Chapter 8: Mohit

Match day. The Kasauli Wildcats versus the Solan Scorpions. District league round four.

The training hall at the Kasauli Sports Academy was: full. Not stadium-full — this was district kabaddi, not Pro Kabaddi League, and the two hundred bleacher seats were occupied by: parents, siblings, local shopkeepers who closed early on match days because kabaddi in Kasauli was the closest thing to professional entertainment between the Shimla multiplex and the Chandigarh stadium. The air inside was thick with the smell of bodies and tiger balm and the specific anticipation of a crowd that had come to see: a match, but also: a tiger.

I was the tiger.

The tiger costume was: absurd. A full-body suit — orange and black stripes, foam-padded torso, a headpiece with ears and a jaw that moved when I moved my chin, paw gloves with retractable felt claws. I had designed the costume myself, which explained both its: creativity and its structural flaws. The left ear had been reattached three times with fevicol. The tail was held on by a safety pin and hope. The foam padding made the interior temperature approximately: surface of the sun. But when I put it on — when the Wildcats' entrance music played (a Bollywood mashup that the team captain, Raju, had insisted on despite my objections that a kabaddi team should not enter to "Chak De! India" because "every team enters to 'Chak De! India,' Raju, we need: branding") — when I ran onto the mat and did the backflip, the crowd: erupted.

The backflip was my signature. A standing back tuck in a foam tiger suit on a kabaddi mat, which was not designed for gymnastics and which had the grip coefficient of: wet soap. Every match, I did the backflip, and every match, I expected the knee — the left knee, the knee that had ended my gymnastics career in Patiala, the knee that the orthopaedic in Chandigarh had declared "structurally: compromised" — to finally: quit. It hadn't quit yet. The knee was: stubborn. Like everything else about me.

The match was: tight. The Solan Scorpions were good — disciplined, coached by a retired national player who ran his team like a military unit, the kind of team where every defender knew their zone and every raider had a: plan. The Wildcats were: chaotic. Enthusiastic, talented, but chaotic, the kind of team that won on individual brilliance and lost on collective: confusion.

Tanvi was courtside. Not coaching — she wasn't the head coach yet, not officially. The current head coach was Sharma sir, a fifty-eight-year-old former phys-ed teacher who had been coaching the senior team for fifteen years with the philosophy that kabaddi was "a simple game made complicated by: thinking." Sharma sir did not believe in: strategy. He believed in "heart" and "fighting spirit" and the specific brand of motivational shouting that involved comparing his players to various animals, none of which were: complimentary.

Tanvi was there as the junior team coach, observing the seniors. But I could see her watching — not the match, but the: coaching. Watching Sharma sir's substitution patterns. Watching the way he called timeouts too late. Watching the defensive gaps that opened when he put his three strongest defenders on the same side of the court. Watching with the: hunger of a person who knew she could do: better.

Halftime. Wildcats down by four. Sharma sir's speech was: loud. It involved the word "shame" fourteen times and a comparison to: donkeys. The players looked: deflated. I looked at Tanvi. Tanvi looked at: the mat.

"Can I?" she mouthed.

I nodded.

She walked to the huddle. In her navy tracksuit, hair pulled back, the posture of a woman who was about to: coach. She was not supposed to be there — the senior team was not her jurisdiction, and Sharma sir was: present, and the protocol was that the junior team coach observed but did not: intervene.

Tanvi intervened.

"Raju," she said. The captain looked up. "Your ankle hold on the left is: early. You're committing before the raider's weight shifts. Wait half a second longer. You'll feel the hip drop. Then: grab."

Raju blinked. Looked at Sharma sir. Sharma sir was drinking water and had not heard.

"Vikash," Tanvi continued. "Stop chasing the raider. You're a corner defender. You hold the corner. Let the chain take the middle. If the raider comes to you, he's: trapped. If he doesn't come to you, you've: funnelled him into the chain. Either way: you win."

Vikash nodded. The nod of a player who had just heard something that made: sense.

"And the right side is: open. Your cover defender is drifting centre. Keep him right. That's where they're scoring."

Thirty seconds of: coaching. Not motivational. Not emotional. Tactical. The specific language of a coach who saw the game as: geometry — angles, positions, weight distributions, the mathematics of seven bodies on a mat.

Second half. The Wildcats won by: three. Raju's ankle hold — delayed by half a second, catching the raider's hip drop — was the turning point. The crowd erupted. Sharma sir took credit. Tanvi was already at the exit, walking toward the: door.

I caught her outside. The October evening was: cold. The kind of cold that arrived in Kasauli at 5 PM like a guest who hadn't been invited but wasn't leaving, the cold that rolled down from the higher ridges and settled in the valley between the academy and the town.

"That was: illegal," I said.

"What was?"

"Coaching the senior team. At halftime. While Sharma sir was: present."

"Sharma sir was comparing them to donkeys. Someone had to: intervene."

"If the board finds out—"

"The board just saw their team: win. Nobody's complaining."

"Tanvi."

"Mohit."

We stood outside the academy. The pine trees were black against the sky, which was: the specific Kasauli sunset colour, purple fading to grey, the colour that lasted ten minutes before the dark arrived. From inside, the crowd was leaving — the specific sound of two hundred people gathering their belongings and discussing the match with the post-game authority of people who had: watched and therefore: knew.

"You're going to be a great head coach," I said.

"I'm going to be: fired before I start."

"You're not going to be fired. You're going to be: legendary."

She looked at me. In the purple light. The look was: new. Not the irritation look, not the surprise look, not the look from the bathroom floor that was: vulnerability. This look was: gratitude. And something: else. Something that neither of us named, because naming it would make it: real, and real was: complicated, and we were: flatmates.

"Come on," she said. "I'll make dinner. Rice and dal. The: safe meal."

"The safe meal," I agreed. And followed her down the ridge road, the pine trees breathing around us, the cold settling into our jackets, the: distance between us smaller than it had been: yesterday.