Page 188 - Half Girlfriend

‘It’s fine,’ my mother said.

‘Or I could help with the books?’ Riya said.
My mother looked up and lowered her reading glasses.
'Help?’

'I can correct some notebooks. Should I take a pile?’

In a slow movement, Ma pushed a pile towards her.
I smiled. Rani Sahiba’s heart could melt. I imagined the three of us

at school every day, after it had received the Gates grant. If you are
imagining it, might as well dream of the perfect scenario, so I thought .

Of Riya, my mother and me, laughing and correcting notebooks. I
thought of Riya and me teaching the school kids basketball.

‘Madhav?’ my mother interrupted my daydream.
‘Huh?’

‘Class?’
'I was just leaving,’ I said.

*

'Who is that didi?' a little girl in class III asked me.
I taught classes III, IV and V simultaneously. Since we didn’t have
enough teachers or classrooms, we had come up with a new system. I

divided the blackboard into three parts.

Each class had a third of the blackboard. I would teach a concept
in one class and give them a problem.While they solved it, I moved on

to the next class. It wasn’t the best way to teach, but the kids adapted
to it.

‘She’s my classmate from Delhi. Same as you have classmates
here,’ I said.

‘She’s so pretty,’ another class III girl called Shabnam said. ‘Are all
Delhi girls so pretty?’

I smiled.
‘Just like all Dumraon girls are pretty.’

‘Are all Delhi girls so tall?’ Shabnam said.
‘No. Only those who can write the nine-times table.’ The girls

giggled and got on with their ciasswork.