When I was seven and still a book-virgin, my college-going sister flashed the copy of Sidney Sheldon's The Other Side of Midnight. Noticing my eyes coming to focus on the pouted blonde on the cover, she warned not to mess around with grown-up's novels. But one afternoon when nobody was home, I did exactly that. Flipping through the soft paperback, the random shuffle came to stop at Page 198.

Gently he took her in his arms, and they kissed.

I was transfixed. I imagined "him" taking "her" in his arms even as dozen curiosities tossed and simmered in my mind. Were they without clothes? Did they embrace in his bedroom or under the bushes in a public garden? But more tantalizing was to visualize them kissing each other. Nobody had told me about kissing but I knew what it was. I had never read about it nor had seen it in the films. In Bollywood, flowers bloomed or birds flew the moment the hero was to smooch his heroine. But here "they kissed." The explicit description captivated me to re-read it again and again. By the time I was satiated enough to move further, there were impatient knockings at the door. The novel was quickly kept back and I rubbed my face to hide what my mind now knew.

In retrospection, it was an eventful day and things were never the same again. The account of "he" taking "her" in his arms and they kissing each other continued to haunt me. Restless nights succeeded one after another where I became one of the "they". It was irresistible.

Not long afterwards events took a more complicated turn. One winter night when everyone was asleep, I tip-toed with the novel into the living room and hid it between a comics. Page 198 was recalled to service.

There was a growing urgency as they both silently undressed.

I pictured them quietly, and hurriedly, taking off their clothes. She pulled out her socks and he dropped down his briefs. It was exciting but my imagination was still tamed and did not rush further. I was too excited to race ahead and, unaware of further possibilities, too innocent to guess what could have happened next. So like a continually re-playing video tape, "they both" kept repeating the same socks-and-briefs act for my pleasure.

In fact, before discovering Sidney Sheldon, I had accompanied my parents for a two-day trip to the famed erotic temples of Khaujuraho. Built in the 11th century by Chandela rulers, these UNESCO World Heritage grandeurs have Shiva as the prime deity. The sanctum-sanctorum of the temples displays lingam - the stone form of Shiva's male organ - placed at the center of the female form and reaching out upwards. The portrayal, symbolizing union between men and women, was a peon to creation. Of course, I was unfamiliar with the legend and the lingam merely represented Shiva's idol on which one was expected to dutifully kiss in reverence.