‘Half Girlfriend’ | Read First Chapter Of Chetan Bhagat’s Book Here

The first chapter of Chetan Bhagat’s upcoming Half Girlfriend:

———

<Prologue>

half-girlfriend-teaser-of-chetan

‘They are your journals, you read them,’ I said to him.

He shook his head.

‘Listen, I don’t have the time or patience for this,’ I said, getting irritated. Being a writer on a book tour doesn’t allow for much sleep—I had not slept more than four hours a night for a week. I checked my watch. ‘It’s midnight. I gave you my view. It’s time for me to sleep now.’

‘I want you to read them,’ he said.

We were in my room at the Chanakya Hotel, Patna. This morning, he had tried to stop me on my way out. Then he had waited for me all day; I had returned late at night to find him sitting in the hotel lobby.

‘Just give me five minutes, sir,’ he had said, following me into the lift. And now here we were in my room as he pulled out three tattered notebooks from his backpack.

The spine of the books came apart as he plonked them on the table. The yellowing pages fanned out between us. The pages had handwritten text, mostly illegible, as the ink had smudged. Many pages had holes in them, rats having snacked on them.

An aspiring writer, I thought.

‘If this is a manuscript, please submit it to a publisher. However, do not send it in this state,’ I said.

‘I am not a writer. This is not a book.’
‘It’s not?’ I said, lightly touching a crumbling page. I looked up at him. Even seated, he was tall. Over six feet, he had a sunburnt, outdoor ruggedness about him. Black hair, black eyes and a particularly intense gaze. He wore a shirt two sizes too big for his lean frame. He had large hands. He reassembled the notebooks, gentle with his fingers, almost caressing the pages.
‘What are these books?’ I said.

‘I had a friend. These are her journals,’ he said.

‘Her journals. Ah! A girlfriend?’

‘Half-girlfriend.’

‘What?’

He shrugged.

‘Listen, have you eaten anything all day?’ I said.

He shook his head. I looked around. A bowl of fruit and some chocolates sat next to my bed. He took a piece of dark chocolate when I offered it.

‘So what do you want from me?’ I said.

‘I want you to read these journals, whatever is readable…because I can’t.’

I looked at him, surprised.

‘You can’t read? As in, you can’t read in general? Or you can’t read these?’

‘These.’

‘Why not?’ I said, reaching for a chocolate.

‘Because Riya’s dead.’

My hand froze in mid-air. You cannot pick up a chocolate when someone has just mentioned a death.

‘Did you just say the girl who wrote these journals is dead?’

He nodded. I took a few deep breaths and wondered what to say next.

‘Why are they in such a terrible shape?’ I said after a pause.

‘They are old. Her ex-landlord found them after years.’

‘Sorry, Mr Whats-your-name. Can I order some food first?’ I picked up the phone in the room and ordered two club sandwiches from the limited midnight menu.

‘I’m Madhav. Madhav Jha. I live in Dumraon, eighty kilometres from here.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I run a school there.’

‘Oh, that’s…’ I paused, searching for the right word.

‘…noble? Not really. It’s my mother’s school.’

‘I was going to say that’s unusual. You speak English. Not typical of someone who runs a school in the back of beyond.’

‘My English is still bad. I have a Bihari accent,’ he said without a trace of self-consciousness.

‘French people have a French accent when they speak English.’
‘My English wasn’t even English until…’ he trailed off and fell silent. I saw him swallow to keep his composure.

‘Until?’

He absently caressed the notebooks on the desk.

‘Nothing. Actually, I went to St. Stephen’s.’

‘In Delhi?’

‘Yes. English types call it Steven’s.’

I smiled. ‘And you are not one of the English types?’

‘Not at all.’

The doorbell startled us. The waiter shifted the journals to keep the sandwich tray on the table. A few sheets of the journal fell to the floor.

‘Careful!’ Madhav shouted as if the waiter had broken an antique crystal.

The waiter apologized and scooted out of the room.

I offered him a tomato and cheese sandwich. He ignored me and rearranged the loose sheets of paper.

‘Are you okay? Please eat this.’

He nodded, his eyes still on the pages of the journal. I decided to eat since my imposed guest didn’t seem to care about my hospitality.

