half girlfriend
Chetan Bhagat is the author of six blockbuster books. These include five novels—Five Point Someone (2004), One Night @ the Call Center (2005), The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008), 2 States (2009), Revolution 2020 (2011)—and the non-fiction title What Young India Wants (2012).
Chetan’s books have remained bestsellers since their release. Several of his novels have been adapted into successful Bollywood films.
The New York Times called him ‘the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history’. TIME magazine named him amongst the ‘100 most influential people in the world’ and Fast Company, USA, listed him as one of the world’s ‘100 most creative people in business’.
Chetan writes columns for leading English and Hindi newspapers, focusing on youth and national development issues. He is also a motivational speaker and a screenplay writer.
Chetan quit his international investment banking career in 2009 to devote his entire time to writing and making change happen in the country. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Anusha, an ex-classmate from IIM-A, and his twin sons, Shyam and Ishaan.
Praise for the author
Many writers are successful at expressing what’s in their hearts or articulating a particular point of view. Chetan Bhagat’s books do both and more.
– A.R. Rahman, in TIME magazine, on Chetan’s inclusion in the TIME 100 most influential people in the world
The voice of India’s rising entrepreneurial class.
– Fast Company Magazine, on Chetan’s inclusion in the 100 most creative people in business globally
India’s paperback king.
– The Guardian
The biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s history.
– The New York Times
A rockstar of Indian publishing.
– The Times of India
Bhagat has touched a nerve with young Indian readers and acquired almost cult status.
– International Herald Tribune
Text copyright © 2015 Chetan Bhagat
Originally published by Rupa Publication
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
eISBN: 9781503987401
Cover Designer: Rachita Rakyan
For my mother
For rural India
For the non-English types
Contents
Acknowledgements and some thoughts
Prologue
ACT I Delhi
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
ACT II Bihar
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
ACT III New York
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Epilogue
Acknowledgements and some thoughts
Thank you, dear reader and friend, for picking up Half Girlfriend. Whatever I have achieved today in life is thanks to you. Here’s thanking all those who helped me with this book:
Shinie Antony, my editor and first reader since Five Point Someone. Her feedback is invaluable.
Those who helped me at various stages of conceptualizing, research and editing—Anubha Bang, Abhishek Kapoor, Anusha Bhagat, Masaba Gupta, Ayesha Raval, Abha Bakaya and Anusha Venkatachalam.
My team—Bhakti, Michelle, Tanya and Virali.
My immediate family—Anusha, Shyam, Ishaan. My mother, Rekha. My brother and his wife, Ketan and Pia. My in-laws, Suri, Kalpana, Anand and Poonam.
Friends who make life worthwhile.
My extended family on Twitter and Facebook.
The entire team at Rupa Publications India.
All those I met in Bihar while writing this book.
And, finally, Bill Gates—and not just for Microsoft Word this time.
I want to share something with you. With this book, I complete ten years as a writer. When I started writing, my motives were different. I wanted to make it. I wanted to prove a point. Today, I write for different reasons. I write for change. A change in the mindset of Indian society. It is a lofty goal, and I am not foolish enough to think I can ever achieve it. However, it helps to have positive intentions and a direction in life, and I am glad to have found mine.
I want to reach as many people as I can—through books, films or other mediums of entertainment. I am human; I will falter and I will have ups and downs. If possible, try to maintain your support and keep me grounded through that process.
One more thing: don’t give me your admiration. Give me your love. Admiration passes, love endures. Also, admiration comes with expectations. Love accepts some flaws.
In fact, people sometimes ask me how I would like to be remembered. While hopefully that is a while away, all I tell them is this: I don’t want to be remembered, I just want to be missed.
Welcome to Half Girlfriend.
Prologue
‘They are your journals, you read them,’ I said to him.
He shook his head.
‘Listen, I don’t have the time or patience for this,’ I said, getting irritated. Being a writer on a book tour doesn’t allow for much sleep—I had not slept more than four hours a night for a week. I checked my watch. ‘It’s midnight. I gave you my view. It’s time for me to sleep now.’
‘I want you to read them,’ he said.
We were in my room at the Chanakya Hotel, Patna. This morning, he had tried to stop me on my way out. Then he had waited for me all day; I had returned late at night to find him sitting in the hotel lobby.
‘Just give me five minutes, sir,’ he had said, following me into the lift. And now here we were in my room as he pulled out three tattered notebooks from his backpack.
The spines of the notebooks came apart as he plonked them on the table. The yellowing pages fanned out between us. The pages had handwritten text, mostly illegible as the ink had smudged. Many pages had holes, rats having snacked on them.
An aspiring writer, I thought.
