Krishna comes up to Radhika — and instead of "hello" she meets him with a jab: "Oh Krishna, how crooked you are! A crooked, cunning fellow!" — no greeting at all, straight to the insult. Yet Krishna, hearing it, only grows happy. Why? Such is the nature of love. Madhu Mangala once asked his grandmother — Purnamasi herself: what is the nature of love? She answered: politeness belongs where there is no closeness. A stranger on the street you ask politely, "excuse me, what time is it?" — the very politeness marks that the person is a stranger to you. But where love is strong, politeness wounds: say "pardon me" to one who loves you and he flinches — "what happened? what did I do wrong? why was I rejected?" A jab, though, is joy: the offending word he takes as a good joke and returns it tenfold. So the gopis scold Krishna, Krishna scolds them, and all are glad. For this scolding has a hidden subtitle. "You are crooked in past, present and future" — it means: I love you. "And you are crooked in eight places" — it means: I love you too.