Mittais of Girlfriend past

My go-to candies before I changed schools were Poppins, I used to flick 5 rupee coins so that I could buy two packets of Poppins and one Toffichoo. Ammammayaam (Ammammai’s house) was near my school, and during exams I used to go there after exams or stay there till my exam started. And, Thatha would give me 5rs, or sometimes 10, to get one Poppins for him and one for myself. On such occasions, I used to flick a rupee more and get three Poppins, double or nothing. During Onam exams of class 4, I had conjunctivitis and I had to sit alone inside the computer lab for attending the exams. I could keep my exam bag- which was a good quality plastic cover from Jayalakshmi, consisting of my writing board and pencil box and water bottle, and sometimes, textbooks. I could have simply opened my textbooks and cheated nicely, but I chose to sneak in a packet of Poppins and eat it during the exam. I remember when my classmate- who also got conjunctivitis- asked me something and I didn’t quite hear him properly and thought he was asking for a candy and offered him one. I ‘cleared his doubt’ though, when I realized my mistake.

 

Cherry stored inside glass jars with sugar syrup; oh not cherries, they’re karondas- I learnt today. Amma always told me not to buy or eat them, even though she also liked it, because they were super sugary and unhealthy, I suppose. So, eating them was like smoking cigarettes, risky and unhealthy. And I bought some whenever I could and never told her. But now she asks me to buy two packets of cher- karondas, whenever I buy it.

I don’t remember any mittai addictions I had between class 5 and 11.

Even though I went to a school with enough stores around, I couldn’t explore those stores until I stopped using school bus, and that only happened after class 10. And there were two stores I always went to- Meenamma Stores on the way to the bus stop, from where I bought some millions of rupees worth of England chocolate and sip-ups, and Lalitha- my samosa and fruit cake place. I used to buy so many samosas that the uncle sometimes used to give me an extra one or a discount and all. Sometimes, I used to get samosas to eat and as “takeaways”. Rainy evenings were the best, hanging around with friends and getting glares from the teachers who were going back home. Some teachers insisted on taking me “with” them, especially when they found me with a bunch of male friends; no, creepy strangers didn’t usually warrant this, only my “boyfriends”.

People who look down upon sip-up have no idea what they are missing. And I don’t trust people who don’t like Choki-Choki- *side-eye*. Its 2 rupees- its chocolate cream sip-up- what more do you want in life? Random tip- use a ruler to like swipe the entire packet- strong nails also works- so that no ‘chok’ will be wasted.

I’ve always thought- not always, whenever I was broke as fuck- that, if I had saved up all the money that I had spent on mittais, I would have bought a cruise ship. But then, I wouldn’t have made these many, literally, sweet memories, would I?