Half Girlfriend

by Chetan Bhagat

  ‘My trial now. I change, sir?’ I said to him.

  Piyush turned to me, surprised, I don’t know whether at my English or my stupid question or both.

  ‘Aise kheliyega? Trial-va hai ya mazaak?’ he said in Bhojpuri, not even Hindi. He meant: will you play like this? Is it a trial or a joke?

  I regretted knowing him.

  ‘I. . .I. . .’

  Then R interrupted. ‘Oh, you are also sports quota?’

  Piyush looked at both of us, surprised at the familiarity.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, one of the few English responses I could give with confidence.

  ‘State-level player. Watch this Bihari’s game and go,’ Piyush said and guffawed before he left.

  I could have taken offence. He had used the word ‘Bihari’ as if to say ‘Watch, even this poor little Bihari can play’, despite being a Bihari himself. However, he had helped me without knowing it, so I was grateful. She looked at me and smiled.

  ‘No wonder you gave those tips,’ she said. ‘State level, my God.’

  ‘What is your good name?’ I blurted out, without any context or sense of timing. Also, who on earth says ‘good name’ these days? Only losers like me who translate ‘shubh naam’ in Hindi to English.

  ‘Good or bad, only one name. Riya,’ she said and smiled.

  Riya. I loved her short little name. Or maybe when you start liking people, you start liking everything about them—from their sweaty eyebrows to their little names.

  ‘Your name?’ she said. For the first time in my life a girl had asked my name.

  ‘Myself Madhav Jha.’

  That was my reflexive response. It was only later that I learnt that people who construct sentences like that sound low class. You see, we think in Hindi first and simply translate our thoughts, word for word.

  ‘From Bihar,’ she said and laughed. ‘Right?’

  She didn’t laugh because I was a Bihari. She laughed because Piyush had already revealed that fact about me. There was no judgement in her voice. I liked her more and more every second.

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘From Delhi itself.’

  I wanted to continue talking to her. I wanted to know her full name and her native place. That is how we introduce ourselves in Dumraon. However, I didn’t know how to ask her in English, the language one needed to impress girls. Plus, I had a selection trial in a few minutes.

  The coach blew his whistle.

  ‘I have my trials now, will you watch?’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  I ran—rather, hopped—in excitement towards the changing room. Soon, I was back on court and Piyush started the game.

  I played well. I don’t want to brag but I played better than any player on the college team.

  ‘Basket,’ I shouted as I scored my fifth shot. As the crowd clapped, I looked around. She was sitting on one of the benches, sipping water from a bottle. She clapped too.

  I had a good game, but her presence made me play even better.

  The score inched forward; I pushed myself harder and scored a few more baskets. When I took a tough shot, the seniors patted my back. Piyush blew the final whistle. Final score: 25–28. We had done it. The newbies had managed to defeat the St. Stephen’s team.

  My body was drenched in sweat. I felt drained and exhausted. Players patted my back as I struggled to catch my breath. Piyush came running up to me in the middle of the court.

  ‘You scored 17 out of 28. Well done, Bihari,’ he said. He ruffled my sweaty hair. I walked out of the court deliberately towards Riya.

  ‘Wow, you really are good,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, still panting after the game.

  ‘Anyway, I have to go,’ she said and extended her hand. ‘Nice meeting you. Bye.’

  ‘Bye,’ I said, my heart sinking. My head had known it would end like this. My heart didn’t want it to end.

  ‘Unless we are both lucky,’ she added and grinned. ‘And the higher powers here admit us.’

  ‘Who knows,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. But if they do, then see you. Else, bye.’

  She walked away. I realized I didn’t even know her full name. As she became more distant with every step, I wanted nothing more than to get admission to St. Stephen’s.

  I walked up to Piyush.

  ‘You cracked it. On fire on the court, huh?’ he said.

  ‘Sir, but the interview. . . My English—’

  ‘Sucked,’ he said.

  Disappointment slammed into me. His expression suggested ‘sucked’ meant something nasty.

  ‘But you play bloody good basketball,’ Piyush continued. He patted my back and walked away.

