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V Gangadhar

Ice Cream Express

As a child, I found it hard to believe that Russians were the largest consumers of ice cream. Vodka was different, but ice cream in sub zero temperatures? But, during a visit to New Delhi in the bitterly cold December days, I found large crowds outside the Nirula ice cream parlour, gulping down enormous quantities of different flavoured ice creams. The biting cold did not deter them. And I realised that cold weather had nothing to do with a fondness for ice cream.

Today, because of my diabetic condition, I am restricted to an occasional spoonful of the stuff. I am also put off by the exorbitant prices charged for the product. Some five years ago, a foreign brand of ice cream was made available in Bombay. Huge advertisements welcomed its arrival in the city; we were told that it offered more than 40 flavours. But one small scoop of the American ice cream cost Rs 30 and no normal human being would be satisfied with less than three scoops.

I still think spending Rs 100 per person for just one visit to an ice cream parlour is too much. But the shops that sold this new brand were always crowded. Perhaps, it was an indication that our economy was doing well!

Ice cream took a while to enter my life. During my early childhood, I was more accustomed to traditional, homemade Indian sweets like jhangiris, Mysorepaks, laddoos, neiappams and puran polis. On the rare occasion when I was taken to a restaurant, I preferred different types of halwas -- particularly badam and wheat halwa.

I first tasted ice cream somewhere in 1947-48 at the Tambaram railway station (a suburb of Madras). Since Tambaram was a terminus, I often went there to watch the electric trains. During one of those visits, I saw a new refreshment stall on the platform; it was brighter and cleaner than the rest and had the sign -- Ice Cream Parlour.

Since I seldom handled money, it was difficult to raise two annas -- the price, then, for a cup of ice cream. Then, one day, some relatives who had come from Bombay gave me an eight anna coin as a parting gift. It was a fortune which, normally, I would have handed over to my mother. But, this time, the Ice Cream Parlour was very much on my mind. I pocketed the gift. The next morning, I was at the Tambaram railway station to sample my first helping of that strange product -- ice cream.

The parlour offered only one flavour, chocolate. I was not very fond of chocolate but, as ice cream, it was different. Tambaram, like the rest of Tamil Nadu, was always hot and the sensation of cool ice cream sliding down my throat was pleasurable. It was more satisfying than drinking lukewarm soft drinks like Vimto.

I told my school friend about the ice cream. "Do they know about it?" he asked, referring to my parents. "You know, there is egg in ice cream." My stomach churned. How could a typical, traditional south Indian Brahmin boy consume something which had the forbidden egg? I felt like young Gandhiji after he had consumed a meal which included a mutton dish.

But the desire for ice cream proved to be irresistible. Whenever, I had some money, I rushed off to the Tambaram railway station to have my fill. Occasionally, the egg factor disturbed me. But once, when my father took me to a top class restaurant in Madras, I asked him if I could have ice cream. "Go ahead," he said. "I will also have a cup." Astonished, I asked him if he knew that ice cream contained egg. "Oh, in very small quantities," he smiled. "Just to hold the stuff together." From that moment, I no longer felt guilty.

But my passion for ice cream was satiated only in Ahmedabad. The city produced excellent milk and its residents loved sweets. Two of the city's leading restaurants, Havmor and Vadilal Soda Fountain competed with each other to produce some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted.

Outside Law College Garden, in the Ellis Bridge area, dozens of lariwalas sold homemade ice cream. The Gujaratis preferred kaaju draksh, which was full of cashew, badam and raisins, but my favourites were coconut and orange. During the mango season, many households made their own ice cream using the apus variety of mangoes from Valsad. The ingredients were so fresh and wholesome that they lent a special flavour to the ice cream.

Ahmedabadites served ice cream at every wedding party or family function. The more ice cream one ate, the more one wanted it. When Vadilal Soda Fountain organised the first ever ice cream eating contest, I coaxed the chief reporter at The Times of India to let me cover it. The participants, after paying a token fee, had to consume as much ice cream as they could in the next 45 minutes. Some of them threw up in the middle of the contest, but that only provided adding human interest details for my copy. The press, of course, could hog as much ice cream as it wanted.

Today, as my daughters and wife make all sorts of concoctions (vanilla ice cream and Thums Up, for one), I can only watch and take an occasional sip. Even for two or three people, the bill is more than Rs 100. When I told my daughter that I used to spend two annas for a cup of ice cream, she would not believe me. "Fairy tales are more credible!" she exclaimed.