Of Boy, of sweets, and of ice candies

[anupma]

In his extremely engaging autobiography of early days, Roald Dahl describes the sweets shop that he passed on his way to the school. He describes each type of sweet or candy in great detail and does so in such tremendous style that I, who lost her sweet tooth in her mother's womb, have been dreaming of licorice bootlaces and sherbet suckers since yesterday. Boy, Dahl can make a child, or an adult for that matter, dream of candy shops and chocolate factories. So to forget my craving for the candy, I decided to make a post about the book, however, now I am distracted and do not feel like writing about the book anymore. You MUST read the book, "Boy," if you have not already and that is all I am going to say. Because talking about candy has made me think of my favorite kind - the ice candy. Orange flavored. As a little girl, I used to draw pictures of ice candy and color them orange, yellow, and green to make them look like orange, mango, and lime flavored candies. I kept those drawings in my fairy tale books and still have them. When I was in class VI, my uncle used to pick me up from the school busstop every afternoon and we had a routine. We had to eat a cola candy before coming back home. Granny did not like this daily routine but my uncle and I never relented. We would buy those ice candies at 3 in the afternoon, stand in the heat and enjoy them before driving back home. Every single day. I loved the taste, I loved the way it melted and colored drops dripped all over the front of my school unifrom, I loved the way it would leave my lips cold and colored. Okay, maybe I was a messy kid. Somewhere in the flurry of teenage, I outgrew ice lollies. Whenever I would mention an orange bar, friends would suggest a latest flavor of Baskin Robins, and I would end up picking the one with the fanciest name. But life comes to a full cirlce, they say. Recently, I rediscovered my love for the orange flavored iced lolly. My friends and colleagues may go up and around hunting for dark belgium chocolate or mint chocolate chip, I find a five rupee ice lolly somewhere or the other.





I was 4 when I drew these.