E-Paper
Cold comfort
It was a ritual for friends to cycle along home, savouring the ice lolly, with the temperatures soaring high in the late afternoon, writes bKarunendra Mathur.
He was the first person kids noticed when they walked out of school. Perched on a make-shift ledge behind a blue striped rickety cart, this was the all-important ‘ice-cream man’. For the kids, ‘quality’ was a tasteful thing spelt with a K. As the bell rang to announce school’s out, a beeline would be made to the ice-cream man. Nearing the gate, the sight of the cart was the trigger for students to enthusiastically dig into their school uniform shorts or trousers and find, with some relief, a 25 paise coin.
With much fluorish, the coin would be slammed on the colourful cart. Ramesh, who was a friend to all of us, would toss the coin, most casually, into a small, dirty cotton bag that discreetly hung on his side of the cart and open the square cover to dig deep inside. The taller among us would peer in as icy vapour escaped the cart. In happier moods, Ramesh would allow us to delve inside to pick our choice of ice cream under his watchful eye. The cold vapour moving along the arm was quite enthralling.
The sight of the bar of orange ice stick emerging from the box caused instant and excessive salivation. We accepted the simplicity of the orange bar — the thin wooden stick with a blob of ice — but, today, marvel at the invention that has not been outlived by the fancier deck of sundaes and frozen cones on offer.
It was a ritual for friends to cycle along home, savouring the ice lolly, with the temperatures soaring high in the late afternoon.
That was 30 years ago. But my memories were relived when a few evenings ago our daughter spoke about ‘the cool ice-cream chap who stands at the school gate’. It’s a red cart, she says, with as much enthusiasm and delight that our ice-cream man generated in us. She informs me that the guards at her school are trying to shoo him away. The children may be enthused, but the school does not allow kids to enter campus with any ice cream.
So the drivers flock around the red cart and get the kids their ice cream of choice. Some pick up their ice creams and get into air-conditioned cars. Many don’t even tell their parents about it in the fear of being treated to a lecture on hygiene. That is something that hasn’t changed either. Even we never shared with our parents what we had eaten after, and outside, school.
There’s many a lament about the ways the world has changed, but nothing seems to have changed in the appeal that the ice-cream man has for a child. The joy of spotting the ice-cream man is paramount still.
