Half Girlfriend | The Tea Cerebrations

The sixth novel from Chetan Bhagat has its movie adaptation all set to release on 19th of May 2017, and the social media has been talking about it all the time. What it has done to our world is to provide the idea of a “half girlfriend”, or “half relationship”, which is expected to become an even more common term with the release of the movie starring Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor. Even though the term feels new, the basic idea of being more than friends, but not a girlfriend is not something new in an Indian scenario with the lack of clarity over the relationships between boys and girls.

It is even possible with the love stories that stand the test of time, as the same begins as something insignificant, becomes a relationship which can’t be named, and then goes on to become something more interesting. It is during this phase during which it becomes something that can’t be named, that we have the case of a half relationship, and it was always there with no name attributed to it. I remember more than one case with such a situation, related to friends, cousins, neighbours and from parts of those tales from schools and colleges which are told by someone we know.

Long ago, there were these two people, this boy and girl who competed for the first rank in the class. These two have been so strong with the evil subjects like Mathematics that one case of full marks in it pushed me directly to the third. I had always found them united in Mathematics, a quality which they had carried over to the higher classes. For me, Mathematics was a dangerous thing, and being united in it felt strange; there was no Romeo and Juliet in Mathematics, I had thought. But the way in which they competed and helped each other in the subject meant that they were so good in the subject and complimented one another.

I wished that I could score better in the languages, but the highest one could score for English was about five marks less than hundred, and a higher level of marks was not yet invented for Malayalam – my Hindi was only at the developing stage with new Bollywood movies being watched; so they held the top two positions for very long. By the time we were about to leave the school, all the students in the class were certain that there was something between them, a force which couldn’t be named, as the term “half relationship” was not invented yet – but the news just spread across the school, and everyone seemed to be confident that they were more than just friends.

Both of them found it quite easy to deny the same, and the girl could actually deny such an allegation with more ease – maybe the boy would have accepted it as truth if forced to, but the exams were approaching quickly and people went on with it. The two possible half lovers were not seen together much after that though, and some other girl who had half love for Physics and Chemistry had topped the class. There was not much heard about the Mathematics couple after that, and they finished further down in the ranks; most people blamed it on the tough Mathematics paper and the rest on a half relationship which was rumoured to be there.

Then, many years later, one day, while having Vegetable Puffs and Blackcurrant Shake at Navya Bakers which has been my favourite bakers for quite some time, someone called me by my name. The stranger told me that I hadn’t changed a bit from school, and I said to him that it is because I had shaved, and otherwise he would have to search for my face inside the beard. I also told him that whoever he is, has really changed, and I won’t be recognizing him without help. He introduced himself with a Mathematics problem, and even though I wanted to run away with the evil subject beginning to attacking me again, recognized him easily.

He was talking a lot about balancing the equation, and when the girl with him joined the conversation, I understood the fact – the Mathematical couple was together again; what was a half a relationship had become full in marriage. Well, that would solve their life’s equations with ease, I thought. They had found each other again while doing MTech again, and with her repeating for engineering twice, he had two extra years to get settled in life and ask for her and in marriage; the community and religion being the same, and the half equation had become full. I ordered one pista shake as his treat and wished them best of luck, and hoped that all which were half, would become full again – half girlfriend to full girlfriend, half lover to full lover, and all things finally complete with marriage. Even now, when I see the equations of Mathematics, I remember two special equations which went on to solve the problem themselves.

I am sharing a Half relationship story at BlogAdda in association with #HalfGirlfriend.

TeNy

The college days have so many things happening out there. Well, it is the nature of the campus to keep something or the other happening all the time, ensuring that there is no dull moment. There are so many stories that the classrooms, the trees and even the library and the canteen will have to tell. Some people try hard to create something, and sometimes these stories just take birth out of nowhere. By the end of your time at the college, you think that you have heard and witnessed them all, but that is neither end or the beginning of the end, as the tales shall continue.

The stories of girls who elope with someone working at the canteen, the driver of the auto-rickshaw bringing vegetables to the canteen, or the security guard might come quite natural, but that would make the tale that of full girlfriends and wives. There are also so many love stories that learning about the love stories in just one department will need a lot of energy and concentration. A very few get married later, and the rest will have love disappearing. Then there are those half relationships – they should considered a separate section, and could be part of a deeper study, and even between them, there are so many sub-sections.

Among all the half girlfriends, let us focus on one, which can be termed as a quarter relationship at times, but it more half, if we join the two quarters together. It never really reached the three quarters, and so we can take it as the half relationship. It was those times when I considered myself too good to fall in love, and it was a reputation that I wanted to maintain, being on good terms with everyone, with the students, teachers, books, and even those trees which gave some nice shades to sit under them. There were quiz programmes, seminars and the rest, but for some others, there were more to do which included not much of these mentioned.

There were my juniors whom I had met due to a seminar being conducted under our department – otherwise, I was not that much into meeting new people unless they were characters part of the curriculum. They were the kind of people whom you would see everywhere, and they were also the type that you would only see together. They were people transformed into siamese twins by whatever was termed as love by every common student that was witness to this togetherness. The list of places which they were only seen with each other and nobody else was getting longer.

I also met them together, on the steps, and so not inside the building or outside it. I had already seen them multiple times in the canteen, but as I had dedicated that time to my special cup of tea, it never counted. As I approached to meet them, they increased the distance between them by a few centimeters, and they introduced each other as random classmates working together for the seminar. In a seminar with Shakespeare related topics including Romeo and Juliet, they were going to procrastinate things like in Hamlet, and seemed to be in the half relationship in a state of “to be or not to be”.

I think that they were pretty much confident about where this was heading, and they always had the backup plan, to deny that this was ever going to proceed further than a half relationship. It was more like taking the safe way out, as even though they were united with one religion, they were divided by community. They were caught in between, and being at the safe zone meant being in the half relationship. The half girlfriend proved to be the right choice for him with only a few days to go before the classes ended, project and exams followed, and they went separate ways.

Years have passed now, and maybe they have realized that having a half girlfriend or half boyfriend was not the way to go, just in the name of satisfying society. Maybe they are just happy that this half relationship is gone, and parents and relatives know better. We can’t be sure about that, as only time and fate and tell these stories better than us. We just play along, and hope that all things happen for the best reasons. I couldn’t find either of the two in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and I wish that they found the best partners, and none of them was another half or quarter relationship after marriage. I am pretty sure that these two are not going to miss Half Girlfriend when it releases.

I am sharing a Half relationship story at BlogAdda in association with #HalfGirlfriend

TeNy