Kabira did not wish to argue with the promoter, with Tamami in such a state of mind. He felt totally helpless against Gulab Deen’s tricks. He cursed him in his heart, but remained quiet.
“Kabira, I want you to be my witness,” Tamami said. “Be my witness that I fulfilled my promise to Ustad Ramzi.”
“Yes Tamami, I will,” Kabira said.
His heart was heavy as he led Tamami to the akhara. He was no longer able to think clearly. He was afraid now. A vague fear took hold of him as the beat of the dhol rose to a crescendo.
There had been a lot of rumors about Tamami’s health and addiction. Some debased sense of excitement in the cruel spectacle had drawn a larger crowd than the earlier bout.
When Tamami removed the coverlet from his body, the audience saw that he was shrunken. His muscles had become slack, and the tendons were clearly visible under the skin, as in an old man’s body. While the drugs had done their damage, they had been unable to completely wreck the mass of muscle and bone. Tamami still towered over the quiet, grim-looking Sher Ali.
“Even a dead elephant is worth a lakh-and-a-quarter,” someone from the spectators commented.
Sher Ali did a few leg squats in his corner, then took off his robe and defiantly faced Tamami. A month of preparation had made a difference to his constitution as well. He looked better prepared than he had the last time.
Tamami cast a last look at the last empty chair and went to his corner in the akhara. A few in the crowd hooted at him, but he did not pay attention.
At the referee’s signal, Sher Ali cut a circle around Tamami and locked him in a triceps and triceps tie-up. Then he ducked, and sweeping under Tamami’s arm, he emerged at his back. He led Tamami into a breakdown and reached for an inside crotch hold.
The crowd applauded and cheered him.
“Ride him! Ride him now!” they shouted.
“Soon! Soon!” Tamami shouted back, imagining the crowd cheered for him.
People broke into laughter at his retort.
Kabira felt as if someone had stabbed him through the heart.
“Ride, Sher Ali! Ride him!” someone shouted, and Tamami raised his head. The look of shock in his eyes turned the next moment into a scowl.
Sher Ali tried to climb onto his leg. As Tamami rose, Sher Ali inserted his leg between Tamami’s. He pushed Sher Ali’s knee, making it impossible for him to move back on top to maintain his crossbody ride. Sher Ali slid off Tamami’s shoulder. Tamami quickly tried to rise to his feet, but for a moment everything went dark before his eyes. He reeled. Sher Ali, already on his knees, lurched forward to tackle Tamami’s legs. Tamami threw his weight forward even as he was pushed back. He landed on his hips on the akhara clay, facing the empty chair in the first row.
Tamami weighed more than Sher Ali and, while Sher Ali’s maneuver was foiled, he had already moved too far down across his adversary’s body for Tamami to gain any advantage. Suddenly Sher Ali saw Tamami rise and reach out.
“He’s here. He’s come.” Tamami mumbled.
Without thinking of a possible motive for Tamami’s strange behavior, Sher Ali took advantage of this shift of balance to gain his feet, and immediately threw his weight backwards, pulling Tamami down with him. Tamami, who failed to apply the counter, fell awkwardly. His neck bent under the joint weight of his and Sher Ali’s bodies. To avert the building pressure on his neck he turned using all his strength, and both his shoulders briefly touched the ground.
Sher Ali disengaged and jumped to his feet when the dhol began beating. He bolted to his corner to do a victory dance.
Tamami’s face looked drained. There was no sign of Ustad Ramzi. The chair was empty.
The uproar of the audience drowned out even the beat of the dhol.
❖
The spectators had thinned out. Kabira and Tamami were the only ones left with the promoter in his pavilion. Tamami had been drinking water constantly and still felt thirsty. Kabira angrily pushed away the jug of water.
“Tell him he can challenge Sher Ali,” he addressed Gulab Deen sharply.
“Of course he can challenge him. Everyone knows that.”
“When? Arrange it for this week. We will declare it this very day. I will go and talk to Sher Ali.”
“You are forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Tamami cannot fix the date.”
“Why not?”
“The winner decides that. He decides when the challenge fight will be held.”
Kabira was struck silent. He now understood the reason for the promoter’s defiant tone and his testiness, and he felt a sudden rage.
“You are responsible for all this!”
“Responsible for what?” Gulab Deen started gathering the receipt books on his desk.
“How early can the challenge fight be held?” Kabira asked after a moment.
“In a few months, maybe. Maybe more. It all depends. Sher Ali might wish to postpone it further. You know he wants to fight some exhibition matches — make some money. That’s what I think he will do. But I have to go now. Come see me when you think he is ready.”
Kabira felt a hint of derogation in the way the promoter pointed towards Tamami.
“Come over next week and we will settle our account,” Gulab Deen told him as he stepped out.
❖
Tamami had only half-listened to the conversation between Kabira and Gulab Deen.
“Ustad Ramzi did not come,” he said as Kabira led him back home.
Kabira did not reply.
“He did not come, Kabira,” Tamami’s voice broke. “He will not come now. He will never forgive me.”
Kabira still remained silent.
Tamami was occupied with only one thought: any possibility of a rapprochement with Ustad Ramzi was now forever lost. He began to cry.
After escorting him home Kabira brought him some food. Before leaving the room he asked Tamami to get some rest and sleep for a few hours.
Tamami could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he felt his predicament more acutely. He tried to ward off that oppressive weight. But a swirling darkness surrounded him. He felt more depressed than ever. His hands desperately searched his dirty clothes and discovered a small packet carefully tied with a rubber band.
❖
Kabira had kept a strict watch on Tamami, but it had not crossed Kabira’s mind to search the dirty laundry. When he returned home he found Tamami lying face down on the floor, the viscous fluid from his nose slowly pooling around his head.
He had been dead for several hours from a drug overdose.
Sanctity
After the post-mortem, Kabira collected the body from the morgue.
Ustad Ramzi lay awake on the charpai later that night when the enclosure attendant entered his room.
“Ustad…” the attendant said.
Without getting up, Ustad Ramzi turned towards him, but the attendant remained silent.
“What is it?”
“They have come.”
“Who has come?” Ustad Ramzi asked, looking blankly at him.
“They are asking for you.”
Ustad Ramzi got up and stepped out of the room.
Nobody had turned on the enclosure lights, but Ustad Ramzi could make out the figures sitting around a bier draped with white sheets. There was a smell of camphor in the air. He stopped at a distance.
“What do you want?” he called out.
One among them got up and stepped towards him. It was Kabira.
“We have brought Tamami’s body here,” Kabira said.
“Why did you bring him here?” Ustad Ramzi asked.
“We have brought him here to be buried, Ustad.”
“You brought him here to be buried? But these gates have been closed on him.”