‘These journals obviously mean a lot to you. But why have you brought them here?’
‘For you to read. Maybe they will be useful to you.’

‘How will they be useful to me?’ I said, my voice firmer with the food inside me. A part of me wanted him out of my room as soon as possible.

‘She used to like your books. We used to read them together,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘For me to learn English.’

‘Madhav,’ I said, as calmly as possible. ‘This seems like a sensitive matter. I don’t want to get involved. Okay?’

His gaze remained directed at the floor. ‘I don’t want the journals either,’ he said after a while.

‘That is for you to decide.’

‘It’s too painful for me,’ he said.

‘I can imagine.’

He stood up, presumably to leave. He had not touched his sandwich—which was okay, because I could eat it after he left.

‘Thank you for your time. Sorry to disturb you.’

‘It’s okay,’ I said.

He scribbled his phone number on a piece of paper and kept it on the table. ‘If you are ever in Dumraon and need anything, let me know. It’s unlikely you will ever come, but still.’ He stood up, instantly dwarfing me, and walked to the door.

‘Madhav,’ I called out after him. ‘You forgot the journals. Please take them with you.’

‘I told you I don’t need them.’

‘So why are you leaving them here?’

‘Because I can’t throw them. You can.’ Before I could answer, he stepped out, shut the door and left. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened.

I picked up the journals and ran out of the room, but the sole working lift had just gone down. I couldn’t have taken the stairs and caught him in time; after a long day, I didn’t have the energy to do that either.

I came back to my room, irritated by his audacity. Dumping the notebooks and the slip with his phone number in the dustbin, I sat on the bed, a little unsettled.

I can’t let someone I just met get the better of me, I thought, shaking my head. I switched off the lights and lay down in bed. I had to catch an early morning flight to Mumbai the next day and had a four-hour window of sleep. I couldn’t wait to reach home.

However, I couldn’t stop thinking about my encounter with the mysterious Madhav. Who was this guy? Dumraon, Stephen’s and Delhi in my head. Questions popped up: What the hell is a half-girlfriend? Who was this guy? And why do I have a dead girl’s journals in my room?
Eyes wide open, I lay in bed, staring at the little flashing red light from the smoke detector on the ceiling.

The journals bothered me. Sure, they lay in the dustbin. However, something about those torn pages, the dead person and her half-boyfriend, or whoever he was, intrigued me. Don’t go there,’ my mind screamed down its own suggestion. The suggestion: read just one page.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. But thirty minutes later, I switched on the lights in my room, fished out the journals from the dustbin and opened the first volume. Most pages were too damaged to read. I tried to make sense of what I could. The first page dated back nine years, to 1st November 2002.

Riya had written about her fifteenth birthday in Delhi. ‘One more page,’ I told myself. I flipped through the sheets as I tried to find another readable page. I read one more section, and then another. Three hours later, I had read whatever could be read in the entire set.

The room phone rang at 5 a.m., startling me.

‘Your wake-up call, sir,’ the hotel operator said.
‘I am awake, thank you,’ I said, as I’d never slept at all. I called Jet Airways.
‘I’d like to cancel a ticket on the Patna-Mumbai flight this morning.’
Pulling out the slip of paper with Madhav’s number from the dustbin, I texted him: ‘We need to talk. Important.’

At 6.30 a.m., the tall, lanky man was in my room once more.

‘Make tea for both of us. The kettle is above the minibar.’

He followed my instructions. The early morning sun highlighted his sharp features. He handed me a cup of tea and took a seat diagonally opposite me on the double-bed.

‘Should I speak first, or will you?’ I said.

‘About?’

‘Riya.’

He sighed.

‘Do you think you knew her well?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You feel comfortable talking about her to me?’

He thought for a few seconds and nodded.

‘So tell me everything. Tell me the story of Madhav and Riya.’

‘A story that fate left incomplete,’ he said.

‘Fate can be strange indeed.’

‘Where do I start? When we first met?’

‘Always a good place,’ I said.

</End of Prologue> (as shared by the author on Facebook)

You may pre-order the book from Flipkart here: 

44 Comments

  1. ayesha neaz

    October 17, 2014 at 9:58 pm

    Awesome loved it will surely read the full book

    • Husna Banu

      September 8, 2017 at 10:43 am

      Good, lovely …………….surely read the full book.

