IN THE WINK OF AN EYE

I was eleven years old, and studying in Class VI, when I took a daring decision.

I decided that it was time I grew from a girl to a woman, with all the accompanying wiles and guiles that went with womanhood. And one of the indispensable weapons in a woman's formidable armoury, was her undisputed skill in attracting men with the mesmeric power of her eyes.

To cut a long story short, I decided to pick up the art of winking.

Because to wink successfully, delicately, without scrunching up your eyes, or squeezing your eyelids tortuously, or hamming up the whole thing like a lascivious Johnny Walker (the comedian, not the whiskey), seemed to my 11-year-old mind the epitome of the femme fatale.

But the mirror was not enough, I needed a guinea pig to practise upon.

Being essentially timid by nature, I chose a safe venue. The top deck of the red double-decker bus - L20 - that took us from safe, suburban Barrackpore to big-city Calcutta and all its dangerous fascinations. A window-seat gave me a good view of the people down below.

I chose a safe victim. I decided to bestow my virgin wink at any old man who would look up at my window, but would not be strong enough or fast enough to follow it up with any other action.

So, in one of the innumerable bus-stops on the way to Esplanade, I winked at a doddery old man who was gazing bemusedly up at the bus. Most probably he had cataract, or short-sight, but I fondly imagined him to be gazing straight at me when I WINKED - not a sly, barely-there wink, BUT A BOLD, LASTING-FOR-QUITE-SOME-TIME, EYE-PROPERLY-SHUT, MAKE-NO-MISTAKE-ABOUT-IT WINK.

The poor man hardly noticed a thing.

Now that was a wink gone with the wind.

TELL ME, WHEN DID YOU FIRST WINK A WINSOME WINK?

MY FIRST KISS

My first kiss was a stolen one in an empty room.

I was all of eight years old. The older members of the household had gone out for some family celebration. Only my younger brother was there, sleeping (his favourite pastime).

The room had a large mirror ideal for posing and preening, and a dressing-table full of rows of lipsticks and other rainbow-hued make-up stuff (all part of the armoury of my newly-wedded cousin's wife).

I was irresistably drawn to the luscious lipstick in their sleek shiny cases... Red She Said, Very Berry and Coco Loco. But it was Passionate Pink that I wanted...passionately.

The strawberry shade glided over my lips like smooth honey. Enchanted by taste and the texture, by the very grown-up appearance of my face (or so I thought, I'm almost sure I overdid the outlines), I puckered up and, leaning towards the mirror, gave a resounding kiss to myself.

Admiring the pink lipstick mark (on the mirror it looked so pouty, if you know what I mean), I spent a long and wonderfully narcissistic half-hour with myself. Wonder what Freud, Jung and co. would say about that.

So lost was I in self-passion that I came to myself at the sound of the garden-gate opening. Hurriedly rubbing off the lipstick off my lips, I forgot about the mark on the mirror.

Needless to say, I was caught (pink-lipped, if not red-handed), and became the butt of many a family joke for a long, long, time. Enough to turn my thoughts of love from myself to other worthier objects, like the boy-next-door.

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST KISS?

P.S: I'm sending this post off with a flying kiss to Scribbit's August Write-Away contest. She's one of my must-read bloggers and I just love her write-away contests.