sonu kumar
Posted On: 09-04-2019
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Half Girlfriend

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Twenty Five

'Here’s the plan,’ she said. She slid an A4 sheet towards me.
We were in Takshila Restaurant at the Chanakya Hotel for dinner.
We were meeting a week later, after I had spent Monday to Friday in
Dumraon.The waiter arrived to take our order. She ordered plain
yellow daal and phulkas.
‘I miss home food,’ she said.
I missed you, I wanted to say but didn’t. The five days in Dumraon
had felt like five life sentences.
‘Sure, I like yellow daal,’ I said.
I picked up the A4 sheet. It read:
Action Plan: Operation Gates
Objective: Ten-minute speech in fluent English to a live American
audience.
10 minutes = approximately 600 words.
Focus Areas:
1. Delivery: confidence, style, accent, flow, pauses, eye contact.
2. Content: rational points, emotional moments, call for aid.
I looked up at Riya. ‘You typed all this?’
‘No, little elves did at midnight,’ she said. ‘Go on, read the whole
sheet.’
I turned to the sheet again.
Top Ten Tools:
1. YouTube videos of famous speeches.
2. Watching English movies with subtitles.
3. English-only days—no Hindi conversation allowed.
4. Working on speech content in Hindi first.
5. Recording an English voice diary on the phone through the day.
6. Thinking in English.
7. Watching television news debates in English.8. Calling call centres and choosing the English option.
9. Reading out English advertisements on street hoardings.
10. Reading simple English novels.
I whistled.
‘It’s a different approach,’ she said. She walked me through the ten
steps and spoke non-stop for a few minutes, explaining each step.
‘And last, reading simple English novels, like, the one by that
writer, what’s his name, Chetan Bhagat,’ she said, ending her
monologue.
I watched her face, pretty as always. Do not fall for her again, I
screamed in my head.
‘So, let us start. Talk to me in English.’
I switched to English. The English I knew at that time, that is.
‘I am...very...thankful...for your making the list...for learning the
English,’ I said.
‘Thank you for making this list of steps to learn English,’ Riya said.
She spoke in a calm voice, without sarcasm or judgement.
‘Yes, same thing only.’
‘So instead of “same thing only”, say “I meant the same”,’ Riya
said. ‘I will correct you sometimes. It is not that I don’t understand
you. I just want to make sure you say it right.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘Now that one word was correct.’
I laughed.
She made me talk to the waiter in English. I did fine, since the
waiter’s English was worse than mine. She didn’t correct me when the
waiter was around anyway.
‘And sweet.. .later,’ I said as he left us.
‘We will order the sweet dish later,’ Riya said, ‘or, dessert instead
of sweet dish.’
‘Desert? Like Rajasthan desert?’ I said.
‘D.E.S.S.E.R.T. Different word, same sound.’
‘I hate that about English. Hindi doesn’t have that problem.’‘Hindi is incredible. We speak it like we write it. There’s no need to
learn pronunciation separately,’ Riya said.
‘So why doesn’t everyone speak Hindi?’ I said.
‘Because we are not...’ Riya said and paused.‘Oh my God, you
asked that question correctly.’
‘What?’
‘You said, “So why doesn’t everyone speak Hindi?” in perfect
English. When you say something without being self-conscious, you
say it correctly.’
I tried to look modest.
‘We will get there, Madhav,’ she said. She patted the back of my
hand on the table.
I wondered if we would ever get there as a couple.
Don’t fall in love with her again, a voice within me warned You
never fell out of love with her, another voice countered with an evil
laugh.
*
‘Dolphins? In Patna?’ Riya said.
‘Yes, there are river dolphins in the Ganga. If you’re lucky, you
might spot them,’ I said.
I had brought Riya to the Ganga ghat near Patna College oft Ashok
Rajpath on a Sunday evening. For twenty rupees a head, boatmen took
you to the sandy beach on the opposite bank. She held my hand to
keep her balance as we tiptoed on the wooden plank towards the boat.
She slipped a little and clasped my hand tighter. I wished the shaky
wooden plank would never end.
We sat in the boat. The diesel engine purred into action, making
conversation impossible. The sun had started to set. It turned the sky,
the river and Riya’s face the colour of fire.
On the other side, we stepped on to the sand and walked to the tea
stalls. We sat inside one of the many gazebo-styled bamboo huts meant
for tea-stall customers.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Riya breathed.‘All we have for peace in this city,’ I said.
