Ice Ice Baby

As a kid, I was always impressed with the big city of Madras.  The buildings were bigger. People seemed to know more things.  And there was a lot happening all the time.

My father, who has always had a special place in his heart for Madras after the tragic and sudden death of his father during a visit way to the city back in 1930, was a lot more energized than his usual high-octane self when he took us around.  I could never understand then how a man with the utmost devotion to the sleepy village of Pattamadai could be so much in love with a big city. 

As I recall, every visit we ended up going to the same neighborhoods in Madras--Mahalingapuram, Royapettah, Mylapore, T-Nagar, and Triplicane.  I think it was near Triplicane that there was an "ice house." 

When I first heard "ice house," the nerd in me expected to see a structure that was like an igloo that I had read about.  Stupid me!  It was a carry over from the old days when ice was stored there during the bastard raj.

Ice in the near-equatorial conditions was a rare item back then.  I grew up without a refrigerator at home, and with no culture of drinking and eating anything that had been super-chilled.  On hot summer days, we drank hot coffee or tea, and continued on with our lives.

And then I arrived in the land of ice cream! 

I was stumped the first time I saw bags of ice cubes in the supermarket, and people hauling them to their cars.  It continues to amuse me even after all these years when I see people walking out of stores with wafer cones that overflow with multiple scoops of ice cream-- on a cold winter evening! Americans who have to have ice in their already chilled sodas!  

Observing a new culture is absolutely fascinating, and offers valuable lessons on the human condition.  This is also why I love traveling to places where I am an alien who cannot even understand the local language.  Some day soon, after Covid eases, I hope to resume such travels.    

After more than three decades here, I rarely use the ice dispenser that my refrigerator has.  I cannot even recall the last time that I had ice cream in a cone, and never an overflowing one.  The tropical boy continues to live within this balding middle-aged man.  

(Why all these about ice?  Because I read this.)