I returned home from office only to find my neighbor waiting impatiently for me. “Will you please help me?” she pleaded, almost in tears. I was visibly moved. Being the good neighbor, that I was, I generously agreed to do everything to help her. I regretted my decision instantly as I learnt that she wanted me to explain all about the birds & the bees to her teenage daughter.  “Why me? I cried incredulously, “you know very well that I don’t have much to do with the unfair sex anymore. And the next time that I find a man in my bed gasping for breath and calling out to me may well be because  I’ve  failed to hold down the pillow long enough to throttle him.”  

No amount of cajoling could make her budge an inch.  She firmly advises her daughter to listen to Auntie carefully. I steel myself to face the teenager who  gives me the wide eyed enquiring look.  Err Rimi, you are all grown up now, I declare. Sure am, she retorts, “Boy! Being grown up sucks!” She complains, resorting to the American Euphemism. “It sure does”, I agree hastily returning to the job in hand. “Do you know anything about bo I mean boys”, I stammer, not believing that I was doing this. “Boys? Of course I know lotsa boys, Auntie. God’s ugly creatures, aren’t they?” She asks earnestly. I find myself nodding, completely in agreement; only to gasp out loud as she announces that she, however, prefers men, they were so much more mature  having said good-bye to puberty and looking forward to adultery.

All pretence leaves me now, as I decide to skip the preliminaries and move on to the delicate subject of contraception. “You mean, like a firewall or an anti-virus?” She asks innocently. So that you don’t get a pop-up stating that you got male at the end of 9 months? You can get a female too, I suppose,” she states almost as an after thought. “It’s not only the question of having kids”, I admonish her sternly, “Do you know that certain fatal diseases can be transmitted sexually? Yeah, I know”, she concurs. “But isn’t life transmitted sexually too? Although you have to admit that the position is ridiculous and the pleasure momentary, she adds thoughtfully, quoting Lord Chesterfield.”

Her mother comes in, eager to gauge her darling daughter’s progress. Picture Abhi Baki nahi hai mere dost, I say, it has turned out to be ‘The End’ of my innocence.