Half Girlfriend (28 page)

York.’

‘Oh, really? That’s my city.’

‘I’m not sure. I have to first confirm it is the US.’

‘How?’

‘The US consulate. I need to find out if they issued a visa to Riya

Somani. Do you have contacts there, through your American circle in

Delhi?’

‘I do. But that sort of stuff is confidential.’

‘I don’t need details. I just need to know if they issued a visa to her

and when.’

‘It’s...difficult.’

‘That’s why I’ve come to you.’

She finished every single fry as she considered my request. She

took out her phone and flipped through the contacts list.

‘There’s Angela at the US consulate. We hang out sometimes. I

can’t promise anything.’

‘That’s fine. Whatever is possible.’

*

‘The best rural school in Bihar. That is super news, Madhav. You

have any documents to show that the CM said that?’ Michael Young,

the CEO of Gates Foundation India, said.

I sat in his sunny office. It had a view of the trees on Lodhi Road.

Over the last two years, I had interacted with Michael on several

occasions, and received delegations on his behalf to my school, 'I have

local newspaper articles. I can send you scanned copies,’ 1 said.

‘That would be wonderful. Little me will look good to my bosses

in New York,’ Michael said and winked at me. Americans can make

you feel you are their best friend in the whole world, ‘I need a favour,

Michael,’ I said.

‘Sure.’

‘I need to be in New York for a while. Can the foundation give me

a job, an internship, anything for a few months?’

Michael raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. I will go anyway. However, it will help if I have a base there

and some income to survive.’

‘Bihar to New York. Is everything okay? You seemed so passionate

about your school.’

‘I am. I need to look for someone in New York. That’s all. Of

course, an internship would be a great experience.’

Michael tugged at his lower lip.

‘Well, I will put you in touch with people in the US,’ Michael

said,‘and put in a word, too.’

‘Thanks, Michael,’ I said and shook his hand.

‘No problem. Don’t forget to send me the scanned articles,’ he said.

*

‘The things you make me do,’ Samantha said. She passed me a

sheet of paper. It was early in the morning in Lodi Gardens, next to her

office. Brisk morning walkers strode past us.

I looked at the sheet. It was a copy of a US visa.

‘She applied, and the consulate granted her a visa on 5 April.’

‘Thanks, Samantha.’

‘My friend could get into a lot of trouble for this.’

‘I owe you,’ I said.

She looked at me with her deep grey eyes.

‘No, you don’t. Hope this is helpful.’

‘It tells me my hunch could be right.’

‘But it doesn’t say which city in the US. Or if she went at all.’

‘New York. She always wanted to go there.’

‘Ah, no wonder Michael said you have applied for an internship

there.’

ACT III

New York

37

'Name?’ the officer at the immigration counter said.

‘Madhav Jha,’ I said, wondering why he didn’t just read it on my

passport.

‘Mr Jha, what is the purpose of your visit to the United States?’

He flipped the pages of my passport, blank except for my new US

visa.

To find the love of my life
, I wanted to say.

'I'm interning with the Gates Foundation in New York.’

‘Documentation, please.’

I took out a plastic folder from my rucksack. It had my internship

offer letter, confirming my stipend of three thousand dollars a month I

also had certification from Michael’s office, the cash advance the

foundation had given me and my visa documents.

The immigration officer examined my file.

‘Where will you be staying in New York, sir?’

‘With friends. On the Upper East Side, 83rd Street and Third

Avenue.’

The officer fumbled with my passport for a few' seconds. He

picked up a stamp.

The ‘bam’ sounded like a gunshot—to indicate that my race to find

Riya had begun.

*

I took a yellow taxi from JFK airport towards Manhattan, the main

island that forms the City of New York. It was my first trip outside

India and the first thing I noticed was the colour of the sky. It was a

crisp, crystal-clear blue; one never sees such a sky in India. I can

understand India is dusty, but why is our sky less blue? Or is it the

dust in the air that prevents us from seeing it?

