To Hell With Hockey

The Autobiography of Aslam Sher Khan
By Matin Khan, Allied Publishers, 1982

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The Pick-Up Girls				As I stepped back into my room, my room-mate came rushing at me. "Mian, you son of a bitch. Why did you let this opportunity slip? She was the highest paid pick-up around here. Everyone has been trying to lay her. She came for you, and you talked of an unborn sister, you bastard." I didn't even care to reply.
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t the hotel, as I was wading through the autograph hunters, school boys and collegians mostly, someone touched my arm.

"Can I have a word with you?" said a young girl. I took her to my room and gave her an autographed photograph. And then turned to unwrap the gifts that I had. Some had presented me with tape recorders, some with transistors, and some with shirts and sarees.

"Do you wear sarees?" I asked the little girl, and offered her one. She declined, but kept sitting in my room, making me feel uneasy.

I walked up to her and patted her cheek. She held my hand. "If I had a little sister, she would be almost your age. And just as I would not want her in anybody's room, I don't like you in mine."

She got up abruptly, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me. "Nobody," she said with tears in her eyes, "nobody has spoken to me like this before."

I walked her out of the lobby. The autograph hunters were startled to see the girl crying all the way out. Once she got into her car, she said, "I'll never think of you as a brother, and I'll never love you less than the only one that I have."

As I stepped back into my room, my room-mate came rushing at me, "Mian, you son of a bitch. Why did you let this opportunity slip? She was the highest paid pick-up around here. Everyone of us has been trying to lay her. She came for you, and you talked of an unborn sister, you dumb bastard."

I didn't even care to reply.

After the official dinner, two well known forwards of world hockey - one Asian and one European - offered to drop me at the hotel. There were three girls sitting in the car with them.

"Let us take the virgin dancing," they said, referring to me. We went to a swank nightclub in a five-star hotel. I cursed myself for gate-crashing into a five-star world from a no-star background.

We reached back to our hotel very late. "Fuck you," I shouted as I walked into the lobby, "fuck you everybody." Four pairs of eyes peered in my direction. Three of them belonged to a star forward and two halves of our team. The fourth belonged to a pretty young girl who stood at a distance.

The three players were having an argument. The halves were insisting on helping the forward approach the girl. The forward, known for his individual brilliance, was equally insistent on making a solo run at the girl. It had resulted in a melee among the three players.

I forgot my hurt and anger. I apologised to the girl and escorted her outside the hotel. Returning from there, I pushed the forward into a lift, and turned to the halves, "Don't lead us into shame as well. No girl is worth it."

We left for the airport back to India that night.

The Party Girls