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.”