Half Boyfriend

by Judy Balan, Kishore Manohar

  Four years ago:

  ‘Your room is pretty nice for a hostel room, Manav,’ said a younger-than-where-we-left-her-last Rhea as she twirled around in Manav’s room making her perfectly pleated, modest knee-length skirt flare out in classic sophistication. A picture elegant enough for a man to take up writing about women’s clothing.

  ‘Dughh gosh muggerweerde shenz guffommviyaj,’ replied Manav from behind a screen. ‘That’s because Mother Dearest sent guys from the village,’ he repeated after an aggressive and severely unattractive gargling session.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Rhea, pretending that she was impressed. What had caught her attention though were the basketball legends on the wall. ‘Where is Michael Jordan?’ she asked, noticing the legend who was missing between posters of Shaq and Magic.

  ‘I am he,’ said a Cinthol-perfumed Manav as he walked from behind the screen twirling a basketball on his pinkie—another of those manly acts that always left misguided young women weak-kneed.

  Back in the present. Or whenever:

  ‘Mission failed. She is in his arms somehow,’ reported Agent Eagle Eye to Bass Voice in the Sky in non-CIA lingo. What he missed though, as he zoned in on Ro’s lingering grip on Rhea’s waist, was the misty look in her eyes as she stared over the head of her half husbuddy.

  26

  Short Version: This is an interactive chapter. Best enjoyed by readers who can yell ‘Who the fuck is Allen?’ out loud at every mention of Allen or Paul Allen.

  ‘I’m not going to India again,’ yelled the man in the blue pinstriped suit as the target of his angst stared at a trophy case on the wall filled with sporting memorabilia and other personal artefacts of international sporting stars that he had never met.

  ‘Chalk stripes, Paul, Chalk stripes!’ yelled the Blue Suit, rudely jolting Paul out of his trance-like state by this casual display of mind-reading. ‘There’s a huge difference between pin stripes and chalk stripes. In fact there are so many types of stripes that it really takes some heavyweight algorithmic thinking to programme a wardrobe selector. There’s even a broad pinstripe that could be confused for a chalk stripe but to me a pinstripe is a single yarn while this as you can see is a sort of rope stripe formed by a series of threads.’

  ‘Incredible!’ said a visibly bored Paul. ‘Bill, you got to stop playing with tech toys that are still in R&D. Put down the cognitive analyzer and listen to me. India needs you. I need you. I need you to go to India and be nice to them so that they won’t blink when I tell them what I want.’

  ‘Aaaaah,’ groaned Blue Suit as he bent down to pick up the remote he had dropped. It was true. A lot had happened in the Big Sub (as they were calling India these days) since that first visit in 1997. Computers, piracy, the IRCTC website, mobile explosion, porn ban—it was a tech-challenged tech front. They had the people on whom they could test any product in the world. They had the test markets as well. And yet you couldn’t change your train tickets on a Friday because the web crew had gone off to watch a new movie being released across the world in a dingy nearby theatre. India had a lot going for itself. They even had a lot of people who were fixated on seemingly random details about clothing. Like pinstripes, possibly.

  That last point seemed to strike a chord with the former inventors.

  ‘Tell me more,’ Bill pulled out his eCigar.

  ‘Here, read this,’ said Paul, swiping an article across tabs. ‘Allen, who the fuck is Allen?’ screamed the headline of a very Indian-looking publication. ‘We need to see the manager,’ screamed another. ‘India wants more Bill,’ clarified a more subdued publication that went on to explain how millions of Indians needed to see Gates, the Windows guy.

  ‘They don’t know I exist,’ said Paul with a look that was of either disappointment or relief. ‘But I need to buy a cricket team. And who makes better cricket teams than India!’

