I sat stunned on the road, recovering from the shock and breathlessness, and then turned around. A red Maruti car was the culprit! I continued panting as I squinted my eyes to see the driver through the windscreen. Who was trying to kill me when I was already dying? I wondered, waiting for my breath to return to normal. A young girl, around my age, in a loose T- shirt and knee-length shorts, clothes that one usually wore at home.
She skipped forward in a silly way, which was probably her attempt to run toward me. I noticed she was barefoot. Are you all right? I was not all right, and it was her damn fault. But when a young girl asks a guy if he is all right, he can never admit he is not. I looked at her carefully as she came closer. Maybe I was seeing a female after a long time or something, but I thought she was really pretty.
And the whole just-out-of-the-bed look blew me. Only girls can look hot in their nightclothes: Alok, for instance, looks like a terminally ill patient in his torn vest and pajamas. Anyway, I had to after I was standing up. I am Neha by the way. That is understandable, I thought, you are allowed to hit people if you are learning to drive, especially if you are eye-candy. Still, I wanted to milk this moment. Then she placed her bare foot on the accelerator.
Now maybe it is because I am an engineer, but that was hot. Bare female skin on metal is enormously sexy. There was dark red nail polish on her toenails, with one or two toes encircled in weird squiggly silver ringlets that only girls can justify wearing.
I just wanted to keep looking at her feet but she started to talk. First year, mechanical engineering. So how are you finding it, college and everything? What do guys call it — mugging. Some damn profs get this vicious joy driving students nuts…. The car had passed the housing blocks now, and we were nearing the insti building.
I had heard the name, but never seen Prof Cherian. Then I remembered our first class. Sensing my anxiety, she patted my arm while shifting into third gear. So relax. We chatted for a few more minutes along the insti-hostel road. She told me about her college, where she was studying fashion design. She had lived in this campus for over ten years and knew most of the professors. She apologized again when we came near Kumaon, and asked if she could do anything for me.
So will I see you again when you jog? Maybe sometime, I can drive you to the deer park outside campus, lots of joggers there. And you get excellent morning tea snacks there. I was nervous at meeting the daughter of my head of department again. But her offer, and mostly she herself, was too irresistible. Keep bumping me. Her image still floated in my head as I reached the Kumaon lawns. Ryan was already waiting there, doing push-ups or pull-downs or something. He had seen me get out of the car and demanded full explanation.
I had to then repeat it to Alok. But they had neither seen her nor talked to her. I was dying to meet her again, was waiting for the next time I bumped into her and could feast silly at the sight of those two bare-naked feet! His parents sent him a dollar cheque as a Christmas gift as everybody else around them was doing in Europe. Ryan was not a Christian and cared two hoots about Christmas, but loved the cheque and cashed it; voila scooter — a beautiful Kinetic Honda in gleaming metallic blue.
When Ryan got it to Kumaon, all the students gathered around it to pay homage, but only Alok and I got to park our butts on it. Meanwhile, classes got worse. The professors kept up the pressure and the overworked students worked even harder to beat the average, thereby pushing the average higher.
We still studied together, but the resolve to concentrate was breaking down. We had managed to reach average grades in a few assignments, but in physics we had messed up. One night Alok got a call from home. His father had had a seizure or something and someone had to take him to the hospital pronto. There was a strong rumour of a physics quiz circulating but Alok had no choice. Hence Ryan had to go as well.
I did not want to be alone, so I went along. I told you he was kind of poor, I mean not World Bank ads type starving poor or anything, but his home had the barest minimum one would need for existence. There was light, but no lampshades, there was a living room, but no couches, there was a TV, but not a colour one.
Man, I could totally see where Alok got his whining talent. Anyway, I hired an auto and Ryan and Alok lifted the patient into it. We returned to Kumaon at three in the morning exhausted and nauseated by hospital smells. We got like two on twenty or some such miserable score. Alok tried to ask the professor for a re-quiz, who stared back as if he had been asked for both his kidneys.
That physics quiz episode broke Alok a bit. Now he was less vigilant when Ryan distracted us from studies. We were in my room. I expected Alok to ignore Ryan, but this time he led him on with a monosyllable.
But has IIT ever invented anything? Or made any technical contribution to India? I knew that with Alok not keeping us in check, we were not going to study any more that day.
Everyone agreed. Ryan continued to muse. Using tents and stools, the alfresco dining menu included paranthas, lemonade and cigarettes. At two rupees each, the butter paranthas were a bargain, even by student standards. Proprietor Sasi knew the quality of food in the mess and did a voluminous business serving dozens of students each day from every hostel. We got three plates of paranthas, and the dollop of butter on top melted and produced a delicious aroma.
And frankly, money is just an excuse. If there is value, the industry will pay for research even at IIT. I seriously wanted Ryan to shut up, now that the food was here. I mean, if he did not want to study, fine, but spare us the bloody lecture, it wreaks havoc on digestion. But Ryan had more. I mean it kills the best fun years of your life. But it kills something else. Where is the room for original thought?
