Half Girlfriend Read online

  ‘I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.’

  I was immediately hooked. I didn’t know this guy but I liked him in seconds.

  He spoke about how he was born to an unwed mother who had put him up for adoption. A CEO of a major global company speaking so openly about his past stunned me. He talked about dropping out of college to save his adoptive parents’ money, and then sleeping on dorm floors and attending the classes he liked.

  ‘I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.’

  He had said nothing about his achievements yet. Still, you felt his greatness.

  ‘And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.’

  ‘Intuition?’ I said.

  ‘Gut instinct, what you feel from the heart,’ Riya said.

  Did I have the courage to follow my heart? Did I have the courage to propose to Riya again?

  Finally, Steve ended his speech.

  ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.’

  The crowd in the video applauded. I joined in. The cyber café’s owner turned to watch the whacko customer who clapped after YouTube videos.

  ‘Can I see it again?’ I said.

  ‘Sure. I will check my mail on another computer.’

  I watched the speech three more times. I repeated some of the lines as practice. I stood up after an hour.

  I saw Riya in the adjacent cubicle, her mail open on the screen. She looked grave.

  ‘Should we go have lunch?’ I said. I guess staying hungry isn’t so easy after all.

  I glanced at her monitor. I just about managed to read the subject line: ‘Dad’.

  She pressed ‘send’. The screen disappeared. She logged out and stood up.

  We walked back to the haveli in silence.

  27

  Savitri tai served us daal and subzi with chapatis.

  ‘Litti-chokha is for dinner, when Ma arrives,’ I said.

  ‘Sounds great,’ Riya said with no noticeable enthusiasm.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I said.

  ‘Dad’s been unwell for a while.’

  I did count. This was the first time she had shared something substantial with me.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s a heart patient. The last by-pass didn’t go well. It’s not looking good.’

  ‘Will you need to go to Delhi?’

  ‘Probably. I don’t know. They hide things from me,’ she said. I guess hiding things from one another is a Somani family tradition.

  She was looking down at her food, her spoon circling the daal. Perhaps it was Jobs’s speech that gave me the courage to stand up and move to her side. I put my arm around her shoulders.

  She stood up and hugged me back, though not too tightly.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. The best doctors in Delhi must be looking after him,’ I said.

  She nodded and sat back down.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m such a bother.’

  ‘It’s not a bother, Riya. It’s okay to be down now and then. And to talk about it.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she whispered, more to herself than to me.

  We finished our meal. She picked up the plates.

  ‘Where’s the kitchen?’ she said.

  I pointed towards it. I tried to imagine her living in my house forever. She would never adjust to living in Dumraon, of course. My crumbling haveli could never be her 100, Aurangzeb Road.

  I went to the kitchen and found her washing dishes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘Relax, I do this in Patna, too,’ she said.

  ‘My mother should see this.’

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Is she here?’ my mother said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  I met my mother in the courtyard as she came back from school. I took her bag filled with notebooks. We walked into the house.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the guestroom.’

  ‘Girls are also strange these days. Go live in whichever boy’s house.’

  ‘What are you saying, Ma? She is a friend from college. I invited her over.’

  ‘Do her parents know?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  My mother shook her head.

  ‘Be nice, Ma,’ I said.

  ‘You like her?’

  ‘What kind of a question is that? You get people you dislike home?’

  ‘Answer straight.’

  ‘I need to bathe.’

  The water in the bathroom tap was a mere trickle. It took me forty-five minutes to fill a bucket and bathe. I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and came down to the living room. Riya and my mother were already there.

  ‘You met already?’ I said.

  ‘Hi,’ Riya said. ‘I was just chatting with aunty.’

  ‘You played basketball with her?’ my mother said, sounding betrayed.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  My mother didn’t respond. I felt guilty. I needed to give a longer answer.

  ‘Well, she was in the team too. Girls’ team,’ I said.

  ‘You never mentioned her. You used to talk about basketball so much,’ my mother said.

  ‘I didn’t?’ I said, pretending to be surprised.

  ‘No,’ my mother said.

  ‘We only played in the first year,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ my mother said.

  I paused to think. ‘Our groups changed,’ I said.

  Riya and I looked at each other. Savitri tai brought nimbu paani for all of us.

  My mother turned to Riya.

  ‘So how long were you married for?’

  My mouth fell open. How did my mother know? Riya sensed my shock.

  ‘We were chatting earlier,’ she said.

  About your divorce? I thought. She never spoke about it with me.

  ‘A year and a half,’ Riya said.

  ‘Kids?’ my mother said.

  What the hell? What is Ma talking about?

  Riya shook her head.

  ‘Why did you get married so early?’ my mother said. She obviously had no filter in her head on what to ask or not. Of course, it was a question I wanted to ask Riya too.

  To my surprise, Riya didn’t filter her responses either.

  ‘I was stupid. They were family friends. Everyone thought it was a good idea. But mostly, I did it because I was stupid.’

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Delhi.’

  ‘You’re a Punjabi?’ my mother said, like all grown-up Indians do. They just have to know your community.

  ‘Marwari. I’m Riya Somani.’

  ‘Ah,’ my mother said. ‘They let you come to Bihar and work?’

  ‘They don’t let me do things. I wanted to. I can decide for myself,’ Riya said, her feminist feathers beginning to flutter.

  ‘You can?’ my mother said. I sensed a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. Riya did too.

  ‘I mean, those decisions don’t always work out so well. But I do like to make my own decisions,’ she said.

  ‘They have a big business in Delhi, Ma,’ I said. ‘Infrastructure.’

  ‘Marwaris are a rich community,’ my mother said. ‘Why are you working?’

  ‘I want to be independent,’ Riya said.

  I realized this whole conversation was not flowing like the river of milk and honey I had hoped it would.

  ‘Riya loves litti-chokha. In fact, I called her home for that,’ I said.

  My mother’s frown vanished at the mention of her favourite cuisine.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Whe