We sat in silence and watched the ripples of water, my hand inches
from hers. I wondered if she would be okay if I held it. She had held
mine on the plank, after all. But I guess it was okay on the plank,
because she needed to hold it. Now, it would mean something else. At
least, that is how girls think. Still, I decided to try my luck. I inched
my hand playfully towards hers. She sensed it, and moved her hand
away.
How do girls do this? Do they have antennae, like insects do? Or
are they thinking of the same thing themselves? How else are they able
to react so well so fast?
‘You’ve started working on the speech?’ Riya said, shaking me
trom my thoughts.
‘Sort of,’ I said.
I took out sheets of paper from my pocket. I had scribbled notes in
Hindi on the key points I needed to address. I handed them to her.
‘The school needs toilets, chairs,blackboards...’ she read out. She
turned to me. ‘Madhav, you need to do more.This is just a list of things
you want.’
'I'm still working on it.’
‘He is Bill Gates. People ask him for things wherever he goes. The
idea is to not ask for anything and yet earn a grant.’
‘Not ask?’
‘Yes. Never ask. It comes across as needy.’
I looked at her. Did she leave me because of the same reason? ‘I
do that sometimes. I come across as needy,’ I said in a small voice.
She understood my context. She didn’t admit it, of course. She
simply paused before she spoke again. ‘These goras are different. You
have to come across as happy and confident. Not desperate.’
‘Read the rest. I talk about other things, how the school was
created and more.’
She patted my shoulder.
‘You are doing fine. Don’t worry. We will do this together. I’velived in London and met many Americans there. I know how these
goras think.’
‘How was London?’ I said, barely able to make out her features in
the dying light.
In classic Riya style, she stayed silent.
‘It’s okay. I won’t ask again. Should we go back?’
She nodded. We reached the pier. The plank to the boat felt even
more precarious in the darkness. She held my arm again. I don’t know
if I imagined it, but it felt tighter than earlier. She seemed a litde more
vulnerable. She came across as a little more, if I dare say the word she
hated, needy.
We sat as far away as possible from the other passengers and the
noisy diesel engine.
‘London was nice in parts,’ she said.
I wanted to ask which parts were nice and which parts weren’t, but
I didn’t. The more you ask, the more she clams up, I thought. I looked
at her. She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. I could read her every
expression, even in the darkness.
‘Would you like to hold my hand?’ I said.
‘Why?’ she said.
‘The boat is moving,’ I said. Lame answer. But how else does one
answer such a stupid question?
‘So?’
‘Nothing,’ I said and looked ahead.The whirr of the engine filled
the awkward silence. Halfway through our journey, temple bells began
to ring in the distance. I felt something near my hand. She placed her
fingers on top of mine. I guess men have an antenna about these
things, too.
I didn’t turn towards her. I knew her. If I made eye contact now,
she would withdraw.
‘I am happier here than in London,’ she said. I hadn’t asked her to
compare the two places.
‘When are you coming home?’ I said, still looking ahead butchoosing my words with care, afraid she would withdraw.
‘Soon. Let me move into mine first,’ she said.
‘I’m staying back tomorrow, to help you move in.’
‘You don’t have to. I hardly have any luggage.’
‘Exactly. You need to buy things. The shopkeepers will rip you off.
I’ll come with you, okay?’
‘Thanks,’ she said. I guess that meant yes.
We reached the ghats. I clasped her hand and held it until we got
off the plank on to firm ground.The old me would have asked her if
holding hands meant something. But the old me had screwed up big
time in the past. So I decided to ‘play it cool’.
We took an auto back from the ghats. I talked about the furniture
market near Nala Road, places to buy mattresses and the cheapest
vegetable markets. Of course, these stupid topics meant nothing
compared to the monumental development of her sliding two fingers
on top of mine.
We reached her hotel. She stepped off the auto.
‘Eleven tomorrow?’ I said.
‘Yes, thank you so much. And I loved the river-ride today.’
‘Which part?’ I asked and kicked myself mentally. Did I come
gums as fishing? Did it set off the ‘desperate’ alarm?
‘Everything,’ she said.
Miss Diplomatic Somani is not that easy a nut to crack, after all.

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