FIRST COMPLETE BOLLYWOOD HERO

Hrithik Se Pyaar Hai...

All their pocket money is spent. Not on popcorn or potato chips, but on posters of bollywood's latest heartthrob Hrithik Roshan. At school, the first period in the morning is spent in quietly exchanging pictures with friends. "I got nine postcards of Hrithik today. And I knew I would get them as I had paid for the best collection, " says 12 years- old Bhavana. Gaudy-colored printed postcards, costing a rupee each, apparently mean a fortune to hundreds of school going kids in the city. Many enterprising ones have even begun 'investing', that is buying and selling photographs of their screen-idol, which are diligently cut out from newspapers and magazines. While the large glossy photographs appearing in film magazines appear to be selling for as high as Rs 10 each, the small black and white ones printed in the vernacular press cost a cheap 50 paise.
"Even the class, monitor is trapped, "says a jubilant Amit, while explaining how he got the monitor to erase his name, written on the blackboard for talking in class, in exchange for "two good photos" of Hrithik Roshan. Last week, sensing the tremors in his school, an alert principal directed his staff to 'raid' the school bags of the student."piles of photographs, maybe in kilos, were collected and then set on fire," lament 14years olds Swati and Vishal, even as Deepak, who was absent on the day of the 'raid', triumphantly announces how his 'solid' collection of 48 pictures was saved!

And if one is naïve enough to think that this craze has afflicted only teenagers, Priyanka has course books. "He brings a smile to my face," she justifies, just like Kedar, who reportedly brought a huge portrait of his idol just before his examination began and declared to the supervisor, " Don't move this please, he is our inspiration!"

The Hrithik craze is no kidstuff. Twenty - year - old Suleiman, was normally refuses to wear his reading glasses, has now changed his mind. Says his mother, "that's only if we buy him frames like the one Hrithik wears." When queried, opticians in the city confirm that in past few weeks, several youngsters have asked for 'Hrithik' frames fitted with zero number glasses.

Glad that their kids are stress -free, and are not sinking into examination blues due to this major'distraction', several parents believe that the Hrithik fever will fade as soon as school break up for the summer vacations. But will it?

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