It was full fight, boys, girls, supporters, cheerleaders. At the bottom of the dog-pile, Striker Salim and Ozzie Ryan. Security hauled them off each other and returned the snoopy RAV drones that flocked to any unusual action to their stand-by roosts. Parameds rushed to the scene. There was blood, there were bruisings and grazings, there were torn clothes and black eyes. There were lots and lots of tears but no contusions, no concussions, no breaks.

Then the gitmoisation.

Coach Joe: OK, so want to tell me what that was about?

Ozzie Ryan: He started it

Striker Salim: Liar! You started it.

Coach Joe: I don’t care who started it; I want to know what all that was about.

Ozzie Ryan: He’s the liar. His people just lie all the time; they don’t have a word for the truth.

Striker Salim: Ah! Ah! That’s such a lie too.

Ozzie Ryan: See? You can’t trust them: he’s a spy for them, it’s true; before he came here they never got in, since he came there’s been things happening almost every day. He’s a spy and he’s telling them all ways to get in and kill us because he thinks were all animals and going to hell anyway.

Coach Joe: Jesus. Kyle; what happened?

Kyle Rubin: I don’t know, I didn’t see anything, I just heard this noise like and when I looked over they were on the ground tearing lumps out of each other.

Striker Salim: That is so not true ... I cannot believe you said that. You were there, you heard what he said.

Kyle Rubin: I didn’t hear everything, I just heard like shouting...

Gitmoisation part two.

Kyle’s dad: Coach Joe called me, but I’m not going to bawl you out, I think there’s been enough of that already. I’m disappointed, but I’m not going to bawl you out. Just one thing: did Ryan call Salim something?

Kyle Rubin: (mumble.)

Kyle’s dad: Son, did Ryan use a racist term to Salim?

Kyle Rubin: (twisting foot.)

Kyle’s dad: I thought Salim was your friend. Your best friend. I think if someone had done something to my best friend, doesn’t matter who he is, what he is, I’d stand up for him.

Kyle Rubin: He said Salim was a diaper-head curry-nigger and they were all spies and Salim was just standing there so I went in there and popped him, Ryan I mean, and he just went for Salim, not me, and then everyone was piling on with Ryan and Salim at the bottom and they were all shouting curry-nigger-lover curry-nigger-lover at me and trying to get me too and then the security came in.

At the end of it two things were certain: soccer was suspended for one month, and when it did come back, Salim would not be playing, never would be again. Cantonment was not safe for Bharatis.

~ * ~

He was trapped, a traffic island castaway. Marooned on an oval of concrete in Varanasi’s never-ebbing torrent of traffic by the phatphat driver when he saw Kyle fiddling in his lap with pogs.