The Sweetness of a Fool

It all began with a video casually dropped into our school WhatsApp group by my dear friend Chandrashekar Mallya. A little girl, barely two years old, bowed in a proper namaskar to a swamiji. The adults around her burst out laughing, and I, curious about what provoked the mirth, asked for context. Before anyone could explain, my old classmate Pravin Joshi made a remark about how this was “the bar to which we have descended” and wandered off into an aside about the 5 Star bar being the only bar of our time.

Normally, such comments disappear into the WhatsApp void, but this one triggered a rush of nostalgia that surprised me. The mere mention of 5 Star transported me straight back to my childhood and youth, and I found myself smiling at the oddest of details. George Santayana once wrote, “The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.” In that moment, I laughed like a fool and then grew misty eyed, not for the chocolate, but for the memories it carried.

As a child, the sight of a Cadbury 5 Star was enough to make me giddy with joy. During my summer holidays in Mandya at my maternal grandparents’ house, my uncle (Prakash Maam, my godfather in spirit, who taught me more than any book ever could, and whom I still miss deeply six years after his passing )  would often bring me a 5 Star. I never bothered about what went inside it: nougat, caramel, or “what not,” as the advertisements trumpeted. All I knew was that it was happiness, neatly wrapped in golden foil.

Fast forward to the start of my working life. Thirty-one years ago, my salary was modest enough to make uncle Scrooge laugh, but I allowed myself one indulgence. Every Saturday evening (yes, Saturdays were working days back then, at the place where I used to earn my daily bread), I would stop at a bakery on my way home, buy a 5 Star, and eat it slowly for half an hour while watching the world go by. A chocolate bar may not sound like much, but when you are twenty-one and full of bravado, you need little else to feel that life is worth living. I sometimes think I owe that little bar of chocolate as much as I owe life  for teaching me resilience.

Today, three decades later, I still keep 5 Stars everywhere: in my car, in my office bag, and in the fridge at home. Not only because of nostalgia, but also because hypoglycaemia has a habit of visiting me without warning, and nothing restores balance faster than a quick bite. Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked, “There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” For me, that window of perfection extends to the 5 Star ,except mine has stretched across five decades and shows no signs of closing.

Some childhood favourites fade with time, but a few defy age, inflation, and dentists alike. The 5 Star has been that constant: my childhood joy, my youthful luxury, and now my middle-aged ally. As Oscar Wilde quipped, “I can resist everything except temptation.” And so it is with me: even today, the temptation of a 5 Star is one I never resist.

So thank you, Chandrashekar, for posting that video, and thank you, Pravin, for your comment that set this chain of thoughts in motion. You both reminded this self-confessed fool that sometimes it takes only a bar of chocolate to stitch together memory

and heart.

Or, to borrow from my mother tongue Konkani: Pisso Nhave , 5 Star ache pisshe mhaka sodchen Zaaina ( I am a fool, hence will never let go of my 5 Star.) 

#cadbury, #5star