Sipping into Moments

I still remember when as a kid I used to travel to my paternal grandparents house every year during the Summer. Me and my parents used to go together; we booked tickets in the same air-conditioned chair car train and in that train we made our last journey there as well, for the funeral of my paternal grandmother.



The journey normally took around five hours and the train left the starting station at 6 am in the morning. While many enjoyed the train for its better condition and facilities than most normal passenger trains, for me the train was good because of the meals they served. There is a certain charm of having a meal in a chair-car train that I have not gotten over, and it’s all better with the view of a beautiful sunlit landscape outside.



In beverages one got the usual tea/coffee option, as a kid I had neither and as an adult I liked neither (due to brand preferences). With the meals they give a Tetra Pak of mixed fruit juice nowadays; but when I was a kid, they used to give a Tetra Pak of a mango flavoured drink and it was delicious. My parents would give me the ones they got as well and this was the only place I enjoyed having it, again, the charm of a train ride.



I don’t enjoy having it any more, nowadays a good highball glass filled with cold coffee is what I call my favourite drink, however nothing satisfies the mind quite as much as a litre of water which I can actually finish in one go if I am really thirsty.



So, why don’t I like the mango flavoured drink anymore? Is it not available in the market? It is available in the market, in bottles of different sizes with the biggest one containing almost 2 litres of the drink. I don’t know if what I feel is right but I think I feel a change in taste of a lot of food items and beverages which I have been having since childhood. I was told maybe it was because of the change in my taste buds.



But I clearly don’t like the taste of that mango flavoured drink anymore, but yet it remains the best one I have had till today because I enjoyed it like I have not enjoyed any other drink. I can only wish and imagine that one day once again I can find the same feeling, which I felt when during the summer holidays I would travel by train to my paternal grandparents’ house, enjoying a delicious mango drink and looking at the fields and trees as they passed by.   

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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