Page 142 - Half Girlfriend

kinds of children, I continued, '...boy children, girl children, and many,

many children,’
I heard my mother snigger.
‘What?’ I said,

‘Who are all these children?’ if scratched my head.

‘Anyway,’ I continued.‘My school needing toilet as nobody able to
toileting when toilet time corning,’

My mother burst out laughing.
‘Now it’s toilet,' she said. I gave her a dirty look.

‘Please go on.,’ she said, enjoying herself. I threw up my hands in
the air.

‘I’m useless. What have I taken on?’ I went into panic mode. I was
going to turn myself into a joke.

‘Can you say no?’ my mother said.
‘I can. Maybe I should. Should I?’

My mother shrugged. I sat down next to her.

‘I will tell them I can’t do it. They can take me off the grants
programme.’
'Quitting, eh?’ she said.

‘You laughed at me. Now you are calling me a quitter.’

‘I only laughed at your current speech. You can learn to give a
better one.’

‘How?’
‘How much time do you have?’

‘Two months.’
‘So learn English’

‘I didn’t learn it properly in three years at St. Stephen’s. How can I
do it in two months?’

‘We don’t quit, Madhav. It’s not in the Jha family’s genes.’
‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning we may lose everything, but we don’t quit. That’s what
your uncles did, at the gambling table or in business. Being bankrupt is

okay, but quitting is not.’