‘If this is a manuscript, please submit it to a publisher. However, do not send it in this state,’ I said.
‘I am not a writer. This is not a book.’
‘It’s not?’ I said, lightly touching a crumbling page. I looked up at him. Even seated, he was tall. Over six feet in height, he had a sunburnt, outdoor ruggedness about him. Black hair, black eyes and a particularly intense gaze. He wore a shirt two sizes too big for his lean frame. He had large hands. He reassembled the notebooks, gentle with his fingers, almost caressing the pages.
‘What are these?’ I said.
‘I had a friend. These are her journals,’ he said.
‘Her journals. Ah. A girlfriend?’
‘Half-girlfriend.’
??
?What?’
He shrugged.
‘Listen, have you eaten anything all day?’ I said.
He shook his head. I looked around. A bowl of fruit and some chocolates sat next to my bed. He took a piece of dark chocolate when I offered it.
‘So what do you want from me?’ I said.
‘I want you to read these journals, whatever is readable. . .because I can’t.’
I looked at him, surprised.
‘You can’t read? As in, you can’t read in general? Or you can’t read these?’
‘These.’
‘Why not?’ I said, reaching for a chocolate myself.
‘Because Riya’s dead.’
My hand froze in mid-air. You cannot pick up a chocolate when someone has just mentioned a death.
‘Did you just say the girl who wrote these journals is dead?’
He nodded. I took a few deep breaths and wondered what to say next.
‘Why are they in such terrible shape?’ I said after a pause.
‘They are old. Her ex-landlord found them after years.’
‘Sorry, Mr Whats-your-name. Can I order some food first?’ I picked up the phone in the room and ordered two club sandwiches from the limited midnight menu.
‘I’m Madhav. Madhav Jha. I live in Dumraon, eighty kilometres from here.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I run a school there.’
‘Oh, that’s. . .’ I paused, searching for the right word.
‘. . .noble? Not really. It’s my mother’s school.’
‘I was going to say that’s unusual. You speak English. Not typical of someone who runs a school in the back of beyond.’
‘My English is still bad. I have a Bihari accent,’ he said, without a trace of self-consciousness.
‘French people have a French accent when they speak English.’
‘My English wasn’t even English until. . .’ he trailed off and fell silent. I saw him swallow to keep his composure.
‘Until?’
He absently stroked the notebooks on the desk.
‘Nothing. Actually, I went to St. Stephen’s.’
‘In Delhi?’
‘Yes. English types call it “Steven’s”.’
I smiled. ‘And you are not one of the English types?’
‘Not at all.’
The doorbell startled us. The waiter shifted the journals to put the sandwich tray on the table. A few sheets fell to the floor.
‘Careful!’ Madhav shouted, as if the waiter had broken some antique crystal.
The waiter apologized and scooted out of the room.
I offered Madhav the club sandwich, which had a tomato, cheese and lettuce filling. He ignored me and rearranged the loose sheets of paper.
‘Are you okay? Please eat.’
He nodded, his eyes still on the pages of the journal. I decided to eat, since my imposed guest didn’t seem to care for my hospitality.
‘These journals obviously mean a lot to you. But why have you brought them here?’
‘For you to read. Maybe they will be useful to you.’
‘How will they be useful to me?’ I said, my voice firmer with the food inside me. A part of me wanted him out of my room as soon as possible.
‘She used to like your books. We used to read them together,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘For me to learn English.’
‘Madhav,’ I said, as calmly as possible, ‘this seems like a sensitive matter. I don’t want to get involved. Okay?’
His gaze remained directed at the floor. ‘I don’t want the journals either,’ he said after a while.
‘That is for you to decide.’
‘It’s too painful for me,’ he said.
‘I can imagine.’
He stood up, presumably to leave. He had not touched his sandwich—which was okay, because I could eat it after he left.
‘Thank you for your time. Sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said.
He scribbled his phone number on a piece of paper and kept it on the table. ‘If you are ever in Dumraon and need anything, let me know. It’s unlikely you will ever come, but still. . .’ He stood up, instantly dwarfing me, and walked to the door.
‘Madhav,’ I called out after him, ‘you forgot the journals. Please take them with you.’
‘I told you I don’t need them.’
‘So why are you leaving them here?’
‘Because I can’t throw them away. You can.’
Before I could answer, he stepped out, shut the door and left. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened.
I picked up the journals and ran out of the room, but the sole working lift had just gone down. I could have taken the stairs and caught him in time but, after a long day, I didn’t have the energy to do that.
I came back to my room, irritated by his audacity. Dumping the notebooks and the slip with his phone number in the dustbin, I sat on the bed, a little unsettled.
