An Honest Summary of Half Girlfriend

If Chetan Bhagat’s contribution towards making Indians read has to be depicted graphically, the graph will take the shape of a bell curve. I mean, yeah, he got a huge population hooked on to some easy literature, but if he’s going to continue writing Bollywood screenplays in guise of books, you might just think of saving some effort and skipping the 250 odd pages of text to go for the big picture stuff directly. And for the few who wouldn't care for the movie either, here’s presenting an honest summary of his latest: Half-Girlfriend.

Half Girlfriend is very cleverly marketed as a story of Madhav, a Hindi speaking Bihari who falls in love with Riya, an elite Delhi girl at the prestigious St. Stephen’s College. It deceives you into believing that the story would revolve around the travails of a person who cannot speak English. However, it is a story about being horny for someone way above your league and then giving it the name of true love. Considering the number of guys who jerk off to images of Deepika Padukone every day, the plot seems relatable. Only if it were as easy as whacking the weasel.

The leading pair makes it to the esteemed college through the sports quota. It’s a fact that need not have been so explicitly mentioned in this Dummy’s Guide to Indian Stereotypes. Because, how do I put it mildly? They’re both dumb as fuck. The two bond over basketball and soon enough, the Bihari suggests games involving her basket and his balls. Riya, who isn't up for such shenanigans, forces on him an arrangement of half-girlfriendship, which is understood to be a relation more than friendship but excludes the physical-whisical. (Super shit deal, I tell you.)

The Bihari male hormones soon get the better of Madhav, who professes his love with a: “Deti hai toh de, warna kat le.” Riya chooses the latter and kattofies, telling Madhav to never contact her again. Months pass before the Bihari boy can gather the courage to speak with her again, and when he does, Riya hands him her shaadi ka card complete with chocolates and stuff.

Heartbroken, our man throws away the card and cries his eyes out while pocketing the chocolates. Why? Because free food trumps true love, that’s why.

With Riya married off to a hotel-mogul in London, Madhav realizes that there isn't much to look forward to in Delhi. He therefore decides to go back to his village Dumraon to help his mother in running her rural school. But before he leaves, he sits for placements for HSBC and makes the panel realize that the interviewers themselves are facing a mid-life crisis and need to STFU. They offer him a job because all it requires to land a job is to go all mean girl. (I don't know what a casting couch is, but a casting grouch is this one. Totally!)

Madhav declines the job offer and leaves for Bihar because it makes a good scene for a Bollywood movie- idealistic and shit. Except, not really.

Madhav, or Mr. Jha, as we will now call him, starts helping his mother at her school, where they need funds to build toilets. As the government officials are unable to help in any way, the next obvious step is to wait for Bill Gates to visit their school and give them some money. Who thought about making some moolah by getting a job at HSBC instead? No one, because we’ll get the founder of Microsoft to build our toilets, FTW!

As luck would have it, Bill Gates decides to visit Bihar with his team from the Gates Foundation. To get Bill to pay their bills, Mr. Jha has to organize a little song and dance performance for the delegation and deliver a speech in English. (And this is when you realize why he being poor at English is the central theme of the story. And this is also when you fail to understand what he was doing at St. Stephen’s for three years. Oh wait, he was trying to get into some girl pants.) #Prioritiezzzz

Jha-Man soon enrolls himself for some English classes at Patna, the city where he also runs into Riya. ZOMG, how did this happen again! Totally did not see it coming! (Totally, did.) Riya is now a divorcee and is working with Nestle. Madhav, with renewed hope of love, now helps her with setting up her little apartment, and in return, our lady helps him with his speech, telling him to read Chetan Bhagat to improve his English #LOLZZZZZZ

Very close to the day of the big speech, Madhav takes Riya home to his mother, who gives our pretty lady the stares. The newly-in-love do some jumma chumma de de on the terrace, after which Mr. Jha delivers his speech and gets a lot of money from Mr. Bill Gates.

Immediately after the grand event, Riya memsa'ab goes missing. When Jha sa'ab goes around looking for his lady love, he receives a letter from Riya in which she tells him about her terminal lung cancer and how she has decided to go underground and die alone because she doesn't want him to take care of her in her last days. More like: enough of your nonsense, gavaar. Except, the letter ends with an “I love you”. (Girls, I tell you.)

Jha-Boy looks for Riya-Babe all over Dilli-Bihar, but to no avail.

Three years later, Riya’s landlord from Patna finds some of her journals from the apartment and hands them over to Madhav Babu, who thinks it will be torturous for him to go through them because her painful memories will come rushing back. So, what must he do with the journals? Keep them safe in the attic? Throw them away? Burn them? Hell, no! Take them to Chetan Bhagat, he says.

(At this point, you’re all like: Dude, this makes absolutely no sense! I mean, what has C-Bag got to do with this?)

Apparently, Mr. Bhagat is also confused to see the journals. He is told that Riya had asked Madhav to read Chetan Bhagat’s books to improve his English, so that’s how he thought it would be best to take the journals to the author. #LogicDividedByZero

Because if there's one symbolic memory that you have of your half-ex, it is of her being a supporter of Chetan Bhagat's literature. *slow clap*

Let’s just say that we’re glad she didn’t ask him to read Wren & Martin.

Moving on… Madhav, who we will now call Dr. Logic, tells Chetan to dispose of the books the way he pleases. Mr. Bhagat bids Dr. sa'ab goodbye and dumps the journals into the garbage bin before he decides to go to bed. Except, with so much literature lying in his book rack aka the koode daan, his conscience is all like: Bro, utth ja. Dekh shayad koi story mil jaaye picture banane ke liye.

Chetan then reads the journals through the night and phones Dr. Logic early morning. Dr. sa'ab reaches C-Bag’s room soon enough and is asked to read some of Riya’s diary entries. #Picture Abhi Baaki Hai Mere Dost

Through the journal, Madhav learns about the domestic violence his lady had to go through in her marriage, about how she was sexually abused as a child and about how Madhav’s mother had told her to stay away from him because of which she had to make up the cancer story and leave Mr. Jha to his own misery. (Wow, so much plot twist. *yawn*)

Dr. Logic remembers that Riya always spoke about wanting to be a singer at a bar in New York and therefore, she must be in New York. (Here, we accord him the title of Sherlock.) Mr. Holmes requests a few of his friends at the Gates Foundation to get him a three month internship in Manhattan. They oblige and Sherlock travels to the Big Apple in search of cray-cray. On his last night in America, he finds out where the crazy woman could be singing, runs seven miles in the snow to reach her and stands in front of her while she sings with her eyes closed. #CreepyFeelzzz.

Riya opens her eyes at the end of the song and both cry like do kilo pyaaz katwa diye. Then the couple heads over to Riya’s place to do what bunnies do because poori book mein nahi kiya.

(So much naatak for just one moment of action! I mean, college mein hi settlement ho jaati toh all of this drama wouldn't have happened. Too much moral of the story, this.)

The story (umm?) ends with Mr. Chetan Bhagat being shown around the rural school by Madhav and Riya, who are now married and have a son (awww?). Also, this Chetan is very vella, visiting schools and all!

Given how the storyline has so much depth, it is worth mentioning that through the course of the book, the author touches upon all possible social evils that he can spell out, including but not limited to illiteracy, domestic violence, corruption, casteism and sexual abuse. There’s also a hint of cancer and hygiene. But most importantly, the book is about the two biggest social evils of all: an author’s attempt to star in the movie adaptation of his book, and stupidity. Both, not necessarily mutually exclusive.