For the smile of my loved ones...

October 25, 2015

For the smile of my loved ones...

One day something something exciting happened in our listless childhood lives. One of the gossip-monger aunties in our extended family, (who really should be studied in a laboratory for the way she derived meaning in monitoring what others were up to) dropped by for a cup of tea. Of course as was the routine, tea was not just tea when she came by. My mother felt the immense pressure to cook delicacies for her, should she go around talking badly of our hospitality and the way our household was run.

So anyhow. In the course of the heavy eating and gossiping, she disclosed that a certain uncle was visiting town on work and was most likely to drop by on all families one by one. That’s great news, my parents said.

Then they started preparing for the impending arrival. More delicacies were cooked. Drapes changed, expensive crockery cleaned up and us children asked to behave politely.

“Who is visiting?” I asked.

“Uncle.” Dad said.

“Which one?”

“You don’t know him.” Mom said.

“At least tell me the name.”

“Uncle Mota Lala.”

I stared. “Are you joking?”

“Why will we joke? Go now and don’t waste our time.”

I have forgotten some bits of what happened next because of the number of years that have passed but parents had later told me that I spent much of my time jumping excitedly around the house in anticipating of seeing somebody who was called ‘Mota Lala’. For those of you who don’t know what it means in Hindi, it means roughly ‘fat businessman’.

Much later when uncle ‘Mota Lala’ actually came, it was like the balloon of excitement was suddenly pricked and deflated. He turned out to be a lanky fellow with shifty eyes, nowhere close to a mighty bloated oily businessman that I expected him to be. I think I spent the rest of the day sleeping and woke up only next day when he had left.

A name says so much about a person. Don’t you agree? A name instantly makes a mental image of what to expect, whether be a person, place or thing.

And this is why I heard of something called ‘smiles’ the first time in my life, I was led to imagine a beautiful set of images of what it actually might look like in real, and for that matter how it may taste, making me happy and smiling. But because of the bizarre experiences I had had by then, I was so reluctant to believe those mental images and wanted to keep my expectations as low as possible.

Thankfully the real thing not only met my expectations but far exceeded them. A bunch of crispy yummy smiling faces made of soft mashed potatoes, that complemented my cup of tea brilliantly, at a friend’s place – that is my first memory of ‘McCain Smiles’, and that impression stays with me till date. I love them to bits and they are pretty much a part of all my parties and get-togethers. There is one coming up, and as expected I plan to make sure that I use it to make all my guests smile. These are ways in which I plan to do that:

Theme: the theme of the party will be ‘smile’. There will be photographs of all of us friends smiling during trips, parties, birthdays etc everywhere.

Music: There will be music themed on smiling, like Alison Krauss - The Smile On Your Face and Avril Lavigne – Smile.

Dress code: guests have to wear something that shows a smile, whether be a print on their Tshirt or the cut of their dress.
Games: Each game should make the guests smile – they would be so funny!

Food: The food would be centered on the beautiful emotion of smiles. Salads would be decorated in the shape of the smile, so will be the rice and chapatis. Since the curries cannot be modeled so, the serving spoons would be chiseled or bought to have ladles that show smiles. The desserts would be jalebis shaped as the smile, ordered exclusively from the best sweet shop near my house. And of course the star of the show will be nobody other than the McCain smiles. With their charming and alluring shapes, taste and texture, they will win the hearts of one and all, that too just in 3 minutes! (That's the time it takes for them to be ready, crispy, fluffy and eatable!)

And as they will establish me yet again as the best host of the friend group, most importantly they will put a smile on the face of all those I love and treasure :)

To share some wonderful qualities of McCain products, let me tell you that the ones without milk are trans fat & cholesterol free. Additionally, here are the other goodnesses...