Small pleasures

Although I live close to a mall, my visits there are few and far between. But today I had to go there to pick up a gift for a baby’s naming ceremony. After much deliberation, I selected a moderately priced toy and was waiting for my turn at the check-out counter, when a smartly-dressed kid skipped gaily across me to where the toffees and chocolates were on display, and in one swift smooth action picked up and handed over one of the pricier selections to her mother, to be added to the shopping bag.

Seeing the nonchalance of the entire transaction, my mind travelled to several decades in the past to when I was a child in Bombay. Malls were unknown then, the only place that came close to being called one being Akbarrallys near Flora Fountain, which was way beyond the reach of a low-paid government servant that my father was.

As kids, we satisfied ourselves with the small pleasures like visits to the sea face, where we would brave the jagged-edged rocks to get to water’s edge
and sample its brackish taste.

Air conditioning was a rarity then and I still recall our tentatively pushing open the door of an “air-conditioned” Chandu Halwa outlet that had come up near our house and gingerly stepping in, pretending to be ‘customers’.

We had no money on us – kids didn’t get pocket money those days, at least not in our house – hence, after ogling at the mouth-watering sweets on display in glass cases, we would troop out, feeling satiated having experienced the cool air inside the shop.

Even when our parents took us on those rare outings such as to watch Ben Hur or Guns of Navarone, eating out or buying biscuits or chocolates from a shop were pleasures far beyond our reach. Imagine our joy, therefore, when, on returning home one evening, my father veered off the footpath with us in tow, into a shop which had a neon sign announcing itself as J B Mangharam and Sons.

Alas, our expectation that father was going to buy us a packet of those crisp and creamy wafer biscuits that this brand was famous for was short-lived. My father, who was in one of his lighter moods that day, asked the man at the counter whether he had inspected the neon sign in front of the shop lately.

Upon seeing the quizzical look on the man’s face, my father told him that part of the neon lighting was blinking and the shop now proudly announced itself as J B haram and Sons.

With that, he guffawed loudly and trooped out of the shop with us following reluctantly, as our longing for creamy wafer biscuits went unfulfilled.