I said, “There is no question of liking or not liking; you can even hate that fellow. But receiving the letter, just like a nice lady…it is not against any manners, any etiquette.”

She said, “If you say, I will accept the letter.”

Then I said, “It is not the end. You have to write a letter too.”

She said, “My god! You are creating trouble for me. If my father comes to know” – and her father was the collector of that city – “if he comes to know…He is a dangerous fellow, he can even shoot. He goes on shining his gun every day, and he has told me, ‘Don’t get involved in any love affair; otherwise somebody is going to be shot!’”

I said, “I will prepare your father, you don’t be worried. If anybody is going to be shot, I am the fellow who is ready because I have nothing to lose. It is perfectly good, he can shoot me. But you will have to write a letter, because this fellow just needs a hope. Don’t write too many sweet things, just…”

She said, “Okay, I will try. But I don’t know, I have never written a love letter.”

I said, “My god…I will write it.” So I wrote a love letter and she signed it.

A few love letters were exchanged and finally the girl came to me to say that, “My father seems to be getting suspicious. You have put me into trouble, because now that boy has at least seven letters signed by me.”

I said, “That boy is not a real person, he is a carbon copy. Don’t be worried about him. I will take back all your letters.”

I told the boy, “Listen, the father of the girl is very dangerous and he keeps polishing his gun.”

He said, “My god! And you never told me before? Where does he live?”

I said, “He is a collector and he lives in the city, three or four miles away from the university. But now your life is in danger.”

He said, “You wrote those letters…”

I said, “It does not matter who wrote them. What matters is who signed!”

He said, “Now save me somehow, I don’t want to get into trouble. If I had known that love means trouble, I would not have fallen in love.”

So I said, “You give all those letters back to me.” He said, “Then what will happen to my letters which are in the girl’s hands?”

I said, “I will take back those letters too.”

He said, “Don’t forget! because those seven letters will keep me always falling in love. Just I have to copy one letter, because I cannot manage…you have made such beautiful letters. I don’t care that the girl is lost, but those letters I would miss my whole life!”

I took back the letters from both sides.

After ten years, I found him in another city. He had become a professor, and he had a wife and children. I said, “You managed perfectly well.”