The second thing that hit me was the silence. The taxi sped on a

road filled with traffic. However, nobody honked, not even at signals.

The silence almost made my ears hurt.

Initially, I only saw row houses and brick-coloured warehouses,

nothing quite as impressive as I had imagined. However, thirty minutes

from the airport, the taxi reached the Brooklyn Bridge, over the

Hudson River. One had to cross this bridge to reach Manhattan. The

bridge resembled the Howrah Bridge of Kolkata I had seen on TV,

only bigger and cleaner. On the other side, a thousand skyscrapers

loomed. Literally one tall building after another dotted the entire city.

We crossed the bridge and entered Manhattan.

‘Welcome to The Big Apple,’ said the taxi driver in an American

accent.

‘Are you from here?’ I said.

‘Now, yes. Originally from Amritsar,’ he said.

I looked at the taxi drivers name: Balwinder Singh. Okay, not quite

as exotic as I had imagined.

In Manhattan, I saw people, busy people. Early morning joggers,

people going to office in suits, children on their way to school. The

city seemed like a maze, with criss-crossing streets and avenues. If one

were to get lost here, it would take years to be found again.

‘It’s all arranged in one grid,’ the driver said.‘You going to Upper

East, yeah?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said and handed him the address.

*

‘Madhav Jha. You made it,’ Shailesh squealed in excitement as he

opened the door.

I struggled to catch my breath. I had climbed three floors with a

backpack and a heavy suitcase.

‘These are pre-war buildings’ Shailesh said. He dragged my

suitcase into the apartment.‘From before the Second World War. You

get higher ceilings and more character. However, the lift breaks down

every week.’

He took me to the guestroom of his three-bedroom apartment,

which looked high-end and was done up in an ethnic Indian style with

brass Ganeshas and Madhubani paintings of Krishna. Shailesh had

done an MBA from Harvard after Stephen’s. He had joined Goldman

Sachs, a top Wall Street investment bank. He shared the apartment with

his girlfriend, Jyoti, whom he had met at Harvard. Jyoti worked at

Morgan Stanley, another Wall Street investment bank. The size of the

apartment told me the banks paid them well. Dark circles under

Shailesh’s eyes told me they also made him work hard.

‘M&A, that’s mergers and acquisitions,’ Shailesh said, telling me

about his work. We sat in his living room. I had reached early, at 6.30

in the morning. Shailesh was ready for work, wearing a grey suit and a

dark blue silk tie. He ate breakfast cereal with milk and slipped on his

leather loafers.

‘Sorry I’m rushing,’ Shailesh said. ‘Jyoti and I catch the 7 a.m.

subway to work. Catch up in the evening, okay?’

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I need to rest anyway. I’m so tired.’

‘Try not to sleep. It will help you adjust to the jet lag,’ Shailesh

said.

The ten-hour difference in time zones meant my body wanted to

sleep while New York City had just woken up.

‘Jyoti!’ Shailesh shouted.

‘Coming,’ a female voice in a thick American accent came from

one of the bedrooms.

‘Shailesh, if you can put me in touch with a real-estate broker...’ I

started to say.

He interrupted me. ‘Are you crazy? You’re here for a short while.

It’s an internship, right?’

‘Three months. I can’t stay with you that long.’

‘Why not? You relax here. I have to go to London tomorrow but

we are definitely catching up tonight.’ Shailesh finished his breakfast

and took the plates to the kitchen sink.

‘You’ve changed so much, Shailesh. We sat in shorts doing adda all

day in Stephen’s. Now, suits, hi-fi banker life, New York City,’ I said.

He laughed.

‘Times change, lives change.You have to move on, pal.’

I thought about Shailesh’s statement. I nodded, even though in

half-agreement.

Jyoti, a thin, five-feet-six-inches-tall girl, appeared. She wore a

formal black skirt and shirt with a jacket.

