CHETAN BHAGAT - HALF GIRLFRIEND NOVEL

[novel]

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.’

[novel]

‘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 loved her. Not
because she was the Rani Sahiba, but because she was the Rani Sahiba
who cared. For the past fifteen years, she had given her all to the
Dumraon Royal School in Nandan village, on the outskirts of
Dumraon.
I felt homesick. The dusty lanes of Dumraon felt more enticing
than the colonial lawns of St. Stephen's. I couldn't wait to be home.

[novel]

ACT II
Bihar