English is really a funny language. A word can have several meanings for the listener. If you are standing under a tree, in a college campus, with head down and you hear the words ‘One Hottee’. The image which would come in your mind would be of a 20 years old damsel with sweetest of face, sexiest of curves, colorful clothes and what not. On the contrary, you would be highly disappointed to raise your face and found a girl with a ‘grayish black face’ (strictly horrible), kept on a medium size body asking for one glass of ‘Hot Tea’ from a tea stall vendor. So the realities don’t go with the words you listen.
She used to be first of regular customers in winter on that ‘Bunty’ tea stall in DU campus. She will board the metro from a part of North Delhi early in the morning, would step down and ask for ‘One Hot Tea’ almost every day. She was one of the strangest faces you could have ever seen, very dry, grayish, pale and tired. One could take her as a mixed breed of Viv Richards and Desi Gupta aunti (the fat, heavy ‘gold leaden’ one and not Neena Gupta, as Mosaba is still cute). She was hardly seen with friends as rarest on earth could bear her face for long, including me.
No one had much idea about her background, however on specific enquires I came to know that she lost her parents in an accident. She was now staying with her grandparents. So Miss Hottee was an abnormal customer whom ‘everyone would notice to ignore’. Also you could guess that such gloomy personality must be preparing for some competitive exams to break the hardness of her pity life. I never saw smile on her face. It was something expected too. On one such Monday morning she was there, sitting on a bench and sipping her first cup of Hot Tea. This was a normal day with normal work for all. However, one crazy looking English cameraman was roaming around to shoot pictures or video about the Indian college life. God knows what strike his crazy cells, as he made a 1 minute video of Miss Hottee. He went away before she could notice what was what. She must not have expected her picture being taken as ’camera’ too, would have preferred, not to store such face.
Few days passed and she suddenly vanished. Nobody noticed, nor did I. Few more months gone and I even forget her face. One fine day I had glance over the morning newspaper lying on the rack of tea stall. The front page of Delhi times had a girl’s picture with tag line of ‘Indian Face is talk of the town in US’. OMG! This was Ms. Hottee on the cover of Delhi times. I got read a bit more to find that she had done some trans border movie and was now a famous star in US. I could not believe my eyes or ears. On 4th page there was a big article and here she was, declared a rising star from the east, crowded with pretty faces to take her autographs. Even her crazy face was looking nice in the newspaper.
Later, I came to know that her 1 minute video, made by that crazy photographer, got 10 Lacs hits in a day on youtube. (May be sorrow too sells on internet). She had got a solo movie offer from Bollywood and her English movie was running houseful with lots of credit going to her. What was this? Overnight change of fortunes, destiny or grace of almighty. No one can answer this question. Things are same for me. Ms. Hottee was touching the sky and I am still washing used glasses of tea.
Many thanks to Mr. Pal (my interpreter), who has helped to pen down this story in English. I don’t know what he has wrote about me or the lady, but I am happy that I have just told a strange story about a strange success of a strange face lady, who had one common thing with my life. She used to drink ‘One Hot Tea’ from my tea stall, daily. Yes I am the young and proud owner of Bunty tea stall which at least keeps me healthy and fit due to daily ‘beauty’ dose.