  2. survi bhagat

    November 24, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    Its realy awsme !!! Will surely read 🙂

  3. ANKIT ROHATGI

    June 20, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    its a good story and interesting to read it . i think on this topic there should be a film made so that it inspires the people to know abt the story in the novel and people get more intersted in buying nad reading this novel

  4. FontsDownloadFree

    July 29, 2015 at 1:28 am

    The book ends as the author visits the rural school in Dumraon three and a half years later; he discovers it is being run successfully by Madhav and Riya, who now have a son, Shyam.

  5. shruthi😎

    September 26, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    😙lovely….will surely read this book👌

  6. Surya

    October 3, 2015 at 10:55 am

    Cute love story ….good to read this book

    • rakesh

      September 16, 2016 at 10:55 pm

      awsome story in half girl friend in my life.the story tuching my heart.

  7. Surya

    October 3, 2015 at 10:57 am

    Searching for full book

  8. Druv tyagi

    November 17, 2015 at 9:42 pm

    Awesome my heart toxhing this book because its only for my shivabi choudhary

  9. Evan Jacob Sid

    November 18, 2015 at 12:04 am

    Heart touching story indeed

  10. Reem

    December 31, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    I love the prologue but can’t find the book in the local library. Can’t wait to read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  11. kaushal kumar

    March 17, 2016 at 10:36 pm

    its the best novel i’ve ever read.

  12. Akanksha Jha

    April 4, 2016 at 7:50 pm

    Once again… amazing writing by Chetan Bhagat. I’ll definitely read the book… 🙂

  13. Anjali thapa

    April 22, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    It is the best novel I’ve ever read…beautiful story..

  14. Gourav garg

    August 24, 2016 at 10:09 am

    i read the story.. i am not able to express my views.. not getting out of it.. still thinking about that story

  15. Shiko ghosh

    September 12, 2016 at 10:33 pm

    Fantastic book. Just fav.

  16. ganesh tayde

    September 12, 2016 at 11:33 pm

    you are magical . chetan bhagat sir . what a amazing story

  17. Aman sakpal

    September 29, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    Heart touching love story waiting for Arjun kapoor’s Half girlfriend

  18. Gaurav taneja

    October 19, 2016 at 9:13 pm

    All comments are really bogus….how can someone appreciate this nonsense….this is delf promotion….

  19. Saurav taneja

    October 19, 2016 at 9:16 pm

    Mr chetan bhagat himself writes all these comments at leisure just to create hype….he is not a writer but a marketing man…..me and gaurav taneja are same…..intelligent got this….write a book….self write reviews….fools buy it

  20. anupama

    October 21, 2016 at 8:46 pm

    fav story ever……cant express in words…………simply, AWESOME…………

  21. sushruti sahu

    November 12, 2016 at 10:18 pm

    awesome book to read. I am going to buy it from our school’s book fair.

  22. Raj kumari

    November 29, 2016 at 8:05 am

    A very Romantic and interesting book…. Love with lot of pain……

  23. Monika rana

    December 23, 2016 at 11:41 pm

    COMMENT such m koi jawab nahi novel ka bs ab Arjun kapoor ki film ka wait krte h

  24. Ambika prasad painuly

    January 26, 2017 at 11:04 pm

    Realy…..Amazing story sir……

  25. Tashant

    April 26, 2017 at 2:36 am

    Good but from where we will get it

  26. PJRATHOD

    May 10, 2017 at 11:23 am

    Awesome book…. Will read it

  27. RObinchandra

    May 12, 2017 at 6:42 am

    Ei Nobel da thawai yaode adubu m. acgi nobelcmadi eigi Darling Marlin na haibdgi paba hourkpani I think that that nobel can touching my heart,

  28. sonali shende

    May 12, 2017 at 9:55 pm

    Really… It’s amazing story…

  29. amrita

    May 17, 2017 at 9:47 pm

    awwsome story

  30. sachin shukla

    May 29, 2017 at 3:54 pm

    Really very beautiful story….📝📝📝📝

  31. swetlinA

    October 23, 2017 at 8:29 pm

    I just want to read this book once.

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