Delirium

By Sowmya Aji

Cricket, drugs and illicit romanceEvery time TV journalist Anjana Gurunath sees hot young cricketer Avinash Katagi, her heart starts pounding, her mouth goes dry and she forgets she is married. By the look of things, Avinash seems to have been hit by the 'love' bug as well. Anjana is curious as to why one of the country's most sought-after bachelors is wooing her. What is his intent? Avinash's poetry and late-night phone calls disturb the perfect calm of her marriage but her husband Naren, who has stood by her through thick and thin, thinks she will eventually see sense. Meanwhile, her channel breaks the news of the scoop on TV and there is chaos. Who is her source?Delirium is a steamy affair, high-octane action, nail-biting suspense and heartbreak all rolled into one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper
• Release date: Jan 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9789350297582

Sowmya Aji

Sowmya Aji answers to female, atheist, liberal; no other labels. She works as a journalist, and lives in Bengaluru. She is also the author of Delirium (HarperCollins, 2013).

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I

T WAS JUST ROUTINE COVERAGE. The Indian team was to play against Pakistan in an ODI, the fashionable term for one-day international cricket. This was for one of those Cola Cups. I mean, it was either a Pepsi Cup or a Coca Cola Cup, right? There were no Maximums, Kamaal Katches or IPL cocktail mix back then.

The year was 1996. Bangalore did not have a single flyover. Newly minted graduates from engineering colleges were joining Infosys or Wipro. Malls were unheard of, and anyone who owned a pair of Levis was considered extremely cool. People were talking about something called the World Wide Web; if anyone had even mentioned Skype, they would either have been sent to NIMHANS or given the Booker prize for science fiction.

India and its television channels had just gone through an action-packed Lok Sabha election and now cricket was the only big thing on the news.

As it was, cricket matches in India were held only once in a while. Matches in Bangalore were rarer still. This ODI was especially important since it was between India and Pakistan, that too on home soil, after years of conflict over Kashmir. Bangaloreans were going crazy and ultra-nationalist, discussing the match and the ramifications of either a win or a loss over endless cups of coffee and mugs of beer.

That day the Indian team was arriving from Calcutta, where they had lost to Sri Lanka. To face a team as formidable as Pakistan in Bangalore… nobody was willing to bet a rupee that India would win.

I reached the small defence airport with my camera crew to cover the Indian team’s arrival. We had the usual fight with the authorities to let us in. After a tiring argument with a duty-conscious airport officer, Junaid, my cameraman, and I gave up. Press photographers were permitted to take pictures of people getting off the plane. Doordarshan, the sarkari TV channel, was allowed too. But private TV cameras were considered a security breach. How was a private video camera a threat, while a still camera or a government one not?

Since our hopes of getting visuals of the players as they were deplaning were dashed, we thought of getting some shots of the cricketers near their super luxury bus, which was waiting outside the arrival lounge.

Despite the recent defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka, a small crowd had turned up to see the cricketers. Junaid and I were the only TV crew members present there. We ignored the crowd. They ignored us. All of us waited for our moment in the sun. I saw the Doordarshan cameraman standing inside the lounge shooting the team. I burned, but what could I do?

After some time the cricketers came out looking neither left nor right, not even the newbies, and made a beeline for the bus. Some in the crowd booed. Some cheered. The security personnel had a tough time keeping the heroes from being mobbed. I shrugged. There was no way I could shove my mike through the mayhem for a news byte.

‘Get a shot of the crowd too,’ I barked at Junaid, who was steadily rolling the Betacam.

I got into the van, but Junaid kept shooting till the last cricketer had boarded. The bus revved up and took off, honking as I yelled at Junaid to hurry. Cursing loudly, Ravi, the driver of our maruti van who also doubled up as camera assistant, moved the van out of the way of the approaching bus and let it go.

Shouldering the heavy camera, Junaid jumped into the van and closed the sliding door just as Ravi took off behind the bus. But there were already a zillion air cargo vehicles between us.

