This billboard of TMBWITW sits at the corner of Dundas and Yonge St. in downtown Toronto. Ironically, I was in that city attending the wedding of a man who’s infamous because of the same kind of billboard.
My buddy ‘Milind Das’ (not his real name, for reasons which will become clear) is a Canadian-born desi living in London. He used to work in India as a toney management consultant with an expat package. He often flew between Delhi and Bombay for business meetings at dawn. Early one morning, before sunrise, Milind witnessed an ethereal phantom in a white sari emerging from the fog at Indira Gandhi International. She was a young woman with large eyes, pleasant-looking but not overpoweringly so. She’d covered her hair and much of her face with the end of her sari and was accompanied by an elderly, glowering Cerberus.
Milind settled into his first class seat, pulled out his laptop and began working on a spreadsheet. The watchdog positioned herself grimly between him and her ward. Over the next two hours, her expression changed. At first it was, ‘Don’t even think about talking to my daughter.’ As the minutes ticked by and Milind remained oblivious to her beauty, it became, ‘Why the hell aren’t you talking to my daughter?’
Milind noticed the flight attendants were especially attentive that morning. When the flight ended, he shared a ride into town with one of the attendants whom he’d befriended. (Modesty forbids us from asking about that tale.) She asked him excitedly whether he’d seen the actress.
‘What actress?’
At that very instant, the cab was passing below a supersized Bollywood billboard. The aeronymph stared at him incredulously and pointed up in the air. And that’s how our young swain met The (Second) Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
I trust it’s clear why we must mask Milind’s identity. Otherwise, half a billion desi men would hunt him down for his Bolly ignorance. Of course, he found his own TMBWITW and, 96 hours ago, married her. I’m happy to report that ‘Mrs. Das’ lives up to the name.