‘Hi, Madhav. Have heard so much about you,’ Jyoti said and

extended her hand. She sounded like Samantha, except she had brown

skin and black eyes.

"Me too. Sorry to bother you until I find an apartment.’

'Stay as long as you want. Work keeps us so busy. At least

someone can use the place,’Jyoti said and turned to Shailesh. 'You

ready to go, honey?’

Shailesh nodded.

*

l unpacked my clothes in the guestroom while making plans for the

next couple of days; the internship did not start until the day after. I

wondered if any live music bars would be open now.

I lay down for five minutes and woke up five hours later,

disoriented. Jet lag had made me lose track of time and space. I needed

a local SIM card. I checked the dollars in my wallet, picked up the

house keys and left.

*

Manhattan has a grid-like structure. Numbered streets run north to

south. The wider avenues run from east to west. Shailesh’s home on

Third Avenue and 83rd Street was close to Central Park, which had its

eastern side on Fifth Avenue.

The park, a landmark of the city, is three-and-a-half square

kilometres in area and runs all the way from 60th Street in the south to

120th Street up north, and Fifth Avenue on the east to Ninth Avenue

on the west.

The park helped me orient myself. Its southern tip had shops

where I could buy a SIM card.

I walked west from Third to Fifth Avenue, and then down south

twenty-three blocks from 83rd Street to 60th Street. In twenty minutes,

I reached the southeast corner of the park. I found a row of shops,

including a store called ‘T-Mobile’.

*

The T-Mobile salesperson offered me a SIM card with a 3G data

plan, ‘If you take a two-year contract, l can also give you a free

iPhone.’

‘I’m not here that long,’ I said.

I agreed to rent a touchscreen phone along with a voice and data

plan.

‘It’ll take twenty minutes to activate,’ the salesperson said. I left the shop and walked back north towards Central Park. I had not eaten

anything for hours. I scanned the various cafes and delis, each

displaying their lunch specials. Most dishes cost close to ten dollars

each. A van parked outside Central Park sold bagels, a doughnut

shaped bread stuffed with cream cheese or other fillings. It cost only

three dollars, including a cold drink.

I got a bagel with cream cheese, tomatoes and onions. A giant-sized

Coke came along with it.

I sat on an empty bench outside Central Park and watched tourists

walk past. New York City looked beautiful and clean.The first day you

spend out of India in a developed country takes a while to sink in. The

swanky buildings, the smooth roads, the gleaming shops and the lack

of noise (nobody blares horns for some reason) make you feel like

you have entered a fairy tale where nothing can ever go wrong. I ate

my lunch on the park bench.

A 3G sign on the corner of my phone screen indicated I had

network. I typed in my first Google search: ‘Live music venues in New

York City’.

The Internet worked fine. The search results weren’t fine. Literally

thousands of places popped up. The first link directed me to the

website of Time Out magazine. That site itself had a top-100 list of the

best live music venues in the city. In Patna, you would be lucky to find

one place that played live music. In Dumraon, the only way you could

hear live music at a bar is if you yourself sang. In New York City,

however, there is an endless number of places. I sat on the Central

Park bench and examined the tall buildings around me. I felt small and

insignificant.

It’s a live music venue in one city, how difficult can it be?
is what I had told myself before coming here. Now it didn’t seem easy at all.

I went to Google Maps. It showed my current location as 59th

Street and Sixth Avenue. It also showed me to be a three-kilometre

walk away from Shailesh’s house. A cold breeze penetrated my Bihar-

strength sweater. I crossed my arms and held them close to my chest.

You are so stupid, Madhav
, I said to myself as I walked north on

Fifth Avenue, along the edge of the park. On a whim, I had packed my

bags and come to this cold city. A gust of wind left my face numb.

'I can’t do this,’ I said.

I took deep breaths. I reminded myself of old basketball matches,

which I had won with sheer willpower.

One street, one avenue, one bar at a time, Madhav.

38