What does Chetan Bhagat mean by 'Half Girlfriend'? We help you decode

Fearing that the world might plunge back into the terrifying depths of sanity after Kick runs its course at the theatres, Chetan Bhagat decided to save the serial Facebook friend-request senders, photo-likers, blank callers and stalkers of all stripes from catching the depression bug. CB’s target audience were likely wondering what they’d done wrong to have been abandoned by him in favour of Israel. Fear not, all faith has been restored. Chetan Bhagat today put on his best Tom Cruise face and smiled out of the front page of The Times of India. That’s how we were introduced to Half Girlfriend, a morality tale with the reassuring message: “Hello world, till Sajid Khan comes out with a sequel of Humshakals, I’ve got you covered.” Or at least, that seemed to be the subtext buried between the brief snatch of that patented purple prose included in the advertisement: “Once upon a time there was a Bihari boy called Madhav. He fell in love with a girl called Riya. Madhav didn’t speak English well. Riya did. Madhav wanted a relationship. Riya didn’t. Riya just wanted friendship. Madhav didn’t. Riya suggested a compromise. She agreed to be his half-girlfriend. “ [caption id=“attachment_1650295” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The cover of Half Girlfriend.[/caption] In case, you are struggling to understand what ‘Half Girlfriend’ means, here’s our helpful guide to deciphering its rather bewildering title (In case you were thinking its India’s answer to Fifty Shades of Grey, calm down. It’s a ‘Love Story’.): One, Half Girlfriend = Imaginary girlfriend. Now, going by the miniscule excerpt that comes with the announcement of the new book, an average straight Indian man possibly has at least half a dozen ‘half girlfriends’. You know the girls you ‘wanna’-ed be ‘frndz’ with, the girl you asked out at the college fest, the colleague who won’t take up your movie-date offer and the five girls from friends’ cousin’s classmate’s friend-list you went ahead and added on Facebook. Surely that ought to make them at least half a girl-friend.  So being snubbed is now equal to becoming a half-boyfriend. This possibly means you get no dating rights, but if you post ‘cool picz swty’ on the new kitten picture on her timeline, it will not be counted as creepy. Two, Half Girlfriend = Anyone who is stupid. Like, “Oh my god, is she a half-girlfriend or what?” Get the drift? Consider the plotline of Bhagat’s story: despite not wanting to be in a ‘relationship’ with Madhav, despite Madhav being insistent that he wants nothing less than a ‘relationship’ and its attendant rights, said girl Riya goes ahead and offers a “compromise”. Because there is nothing unsafe or worrying about befriending a man who won’t take no for an answer, who won’’t respect a woman’s decision to choose her boyfriend, who would rather not be friends if he doesn’t get the right to WhatsApp goodnight kiss emoticons to the object of his desire. Now Riya may well be a stellar example of a humanitarian, she doesn’t score very high in the intelligence department. Unless of course her half-girlfriendship terms include  free popcorn, bike rides home on demand, and loyal FB display picture ’likes’ clauses. Three, Half Girlfriend = Grammar Nazi. As in a Lutyens-living, public school-educated, English-fluent kind of girl who is least likely to read a Chetan Bhagat novel. Understandably, Riya has a low threshold of tolerance for confusing ‘affect’ with ’effect’ and attaching strange verbs, as in ‘I would like want/ do/ get/ have/ like to friendship with you’. And Madhav has a low threshold of tolerance for English verbs. Also, adjectives, conjunctions, pronouns. That’s not a match made for great conversations of Facebook PDA. Hence, Riya spurns Madhav, in the process earning Grammar Nazis yet another reason to be loathed by the anti-elitist male hordes who swarm online. And now CB has made their life just a bit easier. Anyone who wanted to accuse such snobs of being a ‘Macaulayputra’ had to first Google it, then copy paste the word and then accuse the offending woman of being brainwashed by McDonalds and Lady Gaga. I mean, look at that word - it’s as long as a Maggi noodle and has more vowels than Delhi has rogue auto-drivers.The new name ‘Half Girlfriend’ makes their lives that much easier. They can now troll their despised targets with true grammar-challenged delight, as in: “Rly, r u a hlf grlfrd r wot. Looserz.”