::: The Ocean Of Memories :::. Review on Gold Spot

This review will not be very useful to you, if you are looking for an information guide on Gold Spot. The maximum info I can give you on Gold Spot is that it is (or rather was) a fizzy orange coloured drink with no natural ingredients in it. It was a product of Coca Cola Company who made a comeback to India in 1993 after 16 years of absence.

A lot of my childhood memories are attached with this drink. It used to be my favourite drink and I used to have at least one bottle daily. It came in a bottle of 250 milliliters during those days. They stopped its production some years back due to reasons best known to them.

Although its substitutes like Mirinda and Fanta are available in the market, and maybe they taste as good as Gold Spot itself, but I don?t know why, that punch is missing which I used to get after having a Gold Spot. A chilled Gold Spot can energize you or get you out of your dull mood with its refreshingly sweet and effervescent flavour & taste.

Here are a few of my childhood memories attached with this soft drink ?

(1). Being the lone child I was very close to my elder cousin Poonam who lived in Ganganagar. She used to visit us in Jaipur during the summer & winter breaks. I eagerly waited for these holidays for the whole year. We used to have lots of fun watching movies, playing games, running around and not studying at all!

We used to trouble the elders to give us the money to buy Gold Spot and they too needed a relief for sometime from two hyperactive kids and thus obliged without many arguments. We used to buy it and admire the attractive looking pretty bottle. Especially its logo really attracted us. Gold Spot written with a combination of white, red and dark blue was quite a delightful sight.

And then after cheering the bottles we used to have the first sip of that ?orange coloured nectar?, which used to take us to an ecstatic ride. And soon before we realized, the last days of our holidays would arrive. It was time for Poonam to go back. I used to request her, suggest her and command her not to go, but inside I knew what I was asking for was quite an impossible thing!

Then she used to re-assure me like a protective elder sister that she would come back soon and also write me letters. I would still not smile, not talk and remain angry with her. She would ask, ?Won?t you accompany me to the railway station?? I?d say, ?No!? Then as always she had one trump card up her sleeve (which worked always).

She used to say, ?Bhai please, don?t you want to have the last Gold Spot with me at the railway station!? I used to smile, we used to share the last Gold Spot, and then we used to give each other hand made cards, she waved from the train window and I used to come back home thinking all the time about the next round of holidays!

(2). I was never the studious kind. Although I was good at studies and used to get good marks, but I always repelled them. Both my parents (being teachers) were very concerned about my academic record and were always after me to study, study & study!

This used to put me off even more and what I used to do whole day was play, play & play. Even the scoldings and the beatings proved futile. So in the end, they knew they were fighting a lost battle trying to make me study at home, thus they decided to send me for tuitions. After I returned from school at 2 PM, the Rikshawala used to come at the gate 4 PM sharp to take me to the tuition center.

What a torture! After spending the whole day in school (7 AM to 2 PM), you got to come home, finish off your grub hurriedly, change your clothes and again rush off to studies. Such a hectic schedule would be difficult to tolerate even for an adult, just think how a 7-year-old will deal with it!

I befriended the Rikshawala and on some days he would allow me to bunk classes. His name was Vimal. I used to call him ?Nirmal Bhaiya? and he used to call me ?Tanmay Bhaiya?, though I was a lot younger to him. Now I realize what a sweet gesture it was on his part, that he gave me a sense of respect and made me happy and proud! He was a very nice guy.

He bought me Gold Spot from the market and used to tell me about his childhood stories, village life etc. I used to listen with lots of interest sipping my chilled Gold Spot, while he used to have his glass of tea!

(3). The period we used to await the most in our school days was the games period. And as soon as the bell rang we used to shoot off from the class at the speed of a bullet.

Then after one hour of arduous football match, we were hardly in the condition to even walk back to the classrooms. Although our bodies were tired but our hearts were filled with a sense of satisfaction and smiles would be decorating our tiny tot faces. We headed straight to the school canteen and gulped down a bottle of Gold Spot in barely a minute.

That was the perfect tonic for us, which would re-kindle our batteries and help us deal with remaining torture (read classes).

I hope Gold Spot comes back in the market! I?d be the first one to buy it!

© Tanmay Singh, 2005