Half Girlfriend Read online

  We finished tea. She called her driver. Kids continued to stare from the classroom windows at the white princess in her white Innova.

  ‘My English is terrible,’ I said to her. She got into the car.

  ‘It’s completely your choice.’

  The driver started the car. I continued to stare into Samantha’s grey eyes.

  ‘So?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said and inhaled deeply. ‘I will make a speech in English.’

  My heartbeat was louder than the car’s engine.

  ‘Nice. Look forward to it. See you in April,’ she said coolly.

  The car zoomed off. I stood still, wondering why on earth I had agreed to give a speech to the richest man on the planet.

  20

  ‘Speech?’ my mother said. ‘In English? To goras? Have you gone mad?’

  ‘The state of the school has driven me mad.’

  She sat up on her rickety chair, her eyebrows high. She rested her elbows on the table, her fingers entwined.

  ‘Whatever it is, it is my school. If you don’t like it, leave.’

  ‘Don’t be dramatic, Ma. I like it, so I’m doing all this.’

  ‘First, I have no idea who this Gates is or what he does to make so much money. Next, he is coming to my school with a paltan. Now you have to give a speech.’

  ‘He makes software.’

  ‘Soft wear? Like soft clothes? So much money from that?’

  ‘No, computer software. Like Windows.’

  ‘Windows. Gates. What is he? A furniture dealer?’

  ‘Forget it, Ma. I have to practise my English speech.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  She slid a stack of students’ notebooks towards herself. She opened one and started to correct it.

  ‘I want you to help me.’

  She looked up.

  ‘How? I don’t speak English. Barely understand it.’

  ‘Please let me know if I sound okay.’

  I stood up straight. I pretended I had a mic in my hand.

  ‘How will I know if you said it right?’ Ma said.

  ‘Imagine yourself in the audience. See if I come across as confident and intelligent.’

  She giggled. I shushed her and began my speech. As I didn’t know English well then, this is what I came up with.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Bill Gates, Miss Samantha and guests. I, Madhav, welcoming you all to the Bihar. My school doing excellent coaching of children, farmer’s children, poor children, small children. . .’ I couldn’t think of what to say next so I referred to various kinds of children. I continued, ‘. . .boy children, girl children, and many, many children.’

  I heard my mother snigger.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Who are all these children?’

  I scratched my head.

  ‘Anyway,’ I continued. ‘My school needing toilet as nobody able to toileting when toilet time coming.’

  My mother burst out laughing.

  ‘Now it’s toilet,’ she said.

  I gave her a dirty look.

  ‘Please go on,’ she said, enjoying herself. I threw up my hands in the air.

  ‘I’m useless. What have I taken on?’ I went into panic mode. I was going to turn myself into a joke.

  ‘Can you say no?’ my mother said.

  ‘I can. Maybe I should. Should I?’

  My mother shrugged. I sat down next to her.

  ‘I will tell them I can’t do it. They can take me off the grants programme.’

  ‘Quitting, eh?’ she said.

  ‘You laughed at me. Now you are calling me a quitter.’

  ‘I only laughed at your current speech. You can learn to give a better one.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘How much time do you have?’

  ‘Two months.’

  ‘So learn English.’

  ‘I didn’t learn it properly in three years at St. Stephen’s. How can I do it in two months?’

  ‘We don’t quit, Madhav. It’s not in the Jha family’s genes.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning we may lose everything, but we don’t quit. That’s what your uncles did, at the gambling table or in business. Being bankrupt is okay, but quitting is not.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You work that out. I have to take a class.’

  My mother collected her notebooks and left.

  Half an hour later, I stomped into her classroom. The students looked up at me.

  ‘Don’t barge in when class is on. Wait outside,’ she said and shooed me out.

  She came out when the period ended.

  ‘I’m going for it,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ my mother said. ‘But next time, knock.’

  ‘I want to join English classes. In Patna.’

  ‘Patna?’

  ‘There’s nothing good in Dumraon.’

  ‘That’s true. But how?’

  ‘I’ll commute. Weekdays here and Patna on the weekends. Is that okay?’

  ‘Where will you stay in Patna?’

  ‘I’ll find some place.’

  ‘We have relatives. Your chachi stays there. She is one weird woman, though.’

  ‘I’ll find a guest house. Let me look for good classes there.’

  ‘Come here.’ My mother gave me a tight hug.

  ‘Just stay happy, all right?’ she said. ‘Do what you have to, but don’t be a grumpy man like your father.’

  ‘Thank you, Ma,’ I said.

  ‘Welcome, English boy.’

  21

  ‘Six thousand for three months.’ He pushed a brochure towards me.

  I had come to Patna’s Pride English Learning Centre on Boring Road. M. Shaqif, the thin, almost malnourished owner of Patna’s Pride, explained the various courses to me. He wore a purple shirt. Sunglasses hung out of his front pocket.

  ‘We teaching for five years. Good English. Personality development, interview preparing, everything people learning here.’

  I was no expert in English, but I could still tell there was something wrong with what he had said. One too many ‘ings’.

  ‘I have to give a speech. To an important audience.’ I spoke in Hindi, to explain my situation better.

  ‘No problem. Speech okay,’ Shaqif said. ‘What qualification you having?’

  ‘Graduate.’

  ‘Good. Local?’

  ‘Delhi. St. Stephen’s.’

  The name didn’t register. He nodded out of courtesy. He rummaged in a drawer, took out an admission form and handed it to me. I wondered if I should pay up or check out other classes. He sensed my hesitation.

  ‘Sir, we will make you top-class. Multinational-company English.’

  ‘I only have two months,’ I said. ‘I need fast results.’

  ‘We arrange private classes for you. Extra five hundred per class.’

  ‘Five hundred?’

  ‘Okay, four hundred.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Three hundred. Please. Good deal,’ he said.

  I filled up the form and paid him an advance for the first month. In addition, I signed up for private classes every Saturday and Sunday.

  I left Patna’s Pride and took an auto to a road outside the railway station, full of guest houses. I finally struck a weekends-only deal with a small hotel called Nest, provided I didn’t ask for a receipt.

  Ten minutes into my first class at Patna Pride, I had a sinking feeling. This wouldn’t work. I shared the classroom with fifteen other students, mostly around my age and all men. The teacher asked us to call him ‘Verma sir’.

  ‘Say “how”,’ Verma sir said, asking the class to repeat the word.

  ‘How.’ The response came in ten different accents. The word sounded like ‘haw’ or ‘haau’ or ‘ho’.

  ‘Are. You,’ Verma sir said. ‘How are you?’

  The class repeated the words with a Bihari twist.

  ‘Confidence,’ Verma sir said, ‘is the secret. It is