  I stood alone in the middle of the basketball court. Everyone else had left. I saw the brick-coloured buildings and the greenery around me.

  Is this place in my destiny? I wondered. Well, it wasn’t just about my destiny. It was our destiny.

  That is why, one month later, a postman came to my doorstep in Dumraon with a letter from St. Stephen’s College. He also wanted a big tip.

  3

  ‘Hey,’ she said. Her perky voice startled me; I had been scanning the college noticeboard.

  I turned around. I had prayed for this to happen. She and I had both made it.

  She wore black, skin-tight jeans and a black-and-white striped T-shirt. Without the sweat and grime from court, her face glowed. She had translucent pink lip gloss on, with tiny glittery bits on her lips. Her hair, slightly wavy, came all the way down to her waist. Her long fingers looked delicate, hiding the power they had displayed on court. My heart was in my mouth. Ever since I had got my admission letter, I had been waiting for the month before college opened to pass quickly and to find out if Riya had made it too.

  ‘Riya,’ she said. ‘You remember, right?’

  Did I remember? I wanted to tell her I had not forgotten her for one moment since I left Delhi. I wanted to tell her I had never seen a girl more beautiful than her. I wanted to tell her that the oxygen flow to my lungs had stopped.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Glad you joined.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure, actually,’ she said and pointed to the noticeboard. ‘Is that the first-year timetable?’

  I nodded. She smiled at me again.

  ‘What’s your course?’ she asked, her eyes on the noticeboard.

  ‘Sociology,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, intellectual,’ she said.

  I didn’t know what that meant. However, she laughed and I guessed it was something funny, so I laughed along. The noticeboard also had a bunch of stapled sheets with the names of all first-year students and their new roll numbers.

  ‘What about you?’ I said. I adjusted my yellow T-shirt and blue jeans while she looked at the board. I had bought new clothes from Patna for St. Stephen’s. I didn’t look like a government office clerk anymore. I wanted to fit into my new college.

  ‘English,’ she said. ‘Here, see, that’s my name.’ Riya Somani, English (Hons), it said. My heart sank. A girl doing an English degree would never befriend a country bumpkin like me.

  Her phone rang. She took out the sleek Nokia instrument from her jeans’ pocket.

  ‘Hi, Mom,’ she said in Hindi. ‘Yes, I reached. Yes, all good, just finding my way.’

  Her Hindi was music to my ears. So I could talk to her. She spoke for a minute more and hung up to find me looking at her.

  ‘Moms, you know,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. You speak Hindi?’

  She laughed. ‘You keep asking me that. Of course I do. Why?’

  ‘My English isn’t good,’ I said, and switched languages. ‘Can I talk to you in Hindi?’

  ‘What you say matters, not the language,’ she said and smiled.

  Some say there is an exact moment when you fall in love. I didn’t know if it was true before, but I do now. This was it. When Riya Somani said that line, the world turned in slow motion. I noticed her delicate eyebrows. When she spoke, they moved slightly.
They had the perfect length, thickness and width. She would win a ‘best eyebrows’ competition hands down—or as we say in basketball, it would be a slam dunk.

  Perhaps I should have waited to fall in love with her. However, I knew it was pointless. I had little control over my feelings. So from my first day in college, I was in love. Riya Somani, ace basketball player, English literature student, most beautiful girl on the planet, owner of extraordinary eyebrows and speaker of wonderful lines, had yanked my heart out of its hiding place.

  Of course, I could not show it. I didn’t have the courage, nor would it be a smart idea.

  We walked down a corridor towards our respective classrooms. I had her with me for two more minutes.

  ‘You made friends here?’ she said.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘You?’

  ‘I have some classmates from school in Stephen’s. Plus, I am from Delhi, so have many friends outside.’

  ‘I hope I can adjust,’ I said. ‘I feel I don’t belong here.’

  ‘Trust me, nobody feels they do,’ she said. ‘Which residence did they give you?’

  ‘Rudra,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

  ‘They don’t give one to Delhiites. I’m a day-ski, unfortunately,’ she said, using the common term for day scholars.