Ravi drove the van across the small divider and raced down the wrong side of the road. The manner in which the oncoming drivers were honking and cursing was insane.

Soon the left side of the road was clear and Ravi, unflappable as always, took the van back over the divider. Junaid and I heaved huge sighs of relief and looked around desperately for any sign of the bus, but there was none.

‘They’re probably at the West End,’ Junaid offered.

‘No saar, I remember we once went to Holiday Inn for them.’ This came from Ravi.

‘Let’s keep going until we have to turn for the hotels. Hopefully we’ll spot them before that,’ I said grimly.

Luck was on our side. We spotted the bus at the next signal; it was stuck in traffic. Our van made its way through the stranded vehicles, and from then on Ravi stuck to the ‘celeb’ bus like glue.

The bus swung into the sprawling West End grounds, followed by our van. Security guards rushed to stop us even as I pointed at the van’s ‘PRESS’ sticker and urged Ravi on. We reached the hotel lobby entrance just a couple of minutes after the cricketers. Damn, the captain was already getting out; there was no chance of catching him before he went in. Junaid jumped out. Positioning himself outside the lobby door, he started rolling the camera just as I ran up, breathless, to where he was.

Avinash Katagi, vice-captain and top bowler, languidly got off the bus. As he ambled up to the lobby door, I craned my mike high enough to reach his neck. ‘What are India’s chances…’ I started.

Katagi gave me a crushing glare and, without breaking stride, continued into the lobby. I stared after him in frustration. The Indian team was not permitted to talk to the media. They had a contract that said so. Only the captain, the team manager and the coach could speak with the media. Still, we lived in hope.

Ganesh Trivedi, the team’s top-scoring batsman, flashed me his trademark grin as he walked past, trying to avoid my mike. ‘Ganesh, please say something…’ Perhaps my desperation got to him. I don’t know.

He mumbled, ‘We’ll do our best to win,’ and I was thrilled. No other television team had got to that stage yet. I had this byte, an exclusive!

By now the vans from four other television channels, including Doordarshan, had reached the hotel. All of us spoke with the team manager. As usual, he rambled on about how conditions in Bangalore would work in favour of the Indian team. How Pakistan was always a good team to play against, and how the tension of an Indo–Pak tie would only make India perform better.

It was a good story and it should have been enough for me. But I wanted more. As the other TV crew was packing up, I caught sight of Avinash Katagi again. Since he was from Bangalore, he had an air of familiarity about him. He was leaning against the reception desk with ease, idly fingering his moustache and regarding all of us with amusement. I walked up to him.

‘Hi, will you talk to me?’

He looked at me. ‘Talk?’ he repeated. He looked me up and down languidly. Did he think I wanted something else? Some hope!

‘Talk, you know, to my mike,’ I said, snapping my mouth shut and trying to deliver a smile that would be persuasive enough.

‘Oh! Mike. Talk to the captain. Or the manager.’

‘We have already spoken with the manager. Your captain has disappeared. You are the vice-captain. Please talk to me.’ Damn, one had to be charming. Though the speculation in his eyes was making me a little uneasy.

He kept looking at me. Katagi was definitely considering something. Would he agree to talk to me? Would he give me a good story?

He gave me a small smile and shook his head in mock sadness. I looked down at the floor, absently noting that he had huge feet. The awkward silence stretched on. He didn’t say anything but didn’t walk away either. I looked up at him again, my eyes hopeful.

‘Size 14.’

‘Huh?’

‘My shoe size.’ He grinned, obviously thrilled at having caught me on the wrong foot.

I looked at him, exasperated.

‘No, to the mike. But will you have dinner with me tonight?’

I gaped. Was this guy making a pass at me? I had spent seven years working for newspapers and one year with TV, but this kind of approach was unexpected. I was known in the press circles as a singularly focused woman with a grim face, someone who was out to get that story. No one had ever dared think otherwise.

