The World of Coca-Cola

It is wonderful to get away from the monotony of life every now and then. If I had a choice I would do it every second month. But it's the getting back to the grind that gets the better of me. The chores that look at you banefully, and the realization that there is no getting away is a painful reality. My head is a knot of such thoughts today. And in between perfunctorily gliding over chores, I pull out a can of chilled coke to soothe my weary bones.

As I fling the can open with a twist of my fingers, along with the flow of the fizz, images of our recent trip to the 'World of Coca Cola' in Atlanta come gushing back. I hold the can up and scan the details on it like I was holding it for the first time. This visit to the beacon of world’s most popular beverage had me looking at it in new light. Coca-Cola has successfully become a part of our lives, there is no doubt about that. It lies alongside our Biriyanis, our pizzas, and our sandwiches like a matter of fact, selflessly going on doing its job – of satiating our thirst. But other drinks do that too, 'then why just Coca-Cola?', asks a girl in an advertisement flashing across the monitors to keep us occupied in the queues. To which a lanky young man responds as, 'I don't know, it's Coke. That's it. There’s nothing like it. There's no way I can describe it.' I concur. I don't know what it is about this drink that binds us across cultures and cuisines.

That's precisely the message that was splashed across the big screen on their state-of-the-art theatre. We were ushered to the theatre by a rather uninspired attendee who was supposed to have raised our curiosity about the brand with his fun questions. But what he did was the exact opposite - the hum of his words had the crowd pleading in whimper to let go. Once he did, we settled in the seats for a 6 minutes’ film which was going to set the mood for rest of the day. I must admit doubts around what could possibly be so interesting about a film on a soft drink had crossed my mind several times. To keep the toddler in agreeable temperament inside a packed theatre was another reason that wasn't letting me enjoy the anticipation.

Before it was too late, the big screen exploded into beautiful vignettes of some of life’s best moments. We found ourselves globe-trotting, sharing people’s magic moments around the world. One was on skydiving for the first time, another about breaking the news of a grandchild, grandma's surprise birthday party, crackers bursting in the faraway Diwali sky, colors of Holi rioting Indian streets, a man proposing in air inside a hot air balloon in Cappadocia, an US military man announcing his home-coming from warfront, and the list went on. A beautiful soundtrack in the background aptly reverberated the essence of these stories. The film successfully brought home the message that coke is happiness, coke is family and that, coke is universal. All this is great. But my heart had by now melted into a puddle of tears. And the lump in the throat had hardened. And I had lined my eyes with liner that day - making most of some extra time in hand. I found my eyes welling up to break into a river of tears to my horror. ‘Why are you doing this to me Coca-Cola?’, I wanted to ask. This 6-minute film left me gasping for air. It was unforgiving in the way it tossed up my heart and let it fall flat on the ground. It ended saying - 'Thank you for letting us be a part of your lives. Thank you for choosing Coca-Cola.' And that was it. Stupid unrelenting tears rolled down my cheeks and left me looking like a raccoon. 'Such an emotional idiot', I hissed at this poor show of self-control. Blowing my nose in full force and wiping my tears to save the last vestige of dignity, I awkwardly waded out of the theatre. But wait a minute, I noticed that it wasn't just me who had loved this movie as much hated it. I saw a glint of tear in almost every person in the room who were now pulling themselves together for the exit. Such is the power of films! And Coca-Cola has been making some of the bests.

The exit led us to a grand hall with serval features to get our eyes busy with. Right at this point the husband announced that he must respond to a particularly urgent call of nature and to my fear left me stranded with a pesky toddler to tend to. I heaved a helpless sigh and started scanning the place.  I saw some people queuing up to take pictures with a giant moving-walking polar bear.  I couldn't summon the courage to take upon this task of getting the kid to pose all by myself. So, I waited patiently, feeling the curious eyes of the security lady over my shoulder. Once the wait was over, we headed to the famous 'vault' - the keeper of the phenomenon called Coca-Cola. Once our identification was checked and we hoarded ourselves enough on the security screens, we were let in. The vault was displayed in all its glory - glowing under a purple light that gave it its much-deserved character of mystique and grandeur.

Next, we stopped at a hall that showcased Coca-Cola memorabilia and shared the legendary story of how this product has reached its current fame. The presentation was as impressive as the trivia. Then the most expected and obvious industrial side of the product was revealed to us. The journey of the beverage from its starting point to the final packaged product that we gulp down in minutes was a fascinating story. Then we entered another room which had inviting red foam benches and a big screen to which people were glued. This was a presentation on Coke advertisements over the years – emphasizing its presence and growth over decades. The one from the 1970s in hipster pants and oversized glares was a delight to watch. In another, people from all nations had gathered in a meadow in Italy to send across the message of being united over Coca-Cola. The toddler luckily got hooked to these too, letting us cool off our heels for a while.

