LOVES LABOURS LOST

( my apologies to shakespears)

Miracles do happen. Here is one :

As the curtain goes up we see a
pretty young girl, a stenographer,
chomping snacks, seated behind a
remington typewriter.It is office lunch
time. The place is a city office-
complex in Nagpur in India.
The building is a three-storey,
rectangular and huge one, housing
several govt. Offices. At the ground
level a wide pavement runs around it
where we find cars, scooters and
bicycles parked. We also see some
office junk lying in piles here and
there on this pavement for early
disposal. Beyond this are well-
maintained lawns. It is lunch time
and office workers are lazing in the
winter Sun.

A boy named Gopalan now enters the
room and starts pestering this girl.
He is madly in love with this Rita.The
girl does not love him at all. A case
of 'unilateral' love in a manner of
speaking.
This 'Romeo drama' has been going
on for a long time now, ad-nauseam.
The boy is fed up and desperate. The
girl is a no-nonsense one. She is
also fedup.Today the boy has
resolved to settle the matter, one way
or the other.

" I am going to go up and jump down
to my death if you don't agree to
marry me. Its here and now." He
declares breathlessly.

The girl stops chomping snacks.well,
You cant eat as well as laugh ! She
saw something very theatrical in this
display.

"Okay Gopalan. You go and commit
suicide.If you do so, I shall marry
you. Now get lost".

She was still having fits of laughter
when the boy beats a retreat. He
resolutely runs up the flight of stairs,
runs across the length of roof and
dives. A free fall of some sixty feet !

Lunch time crowd in the office lawn
watch in utter disbelief as he goes
down accelarating( v = mg square ).
Now a miracle takes place !! Directly
beneath this 'y = mx + c' path was
lying a pile of empty huge cardboard
boxes for disposal. Gopalan hits the
top, goes all the way down and
crawls out at the bottom to the
shouts of " the bloke is alive !!" by
the crowd.

He has no time for them.
He rushes inside, storms into the
room where Rita is giving finishing
touches to her tiffin. She hears him
and then explodes.

" you lousy skunk! Do you think I am
buying this Jack-out-of -the-box
tale. Now I am going to report it to
the chief and the Police".

And as she
proceeds toward the phone, the boy
does the disappeariog act. ( THE
CURTAIN DROPS )

There is a footnote to this true story :
I met the boy years later. I found him
to be happily married to another
sweet girl.
Miracles do happen!
Q.E.D.