Where is the time for creativity? It is not fair. I knew I was annoying Ryan like hell, but I really wanted him to shut up or at least change the topic. That lazy bastard would find any reason to goof off. Connaught Place? And then maybe check out some girls in the market. I had not bumped into her again, maybe I should go jogging again.
Or will you mug all day? We did go to Connaught Place that weekend and had quite a blast. However, the heroine was new and eager to please the crowds so she bathed in the rain, played tennis in mini-skirts and wore sequined negligees to discos.
Since all her hobbies involved wearing less or transparent clothing, the audience loved her. The hero had no damn assignments to finish and no freaky profs breathing down his neck. I know, these Hindi movies are all crap, but they do kind of take your mind away from the crap of real life like nothing else. After movie came lunch. The dhabha was great as Ryan is never wrong about these things. He ordered for everyone, which he always does.
And he orders big — right from boneless butter chicken to daal to paranthas to raita. The spoilt brat even orders the overpriced Coke, I mean, which student orders Coke in restaurants?
Anyway, the meal was great, and an overactive desert-cooler sprayed water on our faces and kept the ambience cool. Tearing his rotis like a famished Unicef kid, Alok got chatty. I had enjoyed my day so far and watching these jokers go at it is really not funny after a while.
He took a deep breath. I have been thinking. But it was too late. They really are. I mean, especially for someone like Alok. I mean, I know you love your dad and everything. But like, you were just nursing him and studying for the past two years. I mean, you will earn and everything, and maybe hire a servant. But still, would you be able to have this kind of fun? Boy, this must have affected him. Usually, the Fatso will not leave chicken for his life.
Is that a big deal? I mean, if Alok could love his dad, who if you think about it, is no more than a vegetable with vision, how could this brat not love his parents?
And his parents were nice, I mean they gave him everything - the blue scooter, clothes from Gap and money for the damn colas at restaurants. His parents had worked their asses off all their lives, started selling flower pots with two potters, and then moved all over India to make a name until two years ago when they went overseas. Yeah right, that when I listened to this idiot all the time.
I mean, I have been in boarding school when I was six. Of course, like every kid I hated it and cried when they left me. But then, it was at boarding school I got everything. I did well in studies, got noticed in sports, learnt how to have fun and live well and made my best friends.
Just kind of outgrew them. Sure, we meet at vacation time and they send letters, cash, and everything but I mean, for me my friends are everything, they are my family. Ryan, however, came back to his earlier theory. So either we can mug ourselves to death, or tell the system to stuff it.
We can study two-three hours a day, but do other stuff, say sports, have you guys ever played squash? Or taken part in events — debates, scrabble and stuff, an odd movie or something sometimes. We can do so much at the insti. We just draw the line. A day of classes, then three hours a day of studies and the rest is our time. A kind of decentralization of education. Ryan had a point. He would not have stopped otherwise anyway. Ryan was elated, and he drove us back to Kumaon at speeds that made the traffic police dizzy.
I covered the number plate with my foot, so that cops could not take it down. After all, this was a celebration of drawing the line. Meanwhile, I ran into Neha at the campus bookstore.
Mostly that whole jogging plan was a bad idea. Even with the prospect of meeting Neha, I just could not wake up. I did try once again, but I was late and did not see her car. After that, all my motivation dropped and Ryan gave up on waking me up. He had to, cause I kind of threatened to withdraw from his draw-the-line study plan. She looked at me, and then kept looking, her face expressionless. She acted as if she did not recognize me.
Then she went back to flipping pages of the notebooks she had just bought. Remember the car accident in the morning? This time the shopkeeper looked at me like I was a regular sex-offender. The girl bumped me and gave me a lift and all dammit, I wanted to scream, even as I bought my pencils and loose sheets. So I am not that attractive and that is reason enough not to recognize someone in public because I guess being friends with ugly people kind of rubs off badly on you.
I had been some sort of a loser in school as well, so this was not a total shock. I walked out of the shop as quickly as possible to get away from the humiliation. I was feeling crap. I was walking alone on a narrow path connecting the bookshop to the hostel, when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around and guess who? Go to hell, was my instant mental reflex. But I turned to look at her and damn, she was pretty. Neha, right? Hey, I am really, really, really sorry, I could not reply to you properly there.
Just greeting someone? And campus rumours always get blown out of proportion. Please, I am sorry. We can go to the Hauz Khas market. Do you feel like some ice-cream? I said yes, and she instructed me to walk out the campus gate and walk two blocks to an ice-cream parlour. She would come there as well, but gave me a five-minute headstart, walking sedately behind me. Food is almost as good as girls.
Did I scare you off? Girls do this all the time, say something half-funny, and laugh at it themselves. You have this pretty girl all smiley and sorry and touching your arm; better than ice-cream I tell you.