Then we wandered into a room with various Coke merchandises that were to be used to strike a pose sitting on a red (again!) couch. I couldn’t have wasted time and was raring to go, but at this point I couldn't find my phone to take the much-desired picture. I looked some more and still there was no sign of it. The tingly feeling in my tummy had started building up when I ransacked my bag and finally declared it's lost. I broke the news to the husband and we ran in the speed of light hour looking for it. I had slipped it in the back pocket of the stroller after taking a video minutes back. But the fact that probably it slipped down to the floor instead of the pocket sent a twitch to my stomach. In my defense, right when this had happened, the toddler had thrown a fit, and I was dealing with a mini meltdown moment. But now this realization wasn’t doing any help. I was left with only one option – of fervently calling the Gods. 'God, please don't let this day end this way. I want to have good memories of this place. For the sake of Coca-Cola God, have mercy!' It was as though the Coca-Cola line had worked! We called on my phone and it rang to our relief. A raspy voice answered it and from a distance a man waved at us. Thank the heavens. Thank the lord. Bless this man who had found it lying on the floor and was looking for the security to hand it over to. We caught him at the right moment saving a lot of unnecessary trouble and thanked him profusely. I grabbed the phone and sunk it deep inside the folds of my bag and promised to not use it for the rest of the tour, only to go back on my words in minutes!

We arrived at the last leg of the tour where they handed us disposable glasses to taste the beverage from every single country they are available in. “Japan is kind of nice, I think Australia is better, O God, Germany tastes horrid!” These are the kind of things one can expect to hear in this area, giving the visitors an air of self-importance. After having tasted enough Coca-Cola for the day, and posing for one last time with the redness of the background that stretched on, we made our way out of the building. The toddler by now was done grimacing over things. We had managed her unpredictable temperament in this trip by stuffing her face with chips – a tried and tested method that has been saving us many embarrassing scenarios lately. At the end, despite starting the day late, and with a fluid itinerary, I think we came back quite satisfied. My face by now had no trace of the vanity I had attempted with my eye liner at the start of the day. But my heart was full. And that’s all that mattered. The day was decidedly becoming warmer with every passing hour. A shower after reaching the hotel had refreshed us for the next round of things to do. But not until now. Not until we opened the can of happiness. Not until, we opened our bottle of Coca-Cola.

The Meeting in Landour

The enchanting quietude of night

entices my tired soul

to spread its weary wings

and soar

This nightly symphony

has never felt so precious before.

Night brings with it a harmony that the day escapes. When day culminates into night, and as long as night withholds daybreak, it casts its quiet spell on nocturnals like me. I have always been a night person. Before I became a mother, I did it out of choice, now it’s dictated by circumstance. Keeping company with the owls and the bats of the world, binging on my favorite episodes from my favorite series, like the world could break apart if that not done, makes for good memories now. Days of happy abandon, blissfully unaware, incapable almost, of taking care of any need other than my own. The exact contrast to what being a parent, a mother entails. Life sure changes with a baby, enough has been said on that topic for any need to harp on the same. I was only just going to point at the fact that these little windows that I have to tend to my own needs now feel like life-defining moments. Hence, they need to be treated with the respect it deserves I thought. Making this solemn promise to myself, I decided some months back, that, instead of mindlessly swiping my fingers across people’s social media profiles, or clicking on inane YouTube videos, I’d pick up a book, and actually see it through its last page, no matter how tired I may be.

On that note I inched towards my book shelf on this particularly lonesome night. Mind you the shelf doesn’t come within the active territories of our home lately. Books in it are kept at a safe enough height to save their pages from being tousled and whipped and eventually turned into shreds of printed paper to my horror, by no other than our very own version of ‘Bossbaby’. Two chairs stand guarding the base of the shelf just in case.

Anyhow, despite all odds, out of nowhere, a green colored unassuming book peeked at me from in between a Lawrence and a Woolf that night. Two stalwarts of my shelf that significantly intensified the insignificance of the green book. The illustration on the pale green cover, had a simple, straight forward interpretation of a young boy and a girl sitting under a tree (the facilitator, nurturer, overseer of most Indian tales). Besides, it carried all the elements to suggest tales brewed in the Indian soil. ‘Thick as Thieves – Tales of Friendship’ the title read. Ruskin Bond! Has to be him, I gasped. The most non-Indian name for the most Indian tales! Perfect! Just the kind of reading I was looking for, something warm and fuzzy and all kind of nice to send me to sleep peacefully. In the next couple of hours, fighting numerous yawns and watery eyes, I went through each story in the book. I savored the innocent tales of friendship holding thoughts so profound, dearly. And while at it, a story was playing in the back of my mind too, like a relentless soundtrack, which I couldn’t brush aside for too long. I am going to call it ‘The meeting in Landour’.

I was in college, in my second year of graduation. When one fine day our professors left us breathless with the news of a college excursion to 'Mussoorie'. It might sound like I am exaggerating about the bit on how psyched we were. I mean it sounds like just a hike to the backyard of Delhi so to speak. But imagine a gaggle of boys and girls, barely out of their school uniforms, experiencing life like never before, living in hostels for the first time, away from their parents’ watchful eyes, leaping and fainting at the thought of being taken to a corner of India most of us had never been to!

