25th November, 2024

5:30 pm

Venky came back from the 100-run victory of his team, Madhya Pradesh, over Meghalaya on a high. The high had started yesterday evening, when KKR showed an almost ridiculous amount of trust in him and made him the third-most expensive player in IPL history. He'd automatically performed well in the match, too—these highs, they were projected onto everything you did.

The high was still there when he took up his phone and checked KKR's list from the ongoing auction.

There was no 'Nitish Rana' in the list.

Why was there no 'Nitish Rana' in the list? He'd been supposed to come in the second set...that should've been done by now, right?

He'd already been brought down to earth with an unpleasant jolt by the time he spotted Nitish's name in RR's list, and his heart sank to the lowest of lows.

What had gone wrong? How had it gone wrong? How could it have gone so wrong that Nitish should be in any team but KKR?

Then, he watched Nitish's auction video.

He knew what had gone wrong, though he still couldn't figure out how.

The same team that had lifted the paddle for Venky 87 times (he'd counted) had not lifted it a single time for Nitish.

_________________

Nothing had ever been harder than the wait till half past eight, when Uttar Pradesh's ongoing match with Himachal Pradesh would get over. It had started at half past four, so Nitish must have seen his bidding before he went to play. Venky gazed into the screen playing the match, gazed into Nitish and Rinku batting together, and couldn't spot anything but blankness in either's expression.

Nothing had ever taken as much courage as when Venky, after the match, pressed Nitish's contact.

He didn't have the faintest idea of what to say when Nitish said, "Hi."

"Hi," said Venky. "How are you?"

"Awesome. Never been better."

Now that Nitish had said it, Venky knew this was exactly what he should have expected.

"Don't lie," said Venky. "They don't work on me."

"Oh? What should I do, then?"

"Er, maybe talk?"

"I don't want to talk to you," said Nitish. "I don't even want to think about you. When I do, I keep asking myself what you've done so many times over for our team that I haven't done that they didn't even try to get me, and then I start thinking of awful things, and it's very unpleasant."

Venky's heart, it turned out, still had space to sink lower.

"I get it, I understand," he said. After a pause, he couldn't help asking, "What kind of awful things, though?"

"Don't want to say them aloud. Don't want to spoil your mood, too."

Lower.

"How good d'you think my mood is?" demanded Venky.

"You're going to be captain of the team you'd have been very sad to leave," said Nitish. "So I'd say, your mood is never-been-better?"

And lower.

"I wanted to be vice-captain of the team I'd have been very sad to leave," said Venky, taking a brave attempt at peacemaking. "I wanted someone else to be the captain, but it turns out the management had very different ideas."

"You don't mind much, though, do you?"

How low could his heart sink?

"I mind every bit as much as you do," said Venky. "I'm really sorry about whatever happened—"

"Well, don't be. Like Rinku says, it's all God's plan."

"How's Rinku?"

"No idea."

"Nitish?"

"What?" said Nitish, nastily. "I'm not going around checking on other people like a humbug, that's your job."

Lower. Lower. Lower.

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Venky, uncertainly.

"No," said Nitish. "Talk later."

Click.

Venky was left staring at his phone in silence.

________________

Once he'd recovered from the venom Nitish's voice had maintained all through the conversation—and it took a good two hours—he called Rinku.

"Hello, Venky bhaiya," Rinku said in a very small voice.

"Hello, Rinks," said Venky, feeling very weary. Rinku's voice, like the person himself, was a mirror, too, and since at that point it sounded exactly like Venky himself was feeling, that feeling was magnified. "Talked to Nitish?"

"He won't talk, much. Did you try?"

"Yeah. Didn't do much good."

"He knew," said Rinku. "He knew everything was going to be spoilt after last season and it did."

"And I kept telling him we'd all be there," said Venky, a hot wave of shame mingled with guilt washing over him. "I think I believed in it, too. We're almost all there—and he's not. How is that fair?"

"It's not."

"Maybe it would've been better if KKR didn't let RCB play them through me," Venky said, putting his most atrocious fear (which he knew, deep inside, to be true) into words for the first time. "If they'd quit at 20 or something, they'd have got Nitish and Salty, and the team would certainly have been better. And Nitish wouldn't be detesting me," he added under his breath.

"He doesn't detest you," said Rinku, shocked.

"How do you know? Maybe he does."

"How can you think so low about him?" Rinku suddenly sounded indignant.

That sent another wave of guilt and shame through Venky.

"I'm sorry," he said, not sure who or about what he was apologizing. "I just wish he'd talk to me sometime soon. D'you think he'll pick up if I call him now?"

"No," said Rinku, frank as always. "He won't open the door for me, either."

"Wouldn't expect anything less from him."

"Me neither."

A fond, exasperated smile made its way to Venky's face even under the circumstances, and he could tell the same was on Rinku's face, too.

"Okay," said Venky, thinking aloud. "Our next match is day after tomorrow. How about I quickly fly to Mumbai and back?"

"Bad idea," said Rinku.

"Of course it's a bad idea. Good ideas don't work with Nitish, do they?"

"True," admitted Rinku. "Come to Mumbai."