  ‘Nobody needs to buy a cricket team, Paul. And why don’t we just make one here? We have Indians in the valley. We have Indians on Wall Street. We have Indians in DC. Heck, we even have them in Austin, Texas! And I hear they have a guy called MS? Perfect. All we need is a great piece of software that can manage the teams, the owners, the franchises, the schedules, the design of some nice websites and we’re on. We’ll set up a league to scout for talent and pay players so heavily that they will quit their day jobs … even if it’s basketball.’ The top three teams of the league will become the national team—which will be easy since there is no other national representation in the sport. And wallah! You have the team I choose to christen Crickets. Simple. And as ambiguous as Windows.’

  ‘You still got it brah, you still got it,’ said a suddenly very tired Paul Allen. He had spent the last twenty years trying to be young, buying sports teams, rock bands, a yacht that’s cool enough to throw celebrity parties at Cannes and also search for old bells lost at sea but face it, Bill Gates was always going to be the man. And Paul needed him in India. For reasons deeper than a cricket team. The question was how to sucker him in.

  ‘Shit!’ screamed the eccentric billionaire as he noticed a run in the fine stripes of his suit. The seriousness of the situation was lost upon an equally eccentric but finally smiling Paul Allen who texted his office to set up a meeting with the WTO. The World Toilet Organization.

  ‘I’m gonna go to India! We’re gonna get this shit off the ground,’ screamed the better-known founder of Microsoft as he punned unintentionally staring at a slide deck talking about the bleak situation of India’s sanitation. It had the mandatory images of misery and poverty made ubiquitous with India thanks to amateur photographers on the Internet and movies like Slumdog. What had sold Mr Gates though was a wide-angle shot of sunrise at a rather populous beach in a certain southern city. ‘They’re mooning the sunrise!’ exclaimed Mr Gates as he examined the line of squatting people who had hitched up their lungis and were letting the ocean do the hard work. ‘Call the foundation, we have a third world to save!’

  ‘Mr Allen, we have a problem,’ said a suitably mysterious voice at the other end of the line. ‘The WTO recently had a summit in India and the Bill & Melinda Foundation was a part of it.’

  ‘Nothing is ever simple when it comes to India. Wonder how the British ever managed to colonize the entire country,’ fumed Mr Allen, as he paced the room looking for an idea without letting his old friend know that something was up. In a minute it came to him. He had an idea that would make even the President proud. In no time he had texted his office again: ‘Find me an Indian school that we can coerce into our Grants programme. School must not have sufficient classrooms, no computers, should be in some remote obscure village with bad roads and most importantly should not have proper toilets. But ensure that the school management knows some English at least. The last time they kept bringing me food whenever I said let’s chat.’

  ‘Can’t have them talking to Bill. This has got to seem natural,’ he thought.

  Paul continued to type ‘Send in our best person for the recce. Who is that?’

  ‘Nayan Singh is our best scout. Plus he’s Indian born,’ came the prompt reply.

  ‘I don’t want him anywhere near India. Send in a woman. And make sure she’s blonde. I don’t care if she’s smart, she just needs to be willing.’

  ‘That would be Samantha,’ replied Paul’s phone.

  ‘Send. Send. Send.’ was his three-word one word reply as he shifted his gaze back to his friend who was looking at him sadly.

  ‘We never talk anymore, Paul. I miss this,’ said Mr Gates as he pulled up Minesweeper on his Microsoft Surface.

  27

  Short Version: The hero always wins. With a little help from the President and some cosmic manipulation, of course.

  ‘Manav Chappals!’ screamed the long advertisement on the side of the bus.

  ‘Oh look,’ Rhea almost said before she realized that Amy had no idea that she had started thinking about her ex. It’s a thing apparently. You have to tell your best friends before you do anything dramatic in
your relationships. Especially if you have been chewing their ears off for the last couple of years on how far past that point you are. Amy was a darling. And she was completely committed to rehabilitating her ‘Indian Princess’ as she liked to half-jokingly call Rhea. So rather than violate the Sis Code, Rhea just made a mental note to bring it up later.

  She needed to because this was all happening a touch too often of late. It had started when her new friend in the Government of a Big Country had gently asked her what her thoughts were on a sort of friends-with-benefits equation. One thing led to another and it all boiled down to how long it would take for a guy—any guy—to want to have sex with a lady friend.

