum from the Kamani Krida coach, but it won’t cover his expenses should he be tossed out of the Referees’ and Linesmen’s Association of India. He snarls at Elton, but acquiesces to the demand. He blows a tired whistle and points to the spot.
The Kamani Krida players rub their eyes in disbelief. It seems to them that they are collectively hallucinating. Surely the referee didn’t just give a decision against them? Who does he think he is—a regulator of fairness in the game? Then, as Purohit places the ball on the spot, reality sinks in. They rush the referee and bemoan the decision. Mahoob Riaz can’t look them in the eye. He blows his whistle and asks them to leave.
‘You double-crosser! How can you do this!’ yells Eklavya.
‘Careful. I don’t want to card you,’ says the referee quietly.
‘Oh, now you’ll give us cards also. Great! Good investment you were.’
The crowd boos as a yellow card is dished out to the Kamani Krida captain. The decision stands. Sanghvi are to take the penalty. Puro finishes teeing up the ball. When he rises, he sees Rishabh next to him.
‘Let me take it,’ says Rishabh.
Puro hesitates. ‘I’m the designated kicker.’
‘I want to take this.’
‘Look, you don’t have to prove anything . . . You’re emotional right now. Just let me take it. I’m the designated taker anyway.’
‘Puro, I won this penalty. I need to take it. This is for me. I promise I won’t let you or the team down.’
Rishabh’s voice is even. His features are set. His face, it seems to Puro, is covered in two things: sweat and determination. He looks at the ball, the keeper and then Rishabh, and makes his decision.
‘Take it,’ he says. ‘From a captain, for a friend. But make sure you nail the motherfucker.’
Rishabh nods. He measures his run-up and stands still. The cacophony of the crowd swells. The sweat pours out of him in buckets. His grazed knee burns. But all Rishabh can see are the ball and the lanky form of the KKPS keeper.
Eklavya yells to distract him, ‘MISS IT, YOU FUCKER!’
Pfffeeeet.
Rishabh takes a deep breath. Then he runs. He angles his body, leans back and side-foots the ball to the left-hand post.
The moment he strikes the ball, he knows he’s scored. He doesn’t wait to see it go in. He sprints away from the penalty spot and yanks his shirt front, displaying it with pride to the silenced Kamani Krida public. His teammates rush forward to hug him. He screams and screams till all the anguish since his card in September breaks free and escapes his body.
The coach runs up to the boys and sifts through them till he finds Rishabh. He clasps the boy by his shoulders and says, ‘I’m happy you took it. But I’m happier you asked to take it.’
‘Thank you, sir! This one was for that card.’
‘You made up for that a long time ago.’
Rishabh hugs his coach.
‘Aye! Get off me. Sweat is making my clothes dirty.’
The match is choppier on resumption as Kamani Krida grow frantic for a win. More tackles fly in all directions. Nagesh and Eklavya single-handedly try to bulldoze their way to the goal. Once, Eklavya takes a wild stab at the goal from twenty yards out. The ball flies over the bar and, fittingly, smacks a KKPS supporter full in the face. Eklavya returns to the touchline, swinging his arms and cursing in frustration. Rishabh is relishing his helplessness.
‘Try to be more accurate,’ says Rishabh. ‘You know, like my penalty.’
‘Shut your bloody mouth!’ Eklavya screams and swings a fist clean into Rishabh’s jaw. There’s a deafening crack. Rishabh’s head
jerks to the right, and he stumbles and then falls to the ground. The crowd gawps at the violence. Rishabh can taste the metallic blood filling his mouth.
Don’t react, he tells himself.
The incident takes places in front of the team dugouts. The coach runs down the touchline to see if Rishabh is all right, but the latter turns to Eklavya with a smile. ‘So many years older, and you still punch like a little boy.’
Eklavya bares his teeth. He rushes up to Rishabh and spits. It’s a giant gob of spittle that lands with unerring accuracy on Rishabh’s cheek and slides down it. Rishabh wipes it off with disgust. His hands are shaking. He wants to break Eklavya’s face. Eight minutes, he thinks to himself. Hold on. Please.
Then he looks up, and his eyes meet the coach’s. ‘WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?’ screams Mehfouz Noorani.
In the course of the year, Rishabh has followed hundreds of the coach’s orders, but this one brings him the most joy. He springs to his feet and dusts himself down. Then he runs up to Eklavya and taps him on the shoulder. He waits for Eklavya to face him before he clocks him with a fist made of bone and anger. And before Eklavya can recover, he wallops him with an open-palmed slap from his left hand. Eklavya’s eyes go comically wide, and he spins to the floor.
A KKPS player tries to grab Rishabh from behind. Puro drives his elbow into the boy’s back and gets him off Rishabh. Another boy tries to jump Rishabh, but Sumit comes roaring from the bench and clotheslines the attacker.
‘CHAL, BHOSADIKE!’ he shouts. It’s a cry that turns the football pitch into a wrestling ring.
Rahul and Bhupinder knock down Nagesh. Dave gets a short midfielder in a headlock. The Kamani Krida coach tries to intervene but is laid low by a beautifully executed uppercut by Mehfouz Noorani. ‘Get ’em, boys! It’s a knockout tournament!’
Mahoob Riaz, the referee, is horrified by the turn of events. He blows his whistle relentlessly, but gang wars are rarely played by the rules.
Red Card Page 28