It has been raining almost incessantly in Bangalore, creating a chill that is so different from the weather in most of the rest of the country. It usually does not pour but there is a slow, steady light-to-heavy patter. The city’s famed greenery is mostly gone but should you be lucky and be able to see a full stretch of green ahead, you will see the green enveloped in half mist, making it look a bit like the English countryside which keeps dripping through summer and beyond. Which is why the English might have decided to set up camp here.
The incongruity of a bit of English weather in India is heightened by the small empty kiosk dripping in the rain on the pavement before one of the more successful large stores in the well-off neighbourhood of Indiranagar. The kiosk owner has run away as much because he can’t stand and get drenched in the rain as also because in this half chill there is no customer for what he has to offer. But the somnolent kiosk manages to make a loud statement through the longish message painted on its facade, the main banner headline on the top proclaiming, “Tropical Sno, Hawaiian Shake Ice”. A cooling ice on a sunny Hawaiian beach is not out of place, but offering it in rain-drenched Bangalore only heightens the incongruity.
But what made me step out in the drizzle, with a ballpoint pen and paper in hand, is what else was written across the kiosk which, unknown to its enterprising owner, held an authentic mirror to the tastes and fads of today’s newly rich Indians. Not satisfied with simply advertising the exotic, the writing went on to proclaim, “Ice cream made form purified water.” How you can purity water without distilling it which will kill all taste is not clear, but the germ-dreading, bottled water-dependent upper-class Indian has to be reassured that what is on offer is safe to slurp.
After reassuring came the main punch and the selling line, “All flavors imported from the USA”, no less. That is the surest way to the heart and the wallet of today’s well-heeled Indians, the geography where you must be, or failing that, whence must come all that can catch your fancy. Time was when declaring something to be simply “imported” was enough. But today’s post-liberalisation consumer, attuned to global flavours, must have it straight and only from the US of A. Irrespective of how synthetic the flavour may taste or smell, it is the cultural flavour of the country of origin that is important.
The targeted customer who insists on the flavour from the US is nevertheless uniquely Indian, how much so is clear from the next line — it proclaims and reassures, “100 % vegetarian”. In the land of adulteration anything less than “100 %” of what is proclaimed is unacceptable and reminds me of the confusion long ago of the foreign visitor who could not make out what was meant by “pure butter” when all he had ever known was plain butter. The globetrotting unadulterated vegetarian takes pride in holding high his flag of vegetarianism even as he savours and goes for all that is imported and foreign.
In a flash it reminded me of the irritation that I lately felt while scouring shop shelves for mayonnaise that tasted right and was made in part from eggs, an essential ingredient. Everywhere you look, it is the “egg less” variety that confronts you. Such moments also bring to mind the acerbic, atheist science professor in college who declared one day with a glint in his eyes, “Do you realise that your suddh vegetarian milk is full of animal protein?”
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The well-off flavour-from-the-US-loving vegetarian is also naturally afflicted with the usual lifestyle diseases and has, therefore, to be reassured, which is done by the next declaration, “0 % fat”. It is another matter that there is no mention of the sugar in the flavoured ice, not all of which will get burnt and will find a resting place in the fat around the middle. Nevertheless, the stuff itself must be fat-free! I am sure not too far from now will appear an additional declaration proclaiming the stuff to be containing “0 % cholesterol”. That is where it must stop because after declaring that the flavours come straight from the US you cannot quite proclaim, as is often done, “no added flavours”.
Having gone thus far, the home-grown copy writer must have run out of ideas. He must have needed a couple of closing punch lines and so had to improvise. “The perfect Reason for every Season,” it said, leaving much doubt about what he wanted to convey. Maybe the flavoured ice was the perfect reason for self-indulgence in every season, or the perfect passion for every season. But whatever it was, there were no takers for this “Reason” when the wet and shining pavement had only the empty kiosk for company with even its keeper gone.
The copy writer, totally exhausted by now, but with a space equivalent to a line at the end, could only add with flourish a final repetitive exhortation, “Enjoy the treat from the USA.” The security guard at the store gate looked quizzically as I jotted down the lines while getting partly wet in the rain, having to take in the imported wet English summer along with the promise of imported American flavours, all put into an authentic Indian concoction.