Ice Cream Soda

We had gone to the fair at the Traffic grounds. This fair used to be held every year during Kali Puja for a whole month. That’s where I first got fascinated with guns that shot at balloons; and developed a paranoia for the merry-go-round and those huge ferrous wheels – rather anything that went round and fast. Every year we would go to this fair at least four of five times during that month. The toy train was my favourite and I would refuse to get off even after our round trip was over. I would also buy those rice grains where they said they could write the whole Mahabharat. I would buy one, every year. And I would try to read a few lines of the epic through a magnifying glass. Obviously I could not proceed much and lost interest in it soon. Till it was next year and I would cry hopelessly till I got another one.

So, we had gone to the fair that evening. It was rather late. Baba got delayed with an emergency patient last minute and by the time we entered the fair, the stalls were already closing. I started looking around miserably. There goes the guy with the old lady’s hair, (the pink candyfloss had that peculiar local name); there went the photo shop that could take pictures of you standing in from of the Taj Mahal of next to Rajesh Khanna and the bamboo shutters went down on the lady who sold clay pots and pans for dolls. I liked licking the shiny purple paint off them and stick my tongue out at the mirror pretending to be Ma Kaali. My Baba was as disconcerted as me, since he realized it was really his fault that we were so late.

So we went looking for at least one open stall and after some time we did find one. It sold small chessboards with little black and white pawns. I had never seen a chessboard before and stood awestruck at the little figures of kings and queens and horses and elephants standing in straight lines facing each other ready for battle. Baba decided this was the right time to pacify me, so he declared it was time I learnt some chess. As soon as we bought the box I wanted to go home. I had lost all interest in the fair and wanted to open up the box and lay my soldiers down on the board. I wanted to learn how to make them move around the board and see what happens then. We quickly got home and even before my Baba could wash his hands and have his tea I wanted him to sit with me and start playing with our new chess board. I had my own ideas about how the little pieces should move around the board and very soon Baba realized that I had no intention of learning how to play it right. On his eleventh attempt to teach me a rule, I started howling very loudly. I don’t quite remember why though! But I remember that Ma intervened and the war that had moved from the board to the dining table was somehow impeded.

I was still crying. I remember there was a sense of huge betrayal that was welling up inside me and I reused to speak to anyone. Dinner was laid out. Ma and Baba tried coxing me to eat, but somehow, I cried and cried. Then Baba took out one of his favourite bottles from the fridge and poured all three of us a fizzy white drink. I knew this was a drink he liked a lot and every evening when he came back from his lab, he would pour himself one. I could smell the sweetness and stopped crying to understand what was going to happen now. You see, those days I was not allowed any soft drinks and I always eyed these drinks made for adults greedily at get-togethers. Baba said that since I was going to make my own rules for chess, I must have grown up while he was not looking. And so I could have this drink – Bijoligrill’s Ice Cream Soda, his favourite. I took a sip. The cold sweet drink fizzed right into me. I could smell the ice-cream in it, better than any I had ever had. I had stopped crying completely by then and gulped down the entire glass in a few seconds wanting more. I don’t quite remember how that evening ended but Ma tells me that I had refused to let the glass go and held it till I went off to sleep. From then on, every time Baba Ma and me sat together in the evenings, bottles of ice cream soda would accompany us.

Thirty years have gone by. Bijoligrill has gone out of business in the soft drink sector many years ago. Occasionally I have looked out for this drink “Ice Cream Soda”, but never found it on any shelf. The other day, I was looking for a bottle of orange juice at the local departmental store and quite accidentally found a pale blue bottle that I had not seen before. It read “Ice Cream Soda”. It was some new brand. I picked it up - a bit on impulse and the rest for the sake of nostalgia. Sitting alone at home I poured myself a drink from that blue bottle. Gosh…it tasted just like the ones I used to have thirty years ago. They say things from one’s childhood never smell or taste the same ever, but here it was in a pet bottle - a drink I so associated with the smell of my Baba’s hands when he came straight from the laboratory and opened bottles of ice cream soda for Ma and me. It filled me with a strange emptiness, a feeling that makes you want to touch something that you can remember very clearly but is not there anymore. I wish. I wish we had more time. And I could finally learn how to play chess. With him.