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.
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