The Precious O

That split second when the rubber slaps your skin and stays, when there is a click of a switch, a levitation, a lightness of your body—everyone remembers the first time they are knocked out, everyone except Mr Suleyman Khar, regional light-heavyweight titleist, late bloomer, a defensive orthodox savant with a decent right hand, professional record (before the events of last Saturday, that is): 37-0. The 0 in the end has now vanished, but Mr Khar is yet to believe it.

Behind this desecration lies the literal hands of 23-year-old Ramlal Shaver. A boy who'll reach great heights, they intone in the broadcast. A dethroning of the local hero. A shake-up of the town's few remaining constants of hope. "The old man was easy to hit", he twists in a post-fight jab, "I said so. I'm levels above him. I'm ready for the world title, they know it!"

Ramlal's in-ring celebrations, which includes a rather bizarre sequence of selfies the boxer's training partner takes pleasure in organising, is broken for a minute by Suleyman screaming out in joy, pumping his fists in the air, and running out of the ring and into the crowd, flanked by bouncers, as if this is yet another victory he has gifted his town. Weird way to celebrate a defeat, some think, before their attentions and tweets turn back to the victor, for that's how one's first defeat always should be, no matter the suddenness of a truncated legacy. A speedy exit through the back end with a towel preferably hiding most of your face.

***

The brief aberration is, however, picked up by journalists. They promptly phone in the following morning and ask, "What was all that about, Suleyman?"

"What do you mean? The crowd loves me! That's how I always celebrate after winning," he says.

"—But you didn't win?"

"Of course I did," he says and hangs up.

***

Mrs Khar goes out for cakes and tea every Tuesday with the other mothers from her girls' secondary school. She often hopes these outings will take the air of a cherished ritual in their senior years when her girls grow up and definitely venture into more profitable ventures than their father had. Pugilism, she has feared for a long while now, isn't as fashionable. One little defeat and their worth is down the gutter. And now that their future has cut an uncertain corner, she wonders if she must convince her husband of quitting altogether and taking up a sportswear business.

"I'm glad Akram did not go through it, really. I told him if he wanted to marry me, he couldn't be that. He had to tear up his licence and get a real job or something. We never expected Suleyman to go this far. You should be happy, really. It's the end of the era."

They toast to that.

"—but this 'being in denial' thing I'm hearing about… I know, I know. I shouldn't be listening to any gossip. Really, though, did he say that? Did he say he won? C'mon, you two must have talked about this."

Mrs Khar has expected the conversation to circle to this. She shrugs, "I let him be, I don't interfere, you know that."

"Oh, I know it must be really hard to accept this. I'm only thinking of the kids! It must be rough on them."

"—I just don't want my boy to think it's okay to act like that. No disrespect, but he isn't doing any service to your girls. They probably look at this and think it's hip."

***

"Ma, this is embarrassing," Lovely Khar, the older of Suleyman's two girls, tells her mother. "I don't appreciate the jibes I get at school; I hate it! Why can't you talk to him?"

Mrs Khar sits her daughter down. "I don't interfere in your father's business."

"You do it all the time!" She says, "Just last night you were trying to get him to open some dumb accessories shop!"

"You ever thought your father could be going through a tough time?"

"Ma, I'm just saying, why does he have to pretend he won?"

Mrs Khar stands up, "Well, if he says he won, maybe he did. End of conversation."

"—Ma!"

***

The heavy bags of TrunkWallah Gym are dented with punches that belong to mediocre records. In fact, Suleyman has been among the very few who was able to break through and protect his O. Most of his contemporaries have long since traded in their virginity to become accomplished veterans of the B-side—blessing prospects, saving card openers, winning the odd one to appease a bookie. Suleyman will now be one of them.

Children learn 1-2s in their beginner gloves. Their sincere movements betray their sloppiness. A smell of leather and degreaser accompany the crisp snaps of jabs on bags and pads. A trainer turns on the TV, swimming for a decent music channel. He pauses as it lands on a local sports-show. Oversized heads and bow-ties. The lights on the table panelling announce the urgency of these morning broadcasters.

"—It's all a ploy, of course!"

"It's only normal for a person to have trouble facing the truth. Ask yourself: if you were in his shoes, would you have acted this way?"

"Of course not. Why would I ever do that?"

"I, too, am a bit disappointed that he would resort to this, but I understand his actions. We should give him some time to reflect on his loss."

"He probably needs another whacking—"

"He needs to hang it up, is what I think! If you're a fighter and you have that mentality? C'mon, man, you shouldn't be anywhere near that ring!"

"It's all a ploy! You gotta hear me out. He wants the rematch!"

The trainer switches it off and goes back to holding mitts.

***

Five months after Suleyman briefly reigned over tabloid back-pages as laughing-stock and, equally, a calculated genius, he dons his characteristic red and green trunks in a rematch campaign. Ramlal, by now pensive and irritated by having to justify himself against the ridiculous propositions in various media, is tight and slicker in movement and pose. He wants to be done with this even faster this time; he says so in the pre-fight meetings. "He's weak", Ramlal says, "He can't accept the inevitable. When you lose, you lose. You can't ever get that back. The O's gone forever, my friend."

Yet as Suleyman glides across the ring, his gloves hesitantly smothering his ears, the townspeople deliberate whether a knockout would succeed in dialling back time and bring his purity back, the clean slate that he could point at as his pride. Perhaps, even Suleyman Khar, now the regional light-heavyweight title-challenger, knew deep down that avenging this loss still won't bring proper compensation. What's lost is irrevocably lost.

Shahriar Shaams has written for Dhaka Tribune, The Business Standard, and The Daily Star. He is nonfiction editor at Clinch, a martial-arts themed literary journal. Find him on X @shahriarshaams.