There are two kinds of pretty girls in Delhi. One is the modern type, girls who cut their hair short, wear jeans or skirts, and tiny earrings. The second is the traditional type who wears salwar-kameez, multi-coloured bindi and large earrings. Neha was more the second type, and she wore a light-blue chikan suit with matching earrings. However, she was not a forced traditional type, like fat girls who have no choice but to wear Indian clothes.
Neha was just fine, and actually way out of my league, with her long light brown hair, which she mostly left open, a curl catapulting carelessly on to her forehead. Her face was completely round, but not because she was fat or anything, just a natural cute shape. I just kept looking at her as my strawberry ice-cream melted. You know, when you ignored me there, I first thought it was because of the way I am.
I told Neha about our harebrained scholastic plan. Pretty brave I must say. I shrugged my shoulders. Learnt driving now?
She started taking stuff out of her handbag and a million things came out — lipsticks, lip balms, creams, bindis, earrings, pens, mirrors, wet tissues and other stuff that one can live without. She found what she was looking for eventually. I did not know if it meant something. I mean, did she want me to know what kind of men she liked, or did she want me to be like the men she liked, or did she like me. Who knows? Figuring out women is harder than topping a ManPro quiz. I decided to keep it when I got this licence made.
What does your brother do? We were just two years apart, so you can imagine how close I was to him. Her beautiful face was turning sad and I wished I could do something clownish to change subjects. He was crossing the rail-tracks and got hit by a train.
I mean, that is how shallow I was. She was all choked up and everything, but all I could think of was if I could make my move.
I shifted my hand closer, but she startled me by talking again. I pulled my hand back. I sensed this was not the best moment. She returned with these two big sundaes, and she was smiling again. In Delhi? It was hardly interesting, but it changed the topic.
Separately though right? I stood up, too. I would have been satisfied with the ice-cream and everything but this was kind of neat, and now I had no choice anyway. Neha, would you like to go out…with me? Almost as stressful as vivas. Meet me at this parlour next Saturday, same time as today. Leave now. It just so happened that both countries had heaps of oil and that made the whole world take notice. Big dictator refused and very soon it became clear that he would be attacked.
But this was not sci-fi, and the three of us considered ourselves lucky to complete the ManPro welding assignment on time, let alone provide superior war technology. No, the Gulf war did not personally invite our involvement but it was a big bang that swallowed our first semester majors, a catalyst for all our competitive, macho instincts. As per plan we studied for three exact hours every day, mostly late unto night, which meant we had the evenings free for fun. Unless you are like a champion or something, you probably know how difficult the damn game is.
The rubber ball jumps around like a frog high on uppers, and you jump around it to try and connect it to your racket. Ryan had played it for years and Alok and I were hopeless at it.
I missed connecting the ball to the racket five times in a row, and Alok did not even try moving from his place. After a while, even I gave up. Ryan tried to keep the game going as we stood like extra pillars on court. The guy is such a loser. He dragged us to court for ten days in a row, but Alok and I got no better. We found it hard enough to even spot where the ball had gone, let alone chase it. Yeah right, maybe in thirty years, I thought grimly.
Ryan had already decided, no point arguing with him. Alok and I shrugged and we left the court. After squash came something tamer and less active, chess. Alok and I felt somewhat up to this one, for, unlike squash, we could at least touch and move the game pieces. But Ryan usually won, and I would never be passionate about bumping off plastic pieces like him. We caught every new movie, visited every tourist destination in Delhi, did everything, went everywhere.
For the most part, we managed fine within the three hours assigned to studies. Sometimes assignments took longer, leaving no time for revision. That worried Alok, especially when the end-semester exams edged closer, and he suggested increasing the limit. Now wars happen all the time and India alone has fought more than it can afford. But the Gulf war was different, as it came right on TV. Alok, Ryan and I looked up from our chess game. It was sensational, spectacular and unlike anything we had ever seen on TV.
To put it in context, this was before cable or any private channels came to India. Until then we had two crummy government channels in which women played obsolete instruments and dull men read news for insomniacs and retards.
Colour had only arrived two years ago, and most programs were still black and white. Then, in one quick week, we had the glitzy, jazzy and live — CNN. Direct download Chetan Bhagat lives in Hong Kong and works in investment banking. Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat articulating a particular point of view. Chetan Bhagat's books do both and more.
Rahman Half The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format. The main characters of this fiction, asian literature story are Hari, Ryan Cooper.
Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Log in. Find A book. Five point someone. And while they try to make amends, things only get worse. It takes them a while to realize: If you try and screw with the IIT system, it comes back to double screw you. Before they know it, they are at the lowest echelons of IIT society.
They have a five-point-something GPA out of ten, ranking near the end of their class. This GPA is a tattoo that will remain with them, and come in the way of anything else that matters — their friendship, their future, their love life.
While the world expects IITians to conquer the world, these guys are struggling to survive. Advertising Download Read Online. Info about the book Author: Chetan Bhagat.
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