September 27, 2005

what the world needs now..

is love, sweet love

'ang on a minute! sorry ducky, need to change the lyrics a bit.

what the world really needs now, is sweets, love sweets

and i'm not referring to ladoos. or even pedhas.
oh stop gasping, i'm not outlawing them.

i'm referring to childhood's sweeties, golis and toffees (taufeeq umar emerges uncertainly).

remember poppins? those multi coloured round sweets that emerged from the silver and striped cylinder, suggesting that horn, except that it seemed to always be full of poppins, rather than refilling fruit and flowers. so not all that much like the horn after all.

and boiled sweets! i always hated that name- boiled sweets evokes a hideous image of sweets clinging by their wrappers to the edge of a large cauldron, begging not to be boiled. the ones made by ravalgaon were my favourite. for me, ravalgaon was a real place. somewhere in UP. (i frequently used it while playing names-of-towns-antakshari)
happiness is the crinkly sound of opening a maroon ravalgaon boiled sweet. during a meeting.

lollipops, now they're a different kettle of sweets. never took to them too much, specially after seeing how i absent-mindedly chewed at the plastic straw.

cadburys chocolate eclairs- now there was a treat! before they changed the colour scheme and they were chocolate and orangely wrapped. but eclairs were a bit of a gamble- you could get those gnarled ones, rock hard and sticking-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth.

honourable mentions
bullseyes
jujubes for the discerning palates
rol-a-cola for the future pepke (crapsi?) drinkers.
and pan pasand (bleargh) for the lil pan-eater inside us all.
and white pepperminty sticks with a glowing red end for those puffer-to-bes.

i know some of you are baiting your breath in anticipation of mention of
fusen gum.

yes. well. ta, then.

6 comments:

D said...

i liked the orange candies from parry's. choked on a few too!

and then there was mr.pops from cadbury's. somehow the image of a chimp and me eating a chocolate lollipop seemed pretty cool!

there is a ravalgaon in maharashtra!

Anonymous said...

And there were those hard chocolate toffees from the nutrine kitchen. They don't make those kinds any more. They were really the favourite... mouth waters even now. Well, they truly did spread sweetness around the world :).

Nimbus said...

Jujubes. Thety continue to remain my favorite! And what about Kismi's? (No no, not that like that) And then there was Melody with that cute jingle that I continue to quote in different contexts.

I want an eclair now :(

Orcaella brevirostris said...

d:better than parry's were the remember the unbranded orange sweets you got from the school tuck shop. they were shaped like orange segments, with grooves and everything!

a: i remember having a nutrine coconuty type of toffee.

megha: kismi toffee had that alluring elaichi flavour.
just had an eclair. not boasting. it stuck to my teeth and the roof of my mouth.
so *you* were the one who used to sing the melody hai choclatey melody? it drove me crazy! to the edge of reason! and back.

Anonymous said...

I never liked eclairs too much. But boiled sweets and bulls-eyes I did! Especially the striped ones we got in our canteen, which left black marks on your tongue. I also liked lacto bonbons, gosh sounds like some baby food doesn't it? And don't forget rose mints.

Psmith said...

On every trek i went to as a kid, there was a set sequence of events that took place at some point of time.

1> some jolly uncle hands out those large elipsoid boiled sweets. orange were my favourite.

2> all us kids greedily pop ours into our mouths (reminds me of Rand's 'Anthem', you know, and then we roll our candy in our mouth and while we talk to our friends wile climbing the hill for our enjoyment yada yada......nevermind, random)

3> I choke on mine while laughing hard for nothing at all.

4> Some kind uncle passing by gives me a terrific thulp on my back to pop the candy out.

5> I thank him weakly and carry on laughing.