Moony's Short Stories

The Handsomest Man (Ever)

1.

He looked in the mirror. No one could deny it. He was the most handsome man ever. So handsome, that when he walked on the street, everyone had to look at him with envious eyes. So handsome, that birds held back their poop if he walked under them. If any bird failed to do so, then another bird would dive just in time to let the poop fall on itself rather than on him. If there were a pothole in his path, then by-standers came running to stop him. Of course, he already knew how to walk around the pothole. But the by-standers thus got a reason to have a closer look at him. "Oh, how I wish I were that handsome!" – this thought crossed every mind (regardless of gender) which saw him. And he knew about his beauty.

There's more – word of his beauty travelled abroad. One fine day, he got a letter from the King of England requesting him to accept the hand of the princess in marriage! If our hero had read the letter, then firstly he would have been enraptured by the perfection of the format of that formal letter. Again, normally, anyone would be clever enough to at least consider a marriage proposal, especially if it's coming from someone who still has the power to declare war for a developed country. Some may even be intimidated by the responsibilities it would entail. But this handsome man never read the contents. As soon as he noticed the British symbol on the envelope, he stomped in rage to the nearest post office, borrowed pen and paper from the postman (he had forgotten in his anger) and wrote 4 words and sent back the envelope with his reply. Those words were – "Dugna lagaan nahi dunga" (I won't pay twice the tax). The reason was that our hero had 2 major flaws – first one was that he didn't know English. He utterly hated the British for everything that happened since they set foot in our country. Right from his childhood days, he had maintained a substantial distance from everything "British" – sadly this meant he didn't play (or watch) cricket, or drank tea in the afternoon, or watched any media in English. This was, however, about to change.

Our hero was of marriageable age. And yet he couldn't find any suitor. Of course, there was already a token system implemented for women who came to ask for his hand (after all, the first-in-first-out token system is the most reliable one when there are thousands of women waiting to marry him). Our hero's parents even had bodyguards to make sure that no one tries to break the queue (and that no one tries to come under any disguise for a second attempt, you have no idea how innovatively they think, once they even found a case of a woman who underwent plastic surgery and changed her fingerprints just for a second attempt). Moreover, his parents had even thought of keeping an entrance exam (which will clearly define the rank), but they decided not to do so, since our hero himself had sadly never qualified JEE Mains. Coming back to the queue, the problem was that as soon as any woman came and talked to him, even his own beauty could not stop them from realizing his first flaw – he couldn't understand English. Surprisingly, none of the suitors were willing to marry someone who couldn't speak English. Our hero was optimistic – there must be someone who would accept him as he is. But when you've already met 10,543 women and still none of them have accepted you, then even an adamant optimist starts having doubts – "Will I ever get accepted?"

After another 2,657 candidates, he finally decided to do something he had never done before – to learn English. This decision took the entire city by surprise. Everyone knew his abhorrence towards the British, and yet here he was, ready to learn, to speak, to even think, in the British language. But he was firm, because of 2 things – 1. He still believed he'll find someone who'll accept him as he is, and 2. Learning English won't change those chances anyway, so why not try? You have to understand his mindset to understand him – the most handsome man (ever) isn't able to find a spouse just because of a trivial flaw!

He started searching for English language courses. He found a variety which seemed to exceed the number of his suitor candidates (whom he met less often, since he had to now make time for his English course). He found courses which claimed to make him an English expert in 10 hours (they called it English crash-course), another claimed to just make him fluent in English in 48 hours (this was called English hackathon). He finally chose one which claimed to teach him the basics in 30 days.

In every class, he found a reason why the language seemed more absurd. For example, pronunciation was unbearably irregular! He felt sorry for silent letters – they were the ones rejected by the speaking tongue, just like he was rejected by the 15,903 women candidates. He had even started a campaign to end the outrageous discrimination against different types of nouns – how only "proper" nouns were written with a capital letter, while other nouns weren't (he got 1 lakh signatures on change.org , which made him feel more optimistic). Finally at the end of 30 days, he felt an odd feeling (which made his stomach turn) – he had started liking this language.

Now came the 25,583rd suitor candidate. The parents left these two to talk in private. He waited for her to speak. And she did – "Aren't you going to say something?"

"You can speak first."

"Okay, umm... I hope this doesn't sound intrusive, but may I know how many you have talked to before I came?"

"Too many. I don't remember the count. I think my parents would know. They handle the database. I only handle the front-end UI."

"So you have a family business?"

"Yes, my grandfather started it in 1920. You will get half of my share after our marriage."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, why?"

"I thought this is a job interview."

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By Purujit S S

a.k.a Moony

Thank you for reading!

 Hope you enjoyed it!

2021-04-17 22:54 GMT+0530