REMEMBER the old fable in which the benign spirit granted three wishes and no more. If a foolish choice were made, the next wishes would be lost in rectifying it. A modern-day parallel for an adolescent would be a hundred bucks to spend and three things to buy.

Now adolescents these days are quite pragmatic and rarely make foolish choices. Still, I was curious to see what my daughter would do with the hundred bucks an indulgent aunt gave her to spend any which way. So while I spent some time in an art gallery, she went to the nearby market to do her shopping. The three things that she bought herself were a margarita pizza, a can of fizzy drink and a Hrithik Roshan poster. Now the Pizza and drink were probably decided by the time of the day. She had just returned from school and was probably in need for some refreshment. But the stomach had nothing to do with the third buy. That was a dictate of the heart.

I had been hearing murmurs about at Hrithik Roshan poster for some time and these increased when the sci-fiction film Koi Mil Gaya promos started appearing on the television. I had put off the demands by saying that after we had painted the house she could buy it. Once the house was painted, I invented another excuse that she would get the poster only if she cleared the mess out of her room. But now with money to spend any which way, she exercised her choice.

Back home, the poster was pasted on the wall with much ado. I quite enjoyed it all. I like it when she has these small crushes. I must admit that even in my middle age, I am an incorrigible romantic although most of my youth I spent making pretences at being a progressive. Often, I find my daughter much too pragmatic. Perhaps that is the mood of the generation that she belongs to. That night when I went to her room to wish her goodnight, she said, "Mama, what’s with Hrithik? If I sit on the right side of the bed, he is staring at me. If I move to the right, he is still staring at me.

Emboldened by this new turn in conversation, I sat down to tell her how I had worshipped Dev Anand when I was her age. "Do you know I saw Tere Ghar ke Saamne as many as three times!" She was listening in a distracted manner. Dev Anand was quite a pain in the neck for her because she had to suffer him when I insisted on seeing his old classics like Baazi, Jaal or Badbaan on the television.

"But Mama, what’s the point to it all!" she finally said. "Point to what?" I asked in surprise. While I had been talking about my long lost fascination for Dev Anand, she was probably figuring out about her crush on Hrithik. "Point to putting Hrithik’s poster in my room and having him stare at me. You see, I am never going to get him."

"So what," I told her, "one doesn’t stop liking someone or something just because one is not going to get it." I got another bored look from her. I wanted to launch off on a treatise that the ultimate in romance was the unrequited. But I stopped myself. None of my outdated fundas were required. She had to sort out all this for herself. Maybe she would do better than her Mama!