Katagi was smiling now—a smile as lethal as his outswinger. I blinked. I had never noticed that smile before, but then Katagi was not much given to smiling at TV cameras or the public. And, of course, he had never smiled at me.

What was this bugger up to? I didn’t like it. Just because you are a star cricketer, you can’t assume everyone is available! Damn it, here I was trying my best to do my job and, instead, I got propositioned.

I opened my mouth to tell him off, but stopped. Should I risk making friends with him and try to inveigle an interview from him? Go for dinner and pick up some background gossip? It might just be interesting.

Katagi seemed to know what was going on in my mind. He was watching in great amusement the battle between the woman in me, who was irritated at this tribute to her femininity, and the reporter, who was trying to capitalize on the opportunity.

The woman won. ‘No, thanks,’ I said tiredly, and walked out to join Junaid.

‘Hey, which TV are you from?’ he called out.

I stopped, rather shocked. Junaid looked at me questioningly. The other TV crew who were getting into their vans stopped what they were doing. Katagi, the silent, stubborn fellow, who never said a word, had raised his voice across the hotel lobby to ask me this?

‘National TV,’ I replied casually without looking at him and walked away.

My colleagues crowded around me. ‘Hey, what’s up? Is Katagi talking to you?’

‘Didn’t realize you knew him!’

‘How come he called out to you, yaar?’

‘Don’t try to steal an interview from right under our noses.’

I shook my head and said, ‘It’s nothing. I asked him and he refused.’

Junaid and I got into the van and Ravi drove off. They dropped me to the office and went straight to the airport to courier the tape that contained the team’s arrival and the hotel visuals to Delhi.

I typed my script on my desktop computer, our latest acquisition. I used Ganesh Trivedi’s byte prominently, printed the script and faxed it. It would be aired latest by the following morning once the visuals were edited and matched against my script.

Work was over but I was still unsettled and wound up. I tried Kartik’s phone, but there was no response even after several rings. So I went home, fuming at the gall of cricketers who were used to getting a lot of attention. They had nothing better to do than proposition women!

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6.30 a.m. My bedside phone rang. Cursing, I came out of a deep slumber and hauled the receiver to my ear. Guess who? It was my news coordinator from Delhi, the estimable Mangal Srivastav, who had somehow managed to become my friend as well.

‘Mangal, for god’s sake. Is it an emergency? Is this any time to call?’

‘Listen, you have to do this for me. Cover the practice sessions and all that, but I want a byte from Ratan Ghatge or Rangarajan or Dinesh Tiwari about the drug thing. It has to be done. Okay?’

Ratan Ghatge was the Indian captain who had slipped away into the lobby yesterday, Rangarajan was the coach and Dinesh Tiwari was the rambling manager we had spoken with. I mumbled that I would try, and hung up. I couldn’t sleep after that. I cursed Mangal, got out of the bed and crash-landed at the office at 7.30 a.m., groggy with sleep.

What had got Mangal all excited was the controversy that Indian cricketers were allegedly taking steroids to improve their performance. A former Indian player had revealed in an exclusive to a magazine that top-level cricketers were so scared of being dropped from the team on account of being unfit that they had taken to steroids. One thing had led to another, and now they were reported to have become addicted to all kinds of drugs. Naturally, the whole country was furious.

We had already plagued Tiwari about drugs the day before, but Mangal, of course, had to stress upon the importance by calling me at that godforsaken hour. As if I didn’t know.

Junaid and Ravi walked into the office at about 8 a.m. and were shocked to see me there so early. They were too wise to comment on it, however. I muttered a greeting and we went to the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) stadium for our assignment, which was to shoot the two rival teams practising.

The Pakistani team had arrived a day before their Indian counterpart, and had found immense pleasure in pointing out that no one had accused any member of their team of taking drugs. They also spoke individually and gave personal sound bytes without reservations unlike the Indians who turned their faces away from the camera. Such was life.

