Half Girlfriend

  A dozen girls wearing pink tights and silver-grey tops came on stage. Riya, the tallest amongst them and the easiest to spot, stood in the centre. Stage lights changed colours. A commentator spoke in a husky self-important voice. He spoke about evolution and how all life emanates from nature. It is stuff that sounds profound when you hear it but is total bullshit when you look back and think about it.

  Riya’s lean frame, athletic body and stunning looks meant most men had their eyes on her. Of course, another girl with a massive bust had her own set of fans.

  As the commentator spoke his lines in a sexy voice, I rehearsed mine in my head.

  ‘Riya, I think people deserve a second chance.’

  Riya did cartwheels on stage with incredible grace. The crowd burst into applause as she did a perfect cartwheel.

  Inside my chest, my heart did the same.

  ‘Riya, not a day—not a day—passes when I don’t think of you,’ I said to myself. I deleted it from my mental shortlist. It sounded too keen. Girls are difficult. It is all about finding the right balance. You can neither be too pushy, nor come across as too cool to care. I suck at this fine balance.

  In the last act, Riya took a handheld mic and sang the two closing lines about nature and how we need to protect it. Her clear and tuneful voice earned a round of spontaneous applause.

  The show ended. The girls came forward to take a bow. The crowd cheered. I slipped out and then sprinted to the classroom converted into a green room. Finger-combing my hair, I knocked on the door.

  A female student peeked out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need to talk to someone.’

  ‘Sorry, only girls allowed inside.’

  ‘Is Riya Somani there?’

  ‘She is changing. Wait.’

  I had little choice. I sat on a ledge opposite the classroom. I waited for thirty minutes. A group of girls came out, giggling for no particular reason. Riya didn’t.

  Forty-five minutes later, dressed in black jeans with silver buttons and a tight black top, Riya stepped out. In a deliberate act, she took brisk steps away from me.

  ‘Riya,’ I said.

  She stopped. However, she didn’t turn towards me. Her hands froze, as if uncomfortable.

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  She semi-turned towards me.

  ‘Hi, Madhav.’

  I stood squarely in front of her.

  ‘I want to talk. Five minutes,’ I said.

  ‘Anything important?’

  ‘To me it is. Five minutes?’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  We stood in a dark corridor, facing each other stiffly, as if in confrontation. It didn’t seem like the right place to talk. I saw her face. She was still the most beautiful woman in the world to me. Even though we were in the middle of what seemed like a world war, I wanted to kiss her. That is how sick the male mind is. It can forget the entire context of a situation and follow its own track.

  ‘I said I’m listening,’ she said. I flushed out the sick thoughts from my mind.

  ‘Not here. Somewhere private?’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said.

  I realized it had come out all wrong.

  ‘Sorry, not like that. Somewhere we can sit, face to face. And it isn’t so dark.’

  ‘The café?’ she said.

  ‘Now? It’s packed with the DU crowd. You won’t get a table.’

  ‘Listen, I have plans. I have to go,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, the café then. Fine.’

  We walked to the café. As expected, lines to enter extended all the way outside.

  ‘It is crowded. Is it okay if we talk in my car?’ she said.

  I looked at her. She seemed to have calmed down a little.

  ‘Yeah. The driver will be there, right?’

  ‘I’ll send him away. Actually, let’s go to the car. I need to give you something, too.’

  13

  We walked out to her car. She handed her driver a fifty-rupee note.

  ‘Driver bhaiya, can you go and buy a few packets of Parle-G biscuits for me, please?’

  The driver looked puzzled.

  ‘Madam, we will buy it on the way?’

  ‘No, go now. Leave the keys. I’ll wait inside.’

  The confused driver handed the keys to Riya and left.

  Riya and I sat in the backseat of her BMW. A fat armrest separated us. She switched on the reading light and slipped her feet out of her shoes. Turning sideways, she leaned back against the window to face me. She tucked her feet under her legs on the seat.

  I sat stiffly. The BMW reminded me how out of place I was in her world.

  ‘So?’ Riya said.

  ‘You were really great on stage. And congrats on winning the English vocals.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. That’s nice of you, Madhav, to congratulate me.’

  ‘Amazing show,’ I said, clearing my throat.

  ‘Thanks. Is that all you wanted to say to me?’

  I shook my head. I hated it when she adopted this formal tone.

  ‘So let’s skip the small talk. Say what you want to.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Have heard it a million times from you.’

  ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘I have forgiven you. I have also moved on. It’s past. It’s over. So, that’s it?’

  I looked into her eyes. In the dim reading light of the BMW, I could not spot any emotion on her face. I felt weak in her presence. I fought back tears.

  ‘I want us to be friends again,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ she said, her voice as cold as Delhi’s foggy winter night.

  Did she miss nothing about me or what we had?

  Because I miss you, damn it! I wanted to scream at the top of my voice. Of course, I couldn’t. I had lost the right to express any words, let alone any emotions, to her. I had to say something reasonable, underplaying what I felt.

  ‘So I have a chance to show you I am not a jerk,’ I said.

