In the Ice Land…

Considering that I am an Aries, with fire as the ruling element, my affinity to ice and water is no wonder. Opposites attract after all. This could be one of the remotest reasons for my strange attraction to ice and water every time I see it. My intimate relation with ice began while I was as young as 5. Summers are the best time for me. All the kids have holiday then and I go on my month long vacation to Cacora (not any longer though). When there I anxiously wait for anyone in the house to come and take to my favorite place. All sorts of acting skills acquired over time come to play in this mission. Convincing someone or the other I finally board the two-wheeler in style and begin my journey to heaven on earth. Crossing the railway line watching at the heaps of iron ore at the station on my right, we take an immediate sharp left to enter a tunnel like space with a never ending 5 meters high wall on one side and the railway fence, double my height, on the other. I hear the sound of the falling waters. A tiny door on this wall opens onto a huge volume – my grandfather’s ice factory.Inside the factory its all cool… on my right is water waiting to get transformed into ice. On my left is the heap of ice slowly transforming back into water. In the center is the magic chamber, filled with salt waters and a maze of gas filled tubes, half submerged below ground where water is transformed into ice. The large volume is negotiated through a series of levels on the floor plane. While I love the levels my grandfather hates them for he has to climb them up and down hundreds of time in a day. This is the public area of the factory. “I” sell ice here. Crossing this space climbing up and down five steps are where the giants sit. These giant machines maintain the magic chamber. On the right in this space is the cooling tower which makes the falling waters sound. And in the center are three chairs and a small table. One of the chairs is for me. Here as a child I have learnt my first lessons of accounts, management and marketing. Dividing a single ice block into half, one forth, one eight, and one sixteenth, and the price in the same manner. Discounting for regular customers and overcharging the unique.

An overnight stay in this Iceland is an experience in itself. Early in the morning while the sun is half asleep the ice-cream man is in full action. 4 or 5 of them sit in front of the magic chamber and begin the final stage in the process of preparing the ice-cream which had begun the previous night. Having brushed my teeth I wait anxiously to have the first ice-cream of the day which obviously I get for free. Just outside the tiny door is the ice crusher which crushes the ice blocks bringing snowfall in summers in this tropical place. This activity is well synchronized with the arrival of the fishing trawlers kilometers away and takes place even before sunrise.

By 7 in the morning all the drama is over and I come back home for my coffee after the ice cream. The ice factory is now closed. My Grandfather had leased the factory and the lease is over. When I last saw it the roof was collapsing. A Mall or a theater in Curchorem might soon replace it who knows, to create a new drama and a new experience. But for me this will always be my ice land and that’s the reason Sonal why for me laying on the heap of ice after a jog placed outside the hostel compound is more exciting then any thing else.