The other day, after a hearty meal, me and my friends decided to have a Fruit Chill. A Fruit Chill is an ice candy that comes in a rectangular long packet instead of in a stick. When I was younger, I remember how we would get to buy Fruit Chills outside the school and I remember calling it by the name of Chillicks! This one time when I was in the 10th grade I took two of each flavor back home so that my parents could try out this amazing thing that was being sold only for Rs.10 outside school. They too were curious, but once they tasted it, it took them back to their school days.
My parents too recalled buying these “Chillicks” as I liked to call them, outside their school for only Rs.1 and they called it Pepsi in their day. I then realized that this ice candy lingering inside a plastic packet was providing a sense of nostalgia to generations of people. It was not only me but also my parents! Generation gap? I think not!
I was unaware that these Chillicks, now called Fruit Chills, were being sold outside my college and the other day when I was walking back with my friends after that lip-smacking meal, we all decided that it would make the perfect dessert. So, feeling like children and containing that excitement while purchasing those rectangular packets of joy, we bought a mango, strawberry, and nimboo (lime) flavor each of the Fruit Chills! While walking back, I felt, and I believe so did my friends, that we had gone back to that time when we were school-going children who waited for the hot day to end only so that we could jump on that skinny man who was constantly confused on which child to cater to first, in the rush!
I must mention, that there is also a skill required to have one of these Fruit Chills. This is in order to avoid hurting your mouth with the edges of the plastic. It must slowly be pushed above and a little bit out of the packet so that you can lick it or as I most often do, bite it. I know, Brainfreeze!
While chatting with one of my friends about how I felt nostalgic while eating those Fruit Chills, she said that she too shared the same emotions and that she too would take them back home. Even though they melted on the way back home and made our school bags wet, it did not matter to us.
I guess one could call it the frenzy or sugar high that we had, but a little less than a decade later, and for my parents, decades later, it still provides the same joy and happiness that it gave us when we were younger.
Contributed By : Amit Singh
