Madhuri meets Deewana No 1!

Guess who’s Madhuri Dixit’s No 1 fan? No, it’s not M F Husain.

The answer is Ranbir Kapoor, the dashing young actor of Saawariya and the newest kid on Bollywood’s block.

As a boy, Ranbir idolised Madhuri from afar when he frequently joined his father on the sets of David Dhawan’s Yaraana . “My dad was her leading man in that film,” recalls Ranbir shyly. “But I fell in love with her when I was six and I watched her do the Ek Do Teen number in Tezaab . I’ve grown up watching her films. And every time I see her on screen, my heart starts beating dangerously fast!”

When he heard she was in Mumbai for her comeback film, Ranbir’s first impulse was to rush and meet Madhuri. But he resisted the urge. “Meeting an idol is a very tricky thing. You never know which way the meeting will go. My guru Sanjay Leela Bhansali once told me he had desisted from meeting his idol, Lata Mangeshkar, because of this fear.”

But this week, there was no escaping Madhuri for Ranbir. “I was at the same studio on Thursday afternoon where Madhuriji was giving interviews. I could see and hear her from where I was shooting. This was God’s way of telling me, this was it. No more running away.”

So Ranbir nervously went up to his idol. “I was totally tongue-tied but she said the sweetest things to me. I just kept staring at her like an idiot,” says Ranbir.

As a memento of that meeting (and proof to show his friends!), Ranbir asked his Madhuriji to sign a CD of her film for him. “She obliged,” he says happily. “And that CD is now my proudest possession along with a letter from Mr Amitabh Bachchan appreciating my performance in Saawariya ,” says Ranbir sounding like father Rishi did when he was 12 and fell in love with Simi Garewal in Mera Naam Joker !

Subash K Jha, TNN