नुसती ऐकलेली फुटबॉल मॅचThe Football Match Nobody Saw

Sunday morning. “Oi, Ganu! Champak! Vatanya! Ratalya!” (Peas and Sweet Potato. Not a vegetable market; just our friends' nicknames.) “Mangu! Up, you lot!” Yogya was fuming.

It was Sunday, and it was the crack of dawn (ten o'clock), so Raja dragged himself halfway out of sleep to see what the noise was, and asked with great courtesy: “Did you land on your head, you donkey? It's Sunday. What's all the bellowing? Let a man sleep.”

Yogya had one better. “Your whole life has gone in sleeping. Back home your father has turned black in the fields, and you sleep. Two subjects gone, and Abhishek-rao sleeps on. Well, you're the Raja. Sleep, your majesty.”

The words “subjects gone” were too much for Vatanya. “Look who's talking, topper. First from the bottom. Spare us the wisdom. In failing a subject, luck is a very big factor.”

At this point the hostel's own Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, woke up. “Is it Diwali, that you're bursting crackers at dawn? What happened?”

“Arre, isn't it the college football match today? Our Nanya is in the team. Shouldn't we go and cheer for him? Think what Nanya does for us. Up early to fill the water, puts the emergency light on charge, brings our tiffin from the mess when we're late. Slogs like a farmhand. Right or not, Ratalya?”

Ratalya, nodding in his sleep: “Yes. Agree.” Eyes shut again.

By now Mangya was thundering too: “Up! Bath, and let's go cheer.”

Champak had been listening through his sleep and now asked an innocent question: “Cheering? This early?” As usual, Mangya opened Champak's account with a pillow, and Ratalya got a few in while he was at it.

In all the chaos Raja played smart and slipped into the bathroom to bag the first turn. He was out in a second, furious. “There's no water! That Nanya… how did he forget today, of all days?”

Yogya: “Raja-saheb, the whole Ramayana is over and now you ask who Sita is?”

Kofi Annan, alias Bandya, rose to his feet. “Don't try to shine, Raja. Your name may be Abhishek, but even an abhishek of milk won't make you shine. Forget the bath. One spray on the shining shirt, and let's go.”

Order given, order obeyed. The whole room began to orbit the 10 × 12 room's one mirror. Ratalya, alias Sopan, and Vatanya, alias Navin, were combing shape into military cuts that had none to give. Yogesh, alias Yogya, put on a T-shirt and half-pants. Mangesh glared: “We're going to cheer, not to play. Why the half-pants, idiot?” Yogya shifted back from half to full. Bandya, mindful of his office, wore the shirt with the college emblem and led the party out of the room.

Right then Chinmay, alias Champak, asked a question worthy of his nickname: “But where are we going?”

The answer came with a few knuckles to the head. “Where's a football match? In the library? On the ground, obviously.”

The party had barely cleared the hostel gate when they spotted Rishi, ten metres away. Yogya: “Rishi! Weren't you in the team? Why are you back?”

“We lost ages ago. Solid team on the other side, the Diploma lot. Terrible.”

“What was the score?” someone asked.

“Don't ask. I counted up to six–nil, then I stopped counting.”

Nobody could hold it in. Khi khi khi.

Bandya: “And our Nanya?”

Rishi made a face. “That Nanya scored a self-goal. Pandya in goal is shouting stop, stop, and Nanya just lets fly. Idiot.”

Now one thing is settled. We may call our roommate Nanya, but everyone else must call him Naresh. The honour of the room is at stake.

Yogya thundered: “How? Tell us exactly.”

“Half-time. We went back out, and in the second minute, Nanu's self-goal.”

Yogya puffed out his gym chest. “Did anybody tell him it was half-time and he had to shoot the other way now? Who was captain?”

The volume and the chest did their work. Rishi shrank, and a very small “Me” came out.

Just then Avya from the team arrived. “Lost so badly. Couldn't score a single goal.”

Mangya: “You did score one. Our Nanya scored it. With players like you around him, couldn't you tell him which way the goal was? He'd have scored at that end too. What a team. Can't explain things at half-time, can't keep the ball at your feet. Next time make him captain.”

Now Shri Chinmay spoke up. “But where is Naresh? Isn't he with you?”

Rishi: “We left. Nanya was still on the ground.”

Bandya: “Some captain you are. A true leader brings everyone back and thinks of himself last. Haven't you seen Titanic?”

Rishi and Avya were lost by now, and began to feel guilty. Guilty of what? The ground was a hundred metres away; a small child could walk back from it. Why wait for anyone? And it's not as if the goalposts had moved at half-time! But it was the whole party against the two of them, so they did the maths and kept quiet.

Then Ravi came up the road, pushing his bicycle, with Nanu on the back carrier. The whole group ran.

Sopan caught Nanu and sat him down under a tree. “Nanu, what happened?” Bandya asked. Yogya had already roared at the captain to fetch water, and the captain ran off like an obedient child.

Nanu: “That Diploma bull. I went in to tackle him and twisted my foot.”

Avya: “That was ten minutes before the end. He just stayed there. I thought he was resting, so I said leave him, he's better off there, if he comes back here he'll self—” Avya had the sense not to finish the sentence. He was within range of Yogya's right hand.

The captain came back with the water.

Nanu: “I kept waving my arms for a substitute. Nobody even looked.”

The whole group turned to look at Rishi. Rishi lowered his eyes and held out the bottle.

“Never mind, Nanu,” Mangya said, trying to console him. “At least you scored. Otherwise the college would have lost its nose. You're on the scoresheet. Next time, you're captain.”

Then they called a rickshaw and the whole platoon took Nanu to the hospital. A scan; a stress fracture. By then Rishi, Avya and the rest of the team had gone home, and only the hostel boys were left. Naresh became Nanya again. At least until the plaster set.

Yogya: “Look at his height. His width. His balance. Why go and fall over?”

Mangya: “We were about to win the World Cup, no? After Beckham, it's our turn.”

On the whole, the tone was Nanya, you donkey.

Sopan and Raja were discussing who would fill the water tomorrow. Vatanya is scared of injections, so he waited outside the hospital. Bandya handled every formality: the forms, the doctor, the phone call to Nanu's home, the medicines.

Champak was busy asking the doctor how long the plaster would stay, how many days admitted, how many injections, when Mangya said: “Why the show-off? Will you remember any of it? The doctor will think you know everything and leave, and then Nanya's father will take your class.” So Chinmay, like a good boy, went over to Raja in the corner (what time does the water come, how much do we need, who gets up?) and spent his time there.

Nanu was admitted for three days. But his self-goal didn't stop there. Two days later, in the hospital itself, he caught dengue, and the stay went up by ten days. In Nanu's absence the group discovered that the water comes from seven to eight in the morning, and that twelve buckets have to be filled. Rishi, Avya and the football team spent the next two weeks avoiding the group. The hostel boys took turns at the hospital to serve Nanya his taunts in full (“Nanya, we're Beckham, no?”), and never let the fact that Beckham was a forward, with nothing whatsoever to do with defending, get in the way of a good taunt.

That was the football match. Nobody saw it. Everybody heard about it.

Best of all: in the inter-college tournament, as the college's top scorer, Nanu won first prize. A certificate, and a football too. !!!!!