LOVE'S LABOUR LOST

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.)