Remember to bring strawberry in the evening. It excites me so immensely,” a juicy voice, distinct from the mumble-jumble of an open-air eating joint, makes itself audible even to a not-so-discerning ear. Screening eyes turn around in the direction of the luscious tone, involuntarily. The endeavour is to identify the source of the voice from amidst the nondescript crowd of youngsters, indistinct because of the same style.
What so many teenyboppers don’t realise is that teeny-weeny skirts and even smaller spaghetti tops are nowadays making them indistinguishable like never before. Like two peas in a pod! After all, they are so much commonplace. A salwaar would be more stirring. Your thoughts drift as you look at the multitude.
But the emotive voice brings you back to the scene. “And, if you can’t get strawberry, get me a chocolate,” the loud whisper demands tenderly.
Looking down the aisle, you see a blue-eyed beauty with silky, soft-curled, tresses, tumbling down the fragile shoulders. Even before your mind can capture the picture perfect, she turns around to assert: “Say you will get them. Just want to have some yummy session.”
Now it is not the voice, but the assertion, that leaves you gaping. What “yummy session” is she talking about? Strawberry! Chocolate! The scenes of an advertisement on the “intelligence box” flash in front of your eyes, as you realise the girl is hardly taking any precautions while asking her guy to deliver the not-so-forbidden fruit of passion.
Alright, we have a permissive society, which thinks nothing of holding hands in public. Even hugging and kissing are imperceptible. Private in public is an accepted norm. But to overtly discuss topics, which should be opened up only behind the curtains of secrecy, is kind of too much, you brood.
They should love with discretion and precaution, but why discuss the ways and means publicly, you wonder. All this talk about chocolate-flavoured and strawberry-flavoured stuff leaves a bad taste in the mouth, as you shift uneasily in your seat.
But her next assertion makes you change your perception. Your worse fears prove wrong as she admiringly looks at her shocking yellow nail paint before saying: “ I am bored of munching apples, and am longing forward to the amazing flavour of fresh sun-bathed strawberries in desserts. I have asked mom to get these for me.”
Phew! She was all the time talking about the fruit, while the mind was busy thinking of something else — of passion, of precaution, and of control.
You can blame a man’s mind for working on a single track. Okay, more often than not, men think like that. But when you are bombarded with advertisements on the small screen showing damsels out of distress in black and pink lingerie talking about flavours, confusion is bound to be the fruit of harvest.
Even before you heave a sigh of relief, another disturbing thought comes to your mind. If the suggestive ads can cause so much of confusion, they must surely be luring someone somewhere to cross the line of temptation and go in for the “yummy session.” You wonder at the answerless question, as you finish off the thick strawberry shake you had ordered.