  ‘I am sure you are not. I take your word for it. You don’t have to show me.’

  Riya is too clever, too smart and sometimes too icy. She left me speechless. I had a sinking feeling something was not going right.

  However, she touched my hand on the armrest. Her soft fingers pressed into my wrist, as if checking my pulse.

  ‘Listen, Madhav,’ she said. ‘I am sorry I am being this way. Cold and aloof.’

  Her warm touch melted my resolve to keep my composure. I loved her touch but I wished she would remove her fingers. I didn’t know if I could hold back my tears anymore.

  ‘Please,’ I said. It sounded needy. I hated myself for saying it.

  ‘Madhav, I’m not angry with you anymore. It is anyway not possible for us to be friends again. I am leaving.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m leaving college.’

  ‘What? Like quitting?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’m dropping out.’

  ‘You’re in the second year. You won’t finish your degree?’

  ‘Never cared much for formal education.’

  I looked at her, shocked.

  ‘Of course, I can say that because my dad’s rich. It’s okay if you think that I’m a quitter.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think that. All I’m thinking is, why?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You’re dropping out of St. Stephen’s. There must be a reason.’

  Our eyes met. Maybe it was my imagination but, for a moment, I felt the same connection to her as I had in the past.

  ‘I don’t think you want to know.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘You will judge me.’

  ‘Have I ever?’

  She kept quiet.

  ‘Riya, have I ever judged you? You judged me and threw me out of your life.’

  ‘Madhav, please.’

  ‘Let’s not go there. Yeah, fine. Anyway, are you still thinking about quitting or is it final?’

>   ‘Pretty final.’

  ‘Why?’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Open the glove box.’

  ‘What?’

  She pointed to the storage box below the dashboard. Puzzled, I reached over and opened it. It had three red cardboard boxes inside.

  ‘Take one,’ she said.

  I picked up a box and sat back on my seat. The velvet-lined red box had golden leaves embossed on it.

  ‘Open it.’

  I switched on the reading light on my side of the car. I lifted the red-gold lid of the box.

  Inside, I found a red envelope on top of a silk pouch. The card and the pouch had ‘R and R’ on it.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  She gestured with her eyes that I look further.

  I held the envelope in one hand and the pouch in the other. The pouch contained pieces of chocolate wrapped in silver paper. I put the pouch aside and opened the card.

  I read a couple of lines. My head swam.

  ‘What?’ I turned to Riya.

  ‘I told you, you don’t want to know.’

  I composed myself and summoned the resolve to read the full card. It went like this:

  Shri Vishnu Somani and Shrimati Kala Devi Somani

  humbly invite you to the wedding of

  their granddaughter

  So. Riya Somani

  (d/o Mr Mahendra Somani and Mrs Jayanti Somani)

  with

  Chi. Rohan Chandak

  (s/o Late Shri Manoj Chandak and Jamna Bai Chandak)

  on 25 January 2007 at 8 p.m.

  at the Taj Palace Hotel, Delhi

  Programme and RSVP details attached. Request no gifts.

  I didn’t read the other cards in the box, which had details of the other ceremonies. I simply sat there frozen. I clutched the silk pouch like a stress ball and looked straight ahead.

  ‘It happened so fast,’ Riya said.

  I remained quiet. Shock waves ran through me. Numb, I traced the golden embroidery on the pouch.

  ‘A part of me can’t believe it is happening,’ she said, to fill the awkward silence.

  ‘You’re getting married?’ I whispered, my tone unusually calm, my gaze still averted.

  ‘In two months.’

  I smirked and turned to her. ‘Wow, Riya. I’ve never faced such a dodge, even on the basketball court.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I wanted us to be friends again. But you are leaving college. Getting married.’

  ‘That’s life, I guess.’

  ‘You’re nineteen.’

  ‘Will turn twenty after the wedding, later the same year.’

  ‘Have you gone mad, Riya?’

  ‘You’ve lost the right to talk to me like that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine. Madhav, it is my choice. Nobody is forcing me. I want to leave.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I never wanted to do this course. I don’t want to be near my sexist relatives.’

  ‘You could finish your degree. Go abroad later to study. Why marriage?’

  ‘I want adventure, travel and excitement. Rohan promises all that.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s crazy. He keeps me entertained. He’s also well settled. What’s wrong with marrying him?’

  ‘He’s rich.’

  ‘So? Is that his only flaw? So am I.’

  ‘Not a flaw. Just an observation. He couldn’t wait for you to finish college? He wants you to drop out?’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t care either way. It’s his family. They want him to get married soon. My parents don’t want to risk losing a match like him, too.’

  ‘Riya, nobody drops out of college like this.’

  ‘People abroad do it all the time.’

  ‘Not in India.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Most of India needs a degree to get a job and make a living. I don’t need that, right?’

  She wasn’t wrong. Losers like me need to study, else we have no future. People who are born at 100, Aurangzeb Road can do whatever they want in life.

  ‘Even Rohan joined an MBA and never finished it.’

