Serious Men

at Adi and said, ‘Sorry, Sir, they got it.’ A roar of laughter filled the hall.
    Three more questions went this way, with the teams throwinganxious looks at Adi, the audience waiting for something from the boy and someone on the stage finding the answer eventually. The tension in the hall was now easing.
    ‘Team F, your turn now,’ the quizmaster said, ‘This is the final question of Round One. Are you ready? All right. An interesting one. This scientist spent his last days trying to convert ordinary metals into gold. He wasted his latter years in …’
    ‘Isaac Newton,’ said the voice of Adi, and the stunned silence returned to the hall. As the silence broke into murmurs, Sister Chastity stood, arms akimbo, in the aisle.
    Oja’s quivering fingers covered her mouth. She looked frightened. Parents turned to her with smiles of regard and envy. Ayyan got up from his chair and said a loud ‘sorry’ to the Principal. He went down the aisle towards his son. All eyes were on him. In the sixth row, children on the wooden bench lifted their legs to let Ayyan through. Ayyan bent towards Adi’s good ear, his index finger pointed sternly, his face poised in a reprimand. And he whispered, ‘Excellent, my son. Just one more time.’
    Ayyan walked back to his seat looking embarrassed. Never in his life had so many eyes been on him. He apologized once again to Sister Chastity, who nodded graciously. She shouted from the aisle, ‘Adi, now behave.’ When Ayyan sank into his chair, a man in the row in front turned to him and said, ‘Your son is unbelievable.’ Oja held the sleeve of her husband again. She did not make an effort to contain her tears any more, and they smudged her mascara.
    The quizmaster said, ‘But was it the right answer?’ He looked blankly at the audience. He began to nod. ‘It’s Isaac Newton, of course.’ The applause was long, but nobody stood this time.
    ‘Now I have to find another question,’ the quizmaster said above the din. ‘We are running short of questions. Adi, as the Principal said, you have to behave. When the question is passed to the audience, you may answer. Or we may have to ask you to leave the hall. OK? Am I clear? Team F. Are you ready?’ Team F looked nervously towards Adi.
    ‘Easy question. If you know the answer, be very fast,’ thequizmaster said, and looked towards the boy. ‘Who was the second man on the Moon?’
    ‘Buss Adrin,’ Adi screamed.
    The quizmaster looked down at the floor. Sister Chastity got up. Ayyan jogged down the aisle. The kids lifted their legs again to let him through. They were now enjoying this. Ayyan went to his son and led him out of the row and through the narrow aisle. Hand-in-hand, they walked towards the exit. They heard the quizmaster say, ‘Buzz Aldrin it was,’ and there was a standing ovation once again. Ayyan tried to look embarrassed. Adi was beaming.
    They stood on the corridor outside the auditorium, laughing. Soon, Oja appeared at the far end of the corridor, crying and running. She stopped abruptly, adjusted her hair, looked to her left and right sheepishly, and walked hastily. Then she ran again. This woman’s life, Ayyan told himself, is not ordinary any more. For that moment alone, he knew it was all worth it. Did she ever imagine when she was growing up as a waiter’s daughter, when she walked into a humid one-room home as a new bride, or when she discovered one evening that her son could not hear well in one ear, that she would see a day like this. But he also felt the odd unnerving mix of fear and excitement. He was stretching the limits of the game. And it had to end. Probably right now. It was fun, we got away with it, but the game is over now.
    Oja fell on her knees beside her son and held him by his hair, ‘Adi, how do you know all this?’ She hugged him and then pushed him back, holding his arms tight. ‘You are so bright, Adi. You are so weird,’ she said, kissing his nose fondly. She looked up angrily at her husband and said, ‘I am going to put an evil-eye on his cheek.’
    ‘Nobody does such things any more,’ Ayyan said.
    ‘I don’t care. Did you see how those women were looking at my son?’
    ‘How did they look?’
    ‘They were such diabolic women, all of them. Did you see? They coloured their hair.’
    ‘What’s the connection?’
    ‘I don’t know. All I know is that my boy is going to get a black dot on his cheek every morning when he goes to school.’
    ‘All I know is that my