Pretty much every morning my auntie and I have papaya with our breakfast. She always makes me take some first and, while she’s serving herself, she asks if it’s sweet. I always think it is, but she only thinks so if it’s perfectly ripe. The papaya is always cut up and in a bowl by the time we have breakfast, but the other day I happened by the kitchen while my auntie was still getting ready and saw that the papaya hadn’t been cut up yet. I grabbed my camera and took a quick snap.
The Hindi word for papaya is papita. I think it’s really cute, and it also bothered me for a long time because it sounded so familiar. Then I realized where I had heard the name—I used to watch a teen drama called “Popular” when I was in middle school. It was only around for one or two seasons. Anyhow, I’m pretty sure there was a girl named Papita on the show. She was the pretty ethnic girl in the periphery of the popular kids, a minorly important character. The only reason I remember her at all is because Mary Cherry would say Papita’s name in her southern accent and it always sounded so uncomfortable.
EDIT: A search on imdb.com clarifies things a bit—her name was Poppita Fresh on the show and they always called her Poppy Fresh.