Daughters are strange bundles of comfort. Even as the sun was over the top, and the road thickened with the invisible humid weight of sweat and the very visible discontent amongst those crossing it, I sat inside my car, thinking of a time of a not very long ago summer. Packets of new buys yearned to get out of their costume and adorn their buyers. Yet such were days of sweltering heat when dolloping you up in my arms, I would come shopping. You gradually fell asleep peacefully, even amidst traffic and bargains, and woke up only when we were back in the car. You always loved a good bit of pampering, didn't you, relaxing on me as if I were the world's best pillow? Slowly as you grew up to be more demanding, the ride back home punctuated by our stops for dinner would be full of you pestering me for a story. I return to a certain one today for your pleasure only!
In a glass house called the Ice-cream Box, lived many friends, hardly cold with each other. They had funny names -- Butterscotch, Blackcurrant, Vanilla, Mango, Orange, Chocolate and others. They mainly belonged to two groups: What-Not and Many-More. Certain members of What-Not group were quite uppity, bitey and pricey, while most of Many-More were meek and many. Needless to say, they did not quite match to each others' taste. Bound by the coldness of their being they lived in a proximity of delightful tension between the sensational and the essential.
One day, Spoon and Stick came to visit them. They were surprised to see some of the Cherries in a fix as to whom they should deck up more, Mango or Chocolate? Cones also did not understand whose side to take when given a choice. So they decided to call it a day and resolve the matter in a friendly way. They stayed back in Ice-cream Box gulping in the colours and the flavours, the taste and the sight, trying to understand the joy of having and the joy of giving.
Spoon and Stick, with the help of Cone, started to teach us the value of sharing. One day Stick would butt in an Orange, while the other day it would encourage Chocolate to leave him and join Spoon. Cone too was quite handy in this respect adding to the delight of a scoop of sharing. Often we heard him say, "If you love a Kiss, you might get a Hug back!"
An amazing warmth prevailed in the Gangs of Ice thereafter. Candy and Cream, Fruits and Biscuits all became a rainbow of friends looking for the pot of gold together. And this togetherness, we called 'sharing', generally felt when the cold between things or people gives in to melting.
Want one? Which?
It is the peak of summer, and starry little ice-cubes in the freezer, or scoops of creamy colours bring in an outstanding sense of inner chill. New friends have traits of the old. They aren't cold, the exotic flavours of Nolen Gur and Sitaphal in a tiff with the resounding charm of the Tender Cocunut, while they make more sense when had with a loved one! You no longer run into my arms when you get off the school bus, but when you hear the scream of the ice-candy man, the same old faith of my little one runs back to me, your eyes wishing for me to let you have one. Want one?
You loved a Kiss enough to get back the Hug.
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