Earlier today I read my friend Kalyan’s blog post about his ice cream memories and when I got to the end, I felt really sad because he asks, “So, what’s your ice cream story?” Well, my ice cream story came to an abrupt and despondent end around a year back when I cut out sugar from my life. I don’t even remember when I last ate it and thus have no lingering goodbye kiss to hold on to. But then I started thinking about all the years before and how after chocolate, ice cream used to be a favourite pick-me-up. So I thought, why not write about it, after all I’m always writing about past loves and this is as good as any, if not better.

Now I would love to begin by describing my first taste with ice cream but unfortunately, I have no memory of it. But my earliest memories of eating ice cream are linked to my father and me going to a homeopathic doctor in Five Gardens, Wadala, because of my constant coughs and colds as a child. The wait at the clinic would be agonizingly long and I always threw a tantrum there, giving my Dad a really tough time. So immediately after, Daddy would take me straight to one of the kulfi wallahs at Five Gardens and buy me one of those sweet kulfis on a stick. It was our little secret because after all, I was being treated for coughs and colds and ice cream was the last thing I should have been eating! Sometimes, we would go to a shop nearby and relish a Chocobar or a cone. I also remember Daddy taking me to the cinema and we often watched two or three movies back-to-back. It was such fun running out of Sterling into New Empire or New Excelsior, or even rushing in a taxi to Metro, Eros or Regal for the next show. And I would always eat a Chocobar and sometimes an orange stick. At Regal though, it was always a vanilla softie coated with chocolate. On Sundays, Daddy and I would walk back from church and stop at one of the shops along the way, and later at the Dollops Lopstop, for ice cream cones. I always had the black currant flavour.

During my time at boarding school in Panchgani, ice cream meant only one thing – Hill-top Ice cream, which nostalgia insists was the best I’ve ever eaten. We would get vanilla, pistachio and chocolate scoops in a cone at Rs 2 each, and strawberry at a ‘pricey’ Rs 4. I remember hanging out at Cliffdel with my friends, all of us literally counting our pennies and waiting for the Hill-top guys on their cycles on their way up to Table Land. We would surreptitiously buy our ice cream cones (we were not allowed to have money on us and definitely not allowed to buy ice cream across our boundary walls!) and then gobble them up in hiding in fear of being caught by the nuns. I remember the ice cream melting and trickling down our hands, getting on to our cardigans and uniforms, as we hurriedly finished them. But being at school also meant another kind of ice cream and that was the one that the cooks in our kitchen would churn on “dry supper” evenings. We would line up in front of the big kitchen window and wait to be handed our dry cutlets in even drier buns or hot dog rolls. Once done, we would line up again for ice cream, which inevitably was still being churned and churned and churned. The cooks would be hassled with all of us girls cackling away at them to hurry up! They often gave up midway in fear of being lynch mobbed by us and started scooping out the barely set ice cream. And there we would be licking the runny ice cream off the cones and our hands. I don’t recall the ice cream being any good but the memories are definitely sweet.

Then I remember having my first taste of Natural ice cream and I think it was the watermelon flavour. It hit the sweet spot and how! Over the years, I sampled nearly all their delicious offerings with my favourites being the papaya-pineapple, chikoo, tender coconut, anjeer, and choco-bite. I would also look forward to the summer specials such as jamun and even jackfruit. Baskin Robbins and its famous 32 flavours (probably more now) made its way to my palate much after everyone else as for some reason, I steered clear of it for years (I think it had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t see beyond Natural for a long, long time!). I can’t claim to have tasted all the flavours at B&R but my favourite was definitely the Belgian dark chocolate and I still dream of it fondly. I also remember when gelatos first came to the country and I was drawn to the musk melon flavour in particular, and the chocolate ones were also really good. A few years back I made my own gelato at home with fresh mango pulp and yoghurt and it was definitely one of the happiest days of my life.

I guess I could have ice cream that’s sugar free and dairy free but then I’m not too keen on anything ersatz. Give me the real thing any day, preferably on cheat days, even if once in a blue moon. There’s something about ice cream and the way its cold sweetness coats your insides like a fuzzy dream, one that makes you giddy with delight. It’s nice to have the memories at least, if nothing else. Oh, and I also miss waffle cones…. Sigh!