  We reached my classroom. I pretended not to see it and kept walking until she reached hers.

  ‘Oh, this is my class,’ she said. ‘Where’s yours?’

  ‘I’ll find out, go ahead,’ I said.

  She smiled and waved goodbye. I wanted to ask her out for coffee, but couldn’t. I could shoot a basket from half-court three times in a row but I could not ask a girl to come to the college cafeteria with me.

  ‘Basketball,’ I blurted out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Want to play sometime?’ I recovered quickly.

  ‘With you? You’ll kick my ass,’ she said and laughed. I didn’t know why she felt I would kick her rear end or why she found the phrase funny. I joined her in the laughter anyway.

  ‘You play well,’ I said as we stood at her classroom door.

  ‘Okay, maybe after a few days, once we settle into classes,’ she said. She walked in for her first English lecture. The joy at the possibility of meeting her again made me forget I had a class. I wanted to dance in the garden.

  The bell for the first period rang. ‘This isn’t sociology, right?’ I asked a clueless English student as he arrived late for his own class.

  ‘You are good. Really good,’ she said as she wiped her face with a towel.

  We had played a half-court game; I defeated her 20–9.

  ‘I’m hopeless,’ she said. She took a sip from her water bottle. She wore a fitted sleeveless white top and purple shorts.

  ‘You’re fine. Just out of practice,’ I said.

  She finished the water and shook the empty bottle. ‘I’m still thirsty,’ she said.

  ‘Café?’ I said.

  She looked at me, somewhat surprised. I kept a straight face.

  ‘You get good juice there,’ I said in an innocent tone.

  A swarm of students buzzed inside the cafeteria. Given that it was lunch hour, it took us five minutes to get a table. They didn’t have juice, so Riya settled for lemonade. I ordered a mince and cold coffee. I realized both of us had a problem initiating conversation. I couldn’t talk because I didn’t have the confidence. She, given a choice, preferred to be quiet. Silent Riya, I wanted to call her. I had to break this deadlock if I wanted this to go anywhere. The waiter brought us our food.

  ‘In Bihar, we have aloo chop, in which we sometimes stuff keema. This mince is the same,’ I said.

  ‘What’s Bihar like? I’ve never been there,’ she said and pursed her lips around the straw to sip her lemonade.

  ‘Not like Delhi. Simple. Lots of rice fields. Peaceful, apart from cities like Patna.’

  ‘I like peaceful places,’ she said.

  ‘There are problems, too. People aren’t educated. There’s violence. I am sure you’ve heard. Poor and backward state, as people say.’

  ‘You can be rich and backward, too.’

  We had an awkward silence for two minutes. Silent Riya and Scared Madhav.

  Break the deadlock, I told myself.

  ‘So you live with your family in Delhi?’

  ‘Yes. A big one. Parents, uncles, cousins and a brother.’

  ‘What do your parents do?’ I said.

  A boy should make more interesting conversation with a girl. But a loser like me had little experience or finesse in this regard.

  ‘Family business. Real estate and infrastructure.’

  ‘You are rich, right?’ I said. Idiot Madhav. Couldn’t think of anything better.

  She laughed at my direct question. ‘Rich in money, or rich in mind? Two different things.’

  ‘Huh? Rich, like wealthy?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘What’s unfortunate? Everyone wants to be rich.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. It just embarrasses me. Plus, all the obsession with money and how it defines you, I just don’t get it.’

  I realized she and I came from different worlds. Perhaps it was a futile battle to pursue her. Logically, practically and rationally, it made no sense.

  ‘Can I try your mince?’ she said. ‘I’m hungry.’

  I nodded. I asked the waiter to get another fork. However, before he could get one she picked up mine and took a bite.

  She took my fork, does it mean anything?

  ‘Where’s home for you?’ she said.

  ‘Dumraon. A small town, three hours from Patna.’

  ‘Nice,’ she said.

  ‘You will probably find it boring.’

