Barring the months of December and January, Calcutta was rather warm, especially in April and May.
Now, of course, the weather is quite confounding, having abandoned all preset rules of seasons and geography!
Anyway! Those were the days of pheriwalas (travelling vendors). From broomsticks and knives to pillows, fish and vegetables, the day was divided into time zones based on the items on offer. Early mornings were mostly fish and vegetables, with mid-morning household utility items and so on. Evenings were about buror-daari (cotton candy), bhelpuri, phuchka, and ice cream.
The cotton candies were stuffed like mini pink cotton balls inside a big, square glass box, carried by an elderly kaku (uncle) on his shoulder. The bhelpuri came in a big yellow thela (push-cart) with pictures of the dish and flowers, elaborately painted. The phuchka-wala had a smaller cart, with a big glass box filled with phuchkas or golgappes made of atta, not suji/rava. And the ice-cream was a bright white cart on a cycle, with Kwality written in bold red and blue against white, with laminated menu cards hanging from a pretty canopy with red stripes.
And each had a distinct sound. The cotton candy had a mild ting-ting from a tiny bell that perhaps felt awkward to wake up the sleepy neighbourhood from their bhaat-ghum (sleep after eating generous amounts of rice). The bhelpuri barged into our paara with a loud ding-dong, from a big metallic bell, shaken at regular intervals by a bhaiya-ji from Chhapra, Bihar. The phuchka kaku came from kestopur, making his presence known by a sound similar to cymbals.
And of course, the ice-cream uncle (he was always uncle) rang the big bell three times in a row, all the while peddling at a slow pace, announcing his grand arrival.
I could tell by the sound exactly which vendor was doing the rounds. Since most months were warm, we preferred the ice cream. I would happily scream from my balcony, hollering at him to stop. And do a hop-skip-jump to reach the ground floor and onto the street to decide which flavour to buy. Didi stood on the balcony, ordering me to read the menu. Everyday. The same items. Strawberry, vanilla, butterscotch, chocolate, chocobar, orange stick, pineapple stick and Strawberry stick. A rather spartan menu compared to what we have now. Cornetto also came in much later. And Didi would roll her fingers into her curls and do tic-tac-toe in her mind while uncle waited, and I looked up, waiting for a response! And every time, after this mental tic-tac-toe, which felt like centuries, the winner would always be the chocobar. 12 rupees only. Sometimes Maa would give in to temptation and go for butterscotch (cup, not cone), the hot new flavour doing the rounds!
And we would all sit on the balcony, relishing our choco comforts. As I took my time, literally feeling every crunch of the chocolate crispy sheet, dunking my teeth into the freezing vanilla underneath, Didi’s chocobar would be nestling deep inside her belly. At which point did the gaze? “Buli, amake ekta choto bite dibi?” (Will you give me a small bite?) After initial refusals, the unflinching, non-blinking gaze would stir my sisterly conscience, finally making me release a faint, “thikache” (okay) with a reminder, “choto bite nibi kintu” (make sure it’s a small bite only)!
The sincerity of the nod was completely in opposition to the magnitude of the bite. Yes, one bite and 80% of my chocobar was over!!!
A catfight would invariably follow, with Maa finally shutting us up with her tried and tested trope, “tora aeto jhogra korle, ami shob chhere chhure kashi chole jaabo!” (If you all fight so much, I will leave everything and go to Kashi!)
And every time we bought into that empty threat and empty rhetoric. And every or most evenings, this drama would play and replay, till one day, and we don’t know which day, we stopped our chocobar treats. Because Rollick Room opened. Because it was cool to hang out in ice-cream parlours. Because Just 17 magazine told us so (told Didi so, I simply followed in her footsteps). Because Rollick Room was about sundaes and cassattas, banana splits and rainbows, chocolate castles and death-by-chocolate. Because it was hip and happening, dressed in baggy jumpsuits with plastic earrings, and dunking a long spoon into a jar of colourful clouds of cream with nuts on top and a wafer sticking out. Hell, it was cool!
Kwality became Wall’s Kwality. Cornetto came in. And Kwality uncle was replaced by a Kwality bhaiya. And with that, we said ta-ta-bye-bye to those chocobar evenings; of squabbles and emotional atyachaar, of hoi-choi and chechamechi (noise), of two sisters who re-enacted the same scene, over and over again, in a constant affirmation of love, over fights and patching-up!
I’m no longer fond of ice-creams as I used to be. But fondly remember those chocobar evenings ❤️❤️❤️
Pic: from chocobar to frozen ice-cream, Kwality to Froyoland, we surely have come a long way!!!
BY ANU SREEDHAR
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