Saturday, October 13, 2007

Boy meets Girl

Scene: Bus stand. Only two people there. One boy-frail and short with an over-sized T shirt on his reed thin frame hanging like...well a loose T shirt on a reed thin plastic hanger. Let's, without any loss of generality assume that his name is “Ghongha Basant”.

The second person is a female. This time however, with a significant loss of generality, assume her name as "Madhuri Zinta". As the name suggests, she is extremely good looking, spunky, confident and considers all males to be no better than her pet dog. And yeah, I forgot to add, she is extremely well read and as all such intellectuals go, pretty lit.

The bus just isn't arriving. There is uncomfortable silence in the bus stop and this is oppressing our shy, gentle hero Ghongha who seems to melt away and wish the earth would swallow him up so that he will be excused from breaking the silence by saying “Hi” to the female. Finally, the girl kind of loses patience and asks this sensitive hero of ours,

Madhuri Zinta: “Hi, I am Madhuri. You're Ghongha right?”
Ghongha: (Shocked to the point of disbelief that a female, and that too a nice one, had addressed him) “Uhhh...yeah, Hi”.

Some casual pleasantries are exchanged and a couple of lines regarding the cold weather are put in politely. By the end of the three minute conversation, Ghongha is pretty much convinced that Ms Madhuri Zinta is madly in love with him. This gives him a lot of confidence and he becomes more at home talking to this insanely beautiful girl.

Madhuri catches Ghongha staring at her rear. But given that the female is lit, she obviously assumes that Ghongha is looking at the book that's jutting out of her bag.

Madhuri: “Have you read this book? 'My name is Red' by Orhan Pamuk. You know this guy won the Nobel this year in Literature.”
Ghongha
: “No I have not”.
Madhuri: (Slightly dismayed) “Oh. So what kind of books do you read?”
Ghongha: “Comic books basically”.
Madhuri: “Oh I love them too. I really think Alan Moore is one of the most brilliant writers of this genre. And Frank Miller too...the way he reinvented Batman in “The Dark Knight Returns” is simply superb”. She seemed to lapse into a thoughtful silence as she said this, as if suddenly realising the supreme truth of such a profound observation. Then she added after this afterthought, “Don't you think so?”
Ghongha: (Totally taken aback) “Well actually my favourite comic book was "Chacha Chaudhary aur Raka ki Wapasi” by the cartoonist Pran”. The boy had seen the girl pass into thoughtful meditation as she had pronounced her verdict. Being incredibly beautiful, this had suited her finely crafted features and had shifted her rear ever so slightly to the left. Needless to say, it was an extremely impressive stance. It was but natural that our hero Ghongha Basant would try to emulate that thoughtful lapse into silence. But suddenly he remembered vividly about the comic book “Chacha Chaudhary aur Raka ki Wapasi” which was not only the best comic book he had ever read, but also his first one. A blinding wave of sudden nostalgia swept him as he recalled in minute detail how he would hide this comic in between his “Joy of Science” textbook so that his father would not catch him reading comics. Something other-worldly, something ethereal gripped his self and he found himself speaking passionately about the world of Chacha Chaudhary.

Ghongha
: “You know, whenever Sabu had a fit of anger, somewhere, someplace, a volcano erupted. And Chacha Chaudhary was a super hero whose brain worked faster than a computer. And Chacha Chaudhary had a brother named Chchajjoo Chaudhary who once was mistaken for him and was taken to planet Tau Tau where he was given complicated equations to solve.....It was....it was....it was...brilliant!”

A gentle, quiet, dew drop like tear slipped from Ghongha's eyes. Madhuri looked at him with her jaws open. Silence reigned supreme in the bus stand again but the beautiful face of Ms Madhuri Zinta seemed blurred as tears quietly rolled by.

Quite noiselessly, the bus had rolled to a stop near the bus stand. Madhuri went in. As Ghongha was about to climb the steps, a lopsided smile ran across his face. He chuckled and said to himself “You smooooth bastard. She will be fantasizing about you tonight for sure.”

14 comments:

clueless rebel said...

hmmm.. vishal patel coming in handy i see......

Unknown said...

This is so you. But not you.
“Chacha Chaudhary aur Raka ki Wapasi”, I understand.
“You smooooth bastard. She will be fantasizing about you tonight for sure.”, this I don't.

Nanga Fakir said...

@ Zebi: Sure is!
@ Ra: Why not? I'd like to think that I am a smooth bastard!

Safari Al said...

You are a bastard. Period.

Safari Al said...

The thing is that there are very few women whom I know that you know that read Orhan Pamuk.

Is this like a story of unrequited love?

Nanga Fakir said...

Yes there are a very few women (or for that matter, men) who read Orhan Pamuk (Sahil was one of them) but the number that claim to know all about him/his philosophy/other lit jargon laden talk is significantly higher...Ghongha, as the name suggests, is the exact dehati/poriki anti hero (I am planning to write more Ghongha stories!)

Unrequited??? That's five letters too may for me to understand!

Arvind Krishna said...

this is very funny and all.
but which girl would have read comic books? even Alan Moore and Frank Miller.
I know that you idealise women who share your lit passions and all but thankfully the real world is not like that.
And for all the intellectual women who think the world of themselves...they can all suck my cock.

Thankfully, so far in my stay in the You Ess I haven't seen people engaging in intellectual masturbation. Which is a good thing...generally people don't star t putting some hazzar fundaes.

Nanga Fakir said...

Isn't research=intellectual masturbation and isn't that is what Stanford is famous for???

Indus Creep said...

here goes:

you choot...i remember you saying "i am sure subbu and me put together have read more literature than bhogale". that russian guy you read obviously makes that statement true.

now you conveniently hide behind chacha chowdhury, never denying that you have read russian authors also at the same time. (i realize that as vishal patel says...we enjoy such comics because one has to come full circle to appreciate it)

so...stop the fucking charade.


@ak:
well....i met a lesbian here who listens to Nile and Black Label Society and Mother Love Bone AND claims to speak kannada. and yuss....yooyess ppl dont put fundae...they just assume you know. people casually wear tool tshirts here to class. not like its some rare and prized tshirt.

Unknown said...

This is true. We all read books because we like to. We just don't have to pretend we don't like to. Equally lit girlfriend is your fantasy, and the story is about such fantasy come true. A good one at that.


And to CJ,
As far as the t-shirt, maybe they just don't care for the message on the shirt.

Indus Creep said...

@ra:
regarding the tshirts...SUUPER

Nanga Fakir said...

@CJ:
I will not let you make fun of my sensitive hero Ghongha and his undeniably wonderful literary choices. As regards the supposed charade, the only thing worth mentioning here is that enjoyment of highbrow literature does not necessarily preclude enjoyment of pulp fiction which is enjoyable for its own sake. And frankly, highbrow stuff becomes boring after a certain time...

Indus Creep said...

@right.

hmmm. fuck that bhogale anyway.
btw i am coming to chicago for thanksgiving...how far is NY?

Nanga Fakir said...

Very...very far! :(