  ‘Is Rohan your boyfriend?’

  ‘Well, he will be my husband,’ Riya said.

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘We are getting closer. Of course, I always called him Rohan bhaiya when I was growing up, so it’s an adjustment,’ she said. She laughed at her own joke. I wished someone had strangled Rohan at the ‘bhaiya’ stage. That bastard had seemed like trouble right from Riya’s party.

  I wanted to say something sensible. I wanted to turn the tide even somewhat in my favour. Of course, God had not given me the brains to do so. Neither was my timing right. A girl giving you her wedding card is basically like a giant ‘Game Over’ sign flashing in a video game. It is not the time to say you want her back. Or that you love her more than anything else on earth. I wondered if I should act supportive. I wondered if I should ask her about the preparations, or if she needed any help. I stopped myself. I could not sink that low.

  The situation reminded me of what my friends used to tell me. I was indeed a toy. I felt like Woody from the movie Toy Story. In the film, Woody, a neglected toy, cries alone because his owner grows up and no longer plays with him.

  ‘Say something,’ she said.

  You bloody bitch, my impulsive mind suggested. I controlled myself.

  Please don’t do this. I love you so much, said the emotional side of my mind. I realized my head was a mess right now. Given my track record, saying anything would only mean regretting it later.

  ‘What do I say? Surprised. Shocked. I don’t know.’

  ‘People normally say congratulations.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, but didn’t congratulate her.

  ‘I hope we can move past whatever happened. We can, right?’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘You will come?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The wedding. I just invited you.’

  I wanted to throw her over-the-top wedding invitation box-cum-card at her.

  ‘Let’s see,’ I said. I patted myself mentally. I had responded with more dignity than I thought I had. ‘Go fuck yourself’ would have been a more natural response.

  ‘Please do come,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ I managed to say one more time.

  ‘I’m following my heart. That’s usually doing the right thing, right?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes following your heart leads you nowhere.’

  I looked at her to see if she understood my sly comment. She did, and gave a wry smile.

  ‘I am sorry, Madhav, if I hurt you.’

  I nodded to reassure her that hurting me was no big deal. Pretty girls have the right to hurt men. I found it hard to breathe. I switched off the reading light. That way, in case I started crying, my tears would not be visible.

  I heard a knock on the car’s door. The driver was back.

  ‘Here, madam,’ the driver said. He handed her four packets of Parle-G.

  She passed the biscuits to me. ‘Please take them for Rudra. I’m addicted to these. If I keep them in the car I’ll eat them all.’

  ‘You asked him to get it.’

  ‘Only so he would leave us alone.’

  I kept the packets, my consolation prize. Rohan gets Riya. Madhav gets biscuits.

  I opened the car door and stepped out.

  She stepped out from her side and walked up to me.

  ‘Bye,’ she said.

  ‘Bye, Riya,’ I said. It was hard to hold back my tears forever. I wanted her to leave.

  ‘Hey, you forgot something,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Your card.’

  She reached into the car and handed me the evil red box once again, with the cards and the chocolates. I somehow managed to hold everything along with the biscuit packets.

&nb
sp; ‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. I wondered where the nearest dustbin was.

  ‘Take care then,’ she said and came forward for a basic goodbye hug.

  I stepped back. I didn’t want any more fake hugs.

  She understood my hesitation and withdrew with grace. She smiled at me one last time and slid into her car. The BMW slipped away with its silent elegance, as if nothing had happened.

  The car took a left turn from Hindu College and was soon out of sight. I sat down on the road. The red box and its contents lay around me, almost like hardened blood.

  I cried. The desolate campus road meant nobody could see me. I let it all flow out. Months of pain condensed into tears. A car passed by. I probably looked like a Delhi beggar, complete with biscuit packets around me.

  After a while, I collected everything from the road and stood up. I walked up to the dustbin outside the main gate of the college. I removed the chocolates and biscuits and stuffed them in my pocket. I threw away everything else.

  Even though I was in pain, I remembered the golden rule: if you live in a hostel, never throw away food.

  14

  One year and three months later

  ‘So tell us why you’re here,’ said a thirty-year-old man. He wore a red tie and a crisp white shirt.

  I was at HSBC’s placement interview, facing a panel of three bankers. Each wore a pained and bored expression. They had heard over forty Stephanians talk nonsense about their greatness. Each candidate had solved all the problems India faced, redesigned the bank’s strategy and promised to work harder than apartheid-era slaves. Why do companies bother with such interviews? Perhaps it makes them feel better to talk about the problems of the world, even though the actual job involves sitting at a desk and punching formulas into spreadsheets.

  I had no answer for my panel. I didn’t know why I had applied to them, or for any job at all. I hated Delhi. I flashbacked to my college life. Yes, I’d loved it when I had first joined college. The first year had gone by so quickly it had felt like a vacation. The second year was painful, with Riya breaking up with me. However, she was at least around. I could steal a glance at her every now and then, be rejected every couple of months and still remember the good times. I had something then that keeps people going during the worst times—hope.