  That particular argument was a highly evolved debate but ever since the whole Ro and the Roofie episode happened, it took Rhea back to a place she never wanted to visit again—the men’s hostel near St Stephens where Manav and his idiot friends used to live.

  She had fought it then—the whole ‘if you love me then sleep with me’ argument. If not for the ultimatum, she just might have slept with him because well, she was just a girl too. And she liked doing it. Yes, ‘it’. That’s what people still called it. In fact, sometimes it was even called “it”—complete with double quotes and finger gestures. But what really pissed her off was his need to check the box and report to his friends.

  ‘If your friends feel it’s not worth anything if you’re not getting any action then why don’t they give you some? Or buy you a ticket to Bangkok where you do what the city name says?’ she had yelled at him once. But then he made that stupid sad puppy dog meets fishface and she had melted. She had to melt. It’s what she did. Her friends called her flaky but she did it nonetheless. She basically hated stepping on people’s hearts and at the end of the day, what was the big unfixable reason to have a fight anyway?

  ‘Wheeeet,’ whistled Amy. ‘Can we have you back here please?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I kind of zoned out,’ said a sheepish Rhea as they crossed the road. The bus had not moved much but all she could see now was a cheesy picture of a desi guy with his foot on a basketball and that damn name Manav on the advertising panel.

  Later that evening the two girls were sitting in a pub and getting drinks and dinner. Actually dinner was just the excuse. Rhea wanted to get hammered and not talk to the President for a change. But Amy was on a new diet and would break it only for a truly good reason. So Rhea decided that this would be the night to tell her all. The basketball flashback while hugging Ro. Or should she say while Ro was hugging her? Amy was Indian after all (Amruta Bandyopadhyay) and who knows how she would react to Rhea hugging a guy instead of vice versa. The other thing she wanted to share was the advertisement panel on the bus. Oh, and the incident at the coffee shop at Trafalgar.

  Before she opened up to Amy though, she decided to run through the entire incident in her mind. ‘She had been sitting in her usual spot. The sunlight streaming through the window was bouncing off her golden hair making for little fields of gold amidst the highlights in her hair.

  ‘Mmmpphh,’ giggled real-time Rhea, much to the consternation of a grumpy Amy who had been dumped with the food menu, the wine list and the task of selecting ‘something interesting yet safe. Oh and also vegan. But needs to go with vodka.’

  ‘I don’t have blonde hair,’ she corrected the voice in her head.

  ‘Suddenly in walked a man in Ray Bans. It was the most noticeable thing about him. What made him memorable though was the casual manner in which he sauntered up to the display case, ordered a latte and then while he settled down for a short wait, he picked up the round vase on the case and started to twirl it on his little finger’.

  ‘Ummm, yes I’ll have that too,’ said Rhea, snapping out of her reverie and turning to look at a very puzzled Amy.

  ‘What do you mean “I’ll have that too?”’ asked Amy. ‘I was just telling you that I have heartburn from all that exercise this morning. Now do you want to turn this night into a party or are we going to have one of your weepy sessions again?’

  At that point Rhea randomly decided that she did not owe anyone an explanation. The truth about Manav was her secret. And she intended to keep it that way. She looked at the bar to get herself a drink and almost gasped. Staring back at her from the massive bar counter was a repeating pattern of beers. Miller, Amstel, Negra, Amstel, Vedett. Miller, Amstel, Negra, Amstel, Vedett. Miller, Amstel, Negra, Amstel, Vedett.

  The letters between blurred out and all she could see was Miller, Amstel, Negra, Amstel, Vedett. Or for those who haven’t worked it out even now: M,A,N,A,V.

  28

  Short Version: The hero and the President play Covert Basketball

  Manav stared at the silhouette of the Maharaja Matriculation School, framed against the sunset, as he did a slow warm-up. His jet black hair moved with every motion of his, buffeted by the gentle evening breeze as the intricate melodies of Roxette wafted through the air from his brand new phone. It was good to be a man in these times.

