Half Girlfriend Read online

  I dreamt Riya would come around one day. She would realize I was her perfect partner—in terms of height, basketball, mental connect, how hours felt like minutes when we were together and how little we cared about the rest of the world. She never did. She slapped a wedding card on me and left. My Bihari gang had made me swear on my mother I would never contact her again. I didn’t. She quit college in a couple of weeks. She had a lavish wedding, Stephanians who attended it said afterwards. I’m sure Rohan spent the college’s entire annual budget on the wedding reception. I overheard that Riya had gone to Bora Bora for her honeymoon. The name of the place sounded like it was in Bihar. However, I googled it and discovered it was a set of beautiful islands in the Pacific Ocean, some reachable only by private plane. Which ruled out me going there and murdering the groom.

  However, the pain of the second year felt like a tickle compared to the third year. Third year sucked. I had zero ability to get over her. I couldn’t believe a girl who had left me a year ago had such a grip on me. We had not even slept together. However, it mattered little. She was the only girl I had played, walked, eaten, talked, studied and had fun with. I had peeked into Silent Riya more than anyone else, or so I thought. How could I forget her?

  Well, I could not forget her from two years ago, but I had forgotten the interview room I had entered two minutes ago.

  ‘I said, what brings you here?’ the interviewer repeated and sipped from his bottle of water.

  ‘Yes, sir. I am here because. . .’ I fumbled to remember the company’s name. ‘Because HSBC is a dynamic place to work in and I want to be a part of it.’

  Given my cut-paste answer, I thought he would splash his water on my face. However, he didn’t.

  ‘Madhav Jha, right?’ said another member of the panel, reading my résumé.

  ‘State-level basketball, impressive. Shortlisted for national team trials last year. Did you make it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I hesitated for a second and then gave my answer. ‘I didn’t go for the trials.’ Basketball reminded me of her. After she left, I never went to the court.

  ‘Why?’ all three of them asked together.

  ‘I couldn’t. I was under stress.’

  ‘What kind of stress?’ said the first interviewer.

  ‘Personal.’

  The other interviewers cleared their throat. They nodded their heads at each other, communicating the need to skip that question.

  ‘Why do you want to do banking?’ the third panellist said.

  ‘Because that is what you want me to do.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ The panellist blinked.

  ‘Well, I need a job. Yours is one of those available. And you pay well. So yes, I’ll do whatever you want me to.’

  ‘You don’t have a preference?’

  ‘Not really.’

  I don’t know what made me talk like this. Perhaps it was the fact that I had given eight interviews over the past two weeks and I had lied in every one of them. I had finally had enough. I didn’t want to be in Delhi anymore. I missed my mother. I wanted to call her right now.

  ‘Madhav, do you want this job?’ the first panellist said.

  ‘What’s your name, sir?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Shukla. I am Pramod Shukla. Regional manager for North India.’

  ‘Mr Shukla, are you happy?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You don’t look happy. None of you look happy. Nobody wants this job. Everyone wants the money you offer. You see the difference?’

  The panellists looked at each other. If I had a camera, the picture of their priceless expressions could have won any photography competition.

  ‘I like you. The first honest candidate we have had. I will hire you,’ Pramod said.

  The other two looked shocked. However, they were too junior to counter the boss’s whim.

  ‘But I don’t want it,’ I said and stood up.

  ‘Why?’ Pramod said. ‘Private banking in Delhi. Top clients. Six lakhs a year.’

  ‘No, sir. I am done serving rich people,’ I said and left the room.

  As I walked back to my residence after the interview, for the first time in a year, I felt respect for myself. I decided not to be a doormat anymore. I decided to stop moping over a rich girl who had left me. I had had enough of Stephen’s and trying to be upper class.

  You belong to Dumraon in Bihar. That is who you are, Madhav Jha, I told myself, and that is all you will ever be and need to be.

  I called my mother.

  ‘How are the interviews going?’ she said.

  ‘One company offered me a job.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘HSBC.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Bank.’

  ‘They have a branch in Patna?’

  I laughed. ‘No, it is an international bank. The job is in Delhi,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ my mother said and her voice dropped. ‘You will have to be there then.’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘What?’ she said, surprised.

  ‘I didn’t want the job. My heart is not here anymore.’

  ‘Where is your heart?’ My mother chuckled.

  London, said a voice in my head.

  ‘Dumraon. I’m coming back home.’

  I could sense the wide smile on her face through the phone.

  ‘You’ll come back to Dumraon? After finishing Stephen’s college?’ she said, her voice bright.

  ‘Yes. It is my home, after all.’

  ‘Of course. Everyone keeps asking about you: “Where is our prince, the rajkumar?”’

  ‘Please, Ma, I hope all that nonsense won’t start there.’

  ‘What do you mean, nonsense? You are the prince of Dumraon. People want to do your rajyabhishek ceremony.’

  ‘Ma. I don’t like such traditions. Royalty is dead in India.’

  ‘It’s just a way they express love. We know, and they know, we don’t have power. But we help keep the community together. You shouldn’t shrug it off.’

  ‘Anyway, I arrive in three weeks. I need to find something to do there.’

  ‘You can help with the school.’

  ‘You are running it well.’

  ‘For how long? Plus, there are so many issues I can’t solve at this age. Should I focus on the teaching or repair the roof? From teachers on one side to labourers on the other, everyone eats my head.’

  I laughed.

  ‘I’ll take care of the roof and any upkeep issues. You run the school.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘How much would it have paid you? The job you left?’

  ‘Let it be, Ma. How does it matter now?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Fifty thousand.’

  ‘A year?’

  ‘A month.’

  My mother gasped so loudly my eardrum hurt.

  ‘You really refused that job to come and help in a village school?’

  ‘Yes, Ma. I told you. I’m booking a ticket on the Magadh Express. See you in three weeks.’

  ‘I know what made you do this.’

  My heart stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your royal blood. You are different. You deserve to be a prince.’

  ‘Prince has to go. Doesn’t have balance in his prepaid phone.’

  My mother laughed as I hung up. Most Indian mothers would slap a child if he left a high-paying job like that. My mother wouldn’t. She knew life involved things greater than money. She had seen the lavish life. She had also seen her wedding jewels pawned to loan sharks. None of this mattered. What mattered to my mother, the Rani Sahiba of Dumraon, was respect.

  ‘Beyond a point, people want money to buy respect,’ she would tell me when I was a kid. ‘Respect, however, can’t be bought. You have to earn it.

  ‘Live with dignity. Live for others, that is how one earns respect,’ she used to say. She was right. Dumraon’s people lo