I can’t let someone I just met get the better of me, I thought, shaking my head. I switched off the lights and lay down. I had to catch an early-morning flight to Mumbai the next day and had a four-hour window of sleep. I couldn’t wait to reach home.
However, I couldn’t stop thinking about my encounter with the mysterious Madhav. Who was this guy? The words ‘Dumraon’, ‘Stephen’s’ and ‘Delhi’ floated around in my head. Questions popped up: What the hell is a half-girlfriend? And why do I have a dead girl’s journals in my room?
Eyes wide open, I lay in bed, staring at the little flashing red light from the smoke detector on the ceiling.
The journals bothered me. Sure, they lay in the dustbin. However, something about those torn pages, the dead person and her half-boyfriend, or whoever he was, intrigued me. Don’t go there, I thought, but my mind screamed down its own suggestion: Read just one page.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said out loud. But thirty minutes later, I switched on the lights in my room, fished out the journals from the dustbin and opened the first volume. Most pages were too damaged to read. I tried to make sense of what I could.
The first page dated back nine years to 1 November 2002. Riya had written about her fifteenth birthday. One more page, I kept thinking. I flipped through the pages as I tried to find another readable one. I read one more section, and then another. Three hours later, I had read whatever could be read in the entire set.
The room phone rang at 5 a.m., startling me.
‘Your wake-up call, sir,’ the hotel operator said.
‘I am awake, thank you,’ I said, as I’d never slept at all. I called Jet Airways.
‘I’d like to cancel a ticket on the Patna-Mumbai flight this morning.’
Pulling out the slip of paper with Madhav’s number from the dustbin, I texted him: We need to talk. Important.
At 6.30 a.m., the tall, lanky man was in my room once more.
‘Make tea for both of us. The kettle is above the minibar.’
He followed my instructions. The early morning sun highlighted his sharp features. He handed me a cup of tea and took a seat diagonally opposite me on the double bed.
‘Should I speak first, or will you?’ I said.
‘About?’
‘Riya.’
He sighed.
‘Do you think you knew her well?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You feel comfortable talking about her to me?’
He thought for a few seconds and nodded.
‘So tell me everything. Tell me the story of Madhav and Riya.’
‘A story that fate left incomplete,’ he said.
‘Fate can be strange indeed.’
‘Where do I start? When we first met?’
‘Always a good place,’ I said.
ACT I
Delhi
1
‘Where?’ I gasped, trying to catch my breath.
I had two minutes left for my interview to start and I couldn’t find the room. Lost,
I stopped whoever I could in the confusing corridors of St. Stephen’s College to ask for directions.
Most students ignored me. Many sniggered. I wondered why.
Well, now I know. My accent. Back in 2004, my English was Bihari. I don’t want to talk now like I did back then. It’s embarrassing. It wasn’t English. It was 90 per cent Bihari Hindi mixed with 10 per cent really bad English. For instance, this is what I had actually said:
‘Cumty room. . .batlaieyega zara? Hamara interview hai na wahan. . . Mera khel ka kota hai. Kis taraf hai?’
If I start speaking the way I did in those days, you’ll get a headache. So I’m going to say everything in English. Just imagine my words in Bhojpuri-laced Hindi, with the worst possible English thrown in.
‘Where you from, man?’ said a boy with hair longer than most girls.
‘Me Madhav Jha from Dumraon, Bihar.’
His friends laughed. Over time, I learnt that people often ask what they call a ‘rhetorical’ question—something they ask just to make a point, not expecting an answer. Here, the point was to demonstrate that I was an alien amongst them.
‘What are you interviewing for? Peon?’ the long-haired boy said and laughed.
I didn’t know enough English back then to be offended. Also, I was in a hurry. ‘You know where it is?’ I said instead, looking at his group of friends. They all seemed to be the rich, English types. Another boy, short and fat, seemed to take pity on me and replied, ‘Take a left at the corner of the main red building and you’ll find a sign for the committee room.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. This I knew how to say in English.
‘Can you read the sign in English?’ the boy with the long hair said.
His friends told him to leave me alone. I followed the fat boy’s instructions and ran towards the red building.
I faced the first interview of my life. Three old men sat in front of me. They looked like they had not smiled since their hair had turned grey.
I had learnt about wishing people before an interview. I had even practised it. ‘Good morning, sir.’
‘There are a few of us here,’ said the man in the middle. He seemed to be around fifty-five years old and wore square, black-rimmed glasses and a checked jacket.
‘Good morning, sir, sir and sir,’ I said.
They smiled. I didn’t think it was a good smile. It was the high-class-to-low-class smile. The smile of superiority, the smile of delight that they knew English and I didn’t.