  Manav looked at his watch and decided to grab a bite before his rendezvous.

  ‘Never negotiate on an empty stomach,’ he recollected his mentor Baba Baba saying. ‘Your mind is fuelled by your stomach and your stomach is fuelled by food. So, before you do anything important, always make sure you have a fuel stomach,’ Baba Baba had punned, annoying a lot of the serious high-class people. Manav hated high-class people. They were always trying to correct him when he picked his nose or belched. He had only ever seen them laugh raucously at bars or at weddings; the rest of the time, they just made some polite sounds. And what irritated him the most was that they only cracked up at jokes that he didn’t get. Baba Baba had done much for the world. He had helped sink wells and build bridges. He had mended broken marriages and broken mental biases. Plus, he made jokes. So who were these people to criticize him? They should match his achievements and only then should they be allowed to talk.

  Caught up in the unfairness of people and their biases, Manav had overshot the school and the canteen. There was just a small roadside stall selling delicious-smelling samosas and bhang. The bearded shopkeeper waved to Manav and poured out a glass which Manav politely declined. He had a game to play and a man to meet. But the shopkeeper was an old-time servant of the Family and Manav could hardly tell him that he was going to meet the Nigerian bodyguard of the President of the USA and play basketball. Well, he could, but the guy would have tagged along and who knows what would happen. Plus, Manav needed to discuss The Plan. And this cloak and dagger bit was getting to him already. Synchronized watches, Bluetooth sensors, proximity detection app downloaded and installed—he even had to buy a new phone just for this.

  ‘If the bodyguard is so cautious, imagine the President himself,’ thought Manav as he absentmindedly took a swig of the milky white liquid.

  Four samosas and a couple more swigs of the bhang, and Manav was happily jogging backwards towards the basketball court on campus. It wasn’t really a basketball court, it was more of an almost-flat clay surface with two hoops on poles at either ends. One end didn’t even have the dirty white board at the back. In the failing light, Manav managed to spot a lone player, shooting baskets from almost centre. What was even more amazing was that the ball kept coming back to him magically. As he neared the court, Manav realized that there was a bunch of four or five onlookers who were more than happy to keep returning the ball.

  ‘Hey Ozone,’ he called out, making the shooter miss for the first time that evening.

  ‘Namaste Mr Manav,’ replied the dignified bodyguard. ‘Hope you did not mind making the time to meet me on such short notice. But the President wanted me to close things out with you.’

  Short notice is such a funny term thought Manav as he dribbled the ball that had been passed to him by one of the non-Indian bystanders.

  ‘Yes, yes, no problem,’ he said. ‘Now tell me what the update is? How is she doing? Is she playing basketball?’

  ‘Slow down champ,’ Ozone laughed. ‘I have some of m
y best people … er, some of the President’s best people on the job. I have even called in some corporate buddies of mine to help things along. And this is all working at levels you can’t even comprehend. But at the end of the day, or in this case, month, she will be back in India.’

  ‘Who you calling champ?’ said Manav angrily before the realization struck him. ‘Wait, did you say, she will be coming back?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but there are some conditions that you will need to confirm before this can go any further,’ said a suddenly serious Ozone. ‘Number one: You will never contact me or the President ever again. Number two: You will never reveal what transpired here. At any point in your life. Not even in a book. Number three: If there ever is a book, I want a cameo in it. Doesn’t have to be anything special. Maybe just a basketball scene? Where I’m just a regular guy? Capiche?’

  Manav could not hear. His heart was beating so loud even the bystanders were now looking at him.

  ‘What is capiche?’ he stuttered.

  But the game was over. Ozone disappeared and with him the bystanders too. Leaving a lonely Manav wondering how he could, in the middle of all this confusion, find someone to write a book about his life. Manav took a few shots and missed every one of them. Plus he had to run and fetch the ball each time. This was not much fun to play, watch or even read about and soon Manav figured it out too.