At the stadium, the security guard, an old friend, urged, ‘Go jaldi, madam. They have ishtarted…’ I smiled and walked in. My colleagues had already set up their cameras and were rolling from different angles, trying to get the best shot of the two teams at the nets.

‘Amazing, no? Both teams are already in full practice mode at 8.30 a.m.’ I told one of our senior print journalists, Dillip Peters.

‘Scared!’ he said and pushed off.

I plonked myself on one of those hard plasticky chairs that KSCA insists on providing in its VIP stand. Junaid joined the others and found a brilliant position. Damn reliable chap, this Junaid. I was always assured the best shots.

‘Looking for Katagi?’ This came from another colleague, INTV’s Indu Bharadwaj, who had seated herself next to me. I gave a weak smile and groaned. Damn Katagi. He had to call out to me in front of everyone, and now I would get teased about it for the rest of my life. This was our profession; no one liked it when someone tried to grab scoops over others. This kind of innuendo-based teasing was just one tiny aspect of the intense, competitive bitchiness, but I was used to it.

Mind you, it wasn’t that I hadn’t been looking for Katagi— just out of curiosity, of course. Propositioning women is probably the norm for a cricketer, but I wanted to see the impact my rejection had on him. I shook my head and grinned. Only Kartik would see this excellent piece of journalistic self-reasoning for what it was: an excuse to look at a new and interesting eye candy in the form of Katagi.

‘Looks like he is not playing,’ Indu said. I raised my eyebrows. What? India’s main strike bowler not playing an Indo–Pak match! Before I could respond, Indu added, ‘He is still at home in Kumara Park, yaar. He hasn’t come to the stadium this morning.’ Indu’s voice dropped further to the level of girly gossip. ‘Ate something at dinner last night, apparently, and now he’s got indigestion.’

Huh? The dinner he’d asked me out to? I wasn’t sure if Indu was still teasing me. Had anyone overheard Katagi inviting me to dinner? I looked at Indu cautiously. But she didn’t look like she was joking. Was Katagi really not here? I looked around intently and counted everyone on the field, even the Pakistani cricketers and the support staff. Yes, Katagi was missing. I mentally thanked god for saving me from Katagi and indigestion, and grinned to myself.

Of course, once I had confirmation that Katagi was not playing the match, I would call my office straightaway. I decided to do a phone-in on how Katagi’s indigestion would impact the team’s chances of winning. Phone-ins, where a reporter called in a news development without visuals, were a recent fad, done only in case of emergencies. Katagi’s indigestion would certainly qualify as a news break.

I waited impatiently, just like Indu, to go on air about Katagi, but we couldn’t really do a story like that without proper confirmation. But there was no hope of that until a break in the practice session. We knew how difficult it was to get information from any official source. And Ratan Ghatge, Rangarajan and Dinesh Tiwari, the only three people who would speak with the media, were on the field.

I sat back to watch the session, absently listening to Indu’s chatter. The session, comprising batting, bowling, catching and fielding, lasted quite a while. Ganesh Trivedi was hitting some good strokes, and so was the Pakistani opener Mohammed Ashraf in the other net. Around 11 a.m., Dinesh Tiwari signalled that he was ready to talk to us. We crowded around and asked the usual questions like:

‘Is the weather good?’

‘Are the boys in a mood for a good fight?’

‘What are the chances of India’s victory?’

Then the official byte: ‘We are waiting to see if Avinash Katagi can play. Otherwise the team line-up will be the same as the one that played against Sri Lanka,’ Tiwari said. We trooped back into the pavilion with this edifying piece of information that would be the headline for all our stories: India’s main strike bowler may not play the Indo–Pak match.

When we returned the stands were even more crowded. Local players and some young fans had managed to beat the security ring and gain entry into the stadium. Leaving Indu and the others, I made my way back to my seat as I had foolishly left my bag under it. But my seat was occupied.

Thinking of the intro to my news story and the possible phone-in, I absently looked around for my bag and noticed the size 14 shoes of my seat’s occupant.

For god’s