  ‘No, no, tell me more. As you can see, I’m not much of a talker. I like to listen,’ she said. She seemed genuinely interested. I told her about my life back home, revolving around my mother, her school and basketball. There wasn’t much else. My father had passed away ten years ago. He had left us a huge, crumbling haveli, a couple of fields and many legal cases related to property. We had some servants, who stayed in the haveli’s servant quarters more out of loyalty than their paltry salaries.

  My ancestors were landlords and from the royal family of Dumraon, the oldest princely state in British India. When India became independent, the government took away our family estate and left us with an annual pension that declined with every generation. My great-grand-uncles squandered their money, especially since they all felt they could gamble better than anyone else in the world. Several near-bankruptcies later, the women of the house took charge as the men had all turned into alcoholics. Somehow, the women saved the family pride and the haveli. All of my cousins had moved abroad, and vowed never to return. My father, the only one to remain in Bihar, held the last title of Raja Sahib of Dumraon. Ten years ago, he had succumbed to a cardiac arrest. My mother, Rani Sahiba Durga Jha, was the only strong-willed person left in the family. She brought me up and maintained the few farms left. She also ran the Dumraon Royal School, which taught seven hundred kids from nearby villages.

  The noise of air bubbles as Riya sucked up the last of her lemonade made me realize I had spoken non-stop for ten minutes.

  ‘I’m boring you,’ I said. I vowed to stay quiet for a few minutes. It had to be Silent Riya’s turn now.

  ‘Not at all.’

  I smiled. ‘Now you speak. If you let me talk, I won’t stop.’

  ‘Okay, but wait. Technically you’re a prince, aren’t you? Or are you the king, Raja Sahib?’

  I laughed. ‘There are no kings and princes anymore. Only uneducated villagers talk like that.’

  ‘But they do, right? Seriously, am I talking to a prince? Do they address you as Prince?’ She widened her eyes. Her award-winning eyebrows moved up and down a little.

  ‘Sometimes they do. Listen, it’s not important. We’re not rich or anything.’

  ‘You live in a palace?’

  ‘Haveli. It’s like, well, a s
mall palace. Anyway, I’m no prince. I’m a Bihari boy trying to graduate. Do I look like a prince from any angle?’

  ‘C’mon, you are tall and handsome. You could be one, if you had some jewellery,’ she said. She had said it in jest, but it was the first real compliment she had paid me. Little cupcakes of happiness exploded inside me.

  ‘Did I, a commoner, just play basketball with the Raja Sahib of Dumraon?’ she said and burst into laughter.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ I shook my head.

  ‘C’mon,’ she said and tapped my wrist. My arm went all warm and tingly.

  ‘What about you? Which eighteen-year-old girl comes to college in a BMW and calls herself a commoner?’

  ‘Oh, you noticed. That’s my dad’s car.’

  ‘You must be so rich.’

  ‘My family is. Not me.’

  As she spoke, three girls arrived at our table. ‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ one of them said.

  ‘Hey, girls,’ Riya said. ‘Come, sit with us. Madhav, meet Garima, Ayesha and Rachita, friends from my class. Girls, this is Madhav, my basketball friend.’

  I realized my place in her life. Basketball friend. Perhaps she had friends for specific purposes.

  The girls looked me up and down, down and up, checking me out. ‘Not bad, Riya,’ Garima said and winked at her. The girls burst out laughing and sat down with us.

  ‘Are you in the college team?’ Rachita asked me. She wore a red-and-black bandana on her head.

  I nodded, nervous at their bold familiarity.

  ‘Madhav has played state level,’ Riya said and looked at me proudly.

  ‘Wow,’ the girls said in unison.

  ‘Would you like to order anything?’ I said.

  The three girls froze and then began to laugh. It dawned on me that they were laughing at me. My English had sounded like this: ‘Vood you laik to aarder anything?’ I didn’t know this was such a cardinal sin.

  ‘What happened?’ I said.

  ‘Not a thing,’ Garima said and stood up. ‘Thanks, Madhav, we just ate lunch. Hey, Riya, let’s catch up later, yeah?’

  The three girls left. We waved goodbyes.

  ‘What happened, Riya?’ I said.

  ‘They’re ditzy. Forget them,’ she said.