The itinerary of the trip was already in place, hence it was no surprise that we were going to meet Ruskin Bond – a name hard to miss, particularly with his popularity with young readers. Some of us had read couple of his stories as part of our syllabus at some point, more prolific readers were well acquainted with his style and themes and were capable of holding a decent conversation if the situation demanded it. And then there were a special kind who dived into his pool of writing from the word ‘go’. Seeing this overzealous kind I started bothering about what terrible company they would make in the trip, so, therefore, I decided to maintain safe distance from them. Needless to say, I belonged to the first category – the kind who read him out of design, not out of choice, and didn’t seem to remember any of it anymore.

The day of our ‘meeting’ finally arrived. We were going to meet him at his residence, unlike how he meets other visitors in his favorite bookshops in Mussoorie. His humble abode was tucked away on a hilltop, in Landour. Just the kind you would imagine a writer of his kind would be living in, untouched and unaffected by the world. We put our best foot forward to not look like just a bunch of happy hikers who happened to walk into his territory, and dropped by to say hello, which seemed fairly commonplace in the hills. The uphill walk was truly an uphill task. The scenic landscape of Landour for a backdrop however kept our spirits high and kept us going. Every now and then a pretty sight would distract us, and without realizing we would have spent good few minutes just admiring the hills. Occasional photographs would be dutifully taken. Thank God, no selfies, groupies, sticks with phones dangling from them, had dominated our lives then. Hence we could enjoy the morning mist setting on our faces and cold wind lashing against our cheeks the way it was supposed to be enjoyed. More importantly, it helped us make it on time for the meeting. When we reached at the top of the hill, a blanket of thick mist welcomed us. It seemed to have found more grace and elegance now with the elevation. I couldn’t help but envy the view that this man, I would presume, wakes up to every single day of his life. The heartwarming, innocent tales of the hills he pens, must be coming to life sitting here, at this very spot, I thought to myself.

He graciously gave us a tour of the house, which had beautifully retained the inimitable style of the houses in the hills. We were told he lived with his adopted family there. Since we outnumbered the number of chairs available inside, we decided on enjoying a conversation with the man on his front yard - two long planks of wooden bench made for generous seating to accommodate us and an unfinished wooden table to rest our arms on. The morning chill was favorably making way for a warmer day, making it pleasant to sit outside and soak up the sun. The long tiring walk and the warm sun was making me wonderfully sleepy. Then suddenly I caught a glimpse of one of us raging his pen against a piece of paper, trying not to miss any bit of the Q&A that we were told about. Our professors went first, their latest Ruskin Bond book clasped to their chests, meant to be slipped in with the request for an autograph at an appropriate moment later. I realized our profs merely asked these questions to get us initiated into the process, because, naturally, we were hesitant, nudging the one sitting next to us, to go first. But cuddly, warm and affectionate man of the hour, was patient, not for once he looked straight into our eyes to make us uncomfortable with his grand presence. O did I forget to mention that I was sitting right next to him? I don’t know how that happened, but it did! And there I was, tongue-tied, frozen, nervous to the core, evading any eye contact with him or our professors, lest they asked me to speak. What would I ask? I will sound so silly! Why didn’t I do my homework? Wish I had come better prepared. All these thoughts that run across your mind when you know that it is actually quite pointless now, played on like a broken record in my head.

Trails of questions and answers kept floating around the table slowly and gently, that eased some of us greatly. The pressure was off, but only temporarily. Meanwhile I was wrecking my head to come up with something, that was least stupid out of all the things I had considered. But the day was now fading away faster than it had in the morning, and the sun was playing peek-a-boo across the pine trees that glistened under its effect. Mr. Bond reluctantly announced that another group is waiting to see him. He is a busy man. I figured it was time for us to bid adieu. This meeting with Ruskin Bond, who gave us some of the best stories of our childhood, was coming to an end, and I did not manage to come up with a single question! What a shame! With a customary good bye and good luck, he left us to enjoy the view for as long as we wanted. We broke in many directions into a noisy bunch of young adults, visibly excited at this experience, some gushing over his unbelievable memory, some on his cuteness, some sharing their views on his narrative style, each one trying to outdo the other, now that the real deal is over.

And I, lost in the moment, oblivious to my surroundings, went on wondering - what could have happened had I taken a shot at a fleeting question? Would have I felt slightly less dejected? Or who knows, may be my question would have impressed him greatly, and he would have made remarks such as ‘interesting question’, or used some such phrase creative people use to buy time to respond. Or probably I would have sounded stupid anyway. But would that have been so bad? I could never tell! I lost that chance!

Now as I lay pondering over his soulful stories at this wee hour of the night, I reminisce that meeting in Landour, that day, which was full of possibilities, but only if I had taken the plunge!