Place_ _ _ Kolkata

Time _ _ _ 7.30 in the evening

Occasion _ _ _ Durga Puja

Year_ _ _ 1984

Incumbents_ _ _ A nikker clad boy and a girl in

Destination _ _ _ The road side vendor with a theli (hand pulled four-wheel rickshaw trolley)

Target _ _ _ colored fizz bottles assembled in front of a lurking green colored tube light

Mission _ _ _ to get one’s hands on one of the colored bottles and enjoy with much fancy and frolic

Not letting this scene vanish in thin air, I still embrace this beautiful part of my life somewhere down the memory lanes!! The nikker clad boy is of course me with my sister behind my father. And being festivities around we are privileged to indulge in some pleasantries and this evening me and my sister have coaxed dear father to buy us our favorite drink Gold Spot!! The zing thing!! That was then! And till then no other orange drink no Mirinda, no Orange Juices has given me the pleasure of enjoying the fizzy taste of orange concentrated with carbon as Gold Spot!!

Such lively was this product it’s hard to forget the red polka dots even today painted on the walls of a cafeteria and the extra energetic TV commercial with the peppy song Gold Spot- Taste the zing thing!! And these days such is the intensity of cola manufacturers making new ad films that we tend to forget the previous ones!! The Gold Spot fizzy commercial still engraved in my mind.

Since the days my mom trusted me with money to buy some household items I remember the red polka dots always seduced me to do some “herapheri” in the “hisaab kitaab” to adjust the price of my Gold Spot!! No wonder as a business man today I use the same expertise of efficient “herapheri” in company’s “hisaab kitaab” this time to adjust some expenses those are “Gold” but not to be “Spotted”, with the help of history-sheeters, known as accountants!!

Those days, in cinema halls the wait for interval so that lights get on and I find my way to exit would always end with the metal bottle opener striking against crate of glass bottles- trrrinn trrinnn, it was time to go to the toilet but not before coaxing my mom to buy me, my Gold Spot!! The extra “tez” samosas were easy to gulp just for the help of a Gold Spot!! And so was the case with the local madrasi hotel who himself did forget the art of making tasty dosa for prolonged stay in Kolkata and he used to fill the short fall with extra dose of chilly powder so his dosa better to be called “mirch masala wrapped in parso ka ghol”- my Gold Spot complemented for his inability every time!!

And then when I became teenaged there was an invasion of foreign cola army- the Coke, the Pepsi, the 7 Up, and more to whom our indigenous colas could not stand a chance!! Some brands were sold and other just faded out in the heat of the competition- poor, they could not bring dollars to feed their ammo- advertising budget, logistic support and the dare to continue!!

The corner of our school canteen where the Gold Spot polka dots were shining bright started fading too!! The canteen owner refused our plea to give us a Gold Spot!! His replies would be – “pichhe se maal nahi aa raha” and one fine day when we reached the school we saw the fizzy polka dots have been buried under a bright new paint screaming Pepsi!! No body did ever cry, no one ever read a condolence, no one complained just for few like me who loved those red polka dots very much!!  

But today at lunch time when we were discussing every one’s favorite soft drink Gold Spot was voted in majority and that being the best tribute for red fizzy polka dots I loved on walls and hoardings.