Who Took My Dessert Bowl? A Tribute to Sweets

There were sweets in my fridge, in little containers outside the fridge, there were sweets cooking on the hob and baking in the oven and there were sweets on my plate and in my mind. I am probably a honey bee, all laced up in sweet honey. Yet slowly and steadily the sweets disappeared, from my fridge and small containers first, from my oven and my hob next and then slowly they dissipated from my plate and now there are sweets only in my mind, somewhere in the deeper recesses, they are there for real. Who took my dessert bowl? 

Such sinful flavour begotten by the devil perhaps, because it is to be avoided and shrunk from at all cost. Just a month ago a doctor literally pounced at me, just because I said I like to have a teaspoon of sugar in my tea every-day! All hell broke loose. I seemed to have embarked her upon an anti-sugar campaign. She looked at me from above her spectacles with rabid eyes, a sugar apostate yet overweight too. She spoke in the choicest of defamatory themes, about the poor helpless crystals. Shiny diamond like crystals, that were now occupying my whole being, every bit of me, demanding of me to react, rebuke, to at-least speak up, for poor helpless them. Sugar is like caffeine she said, stop all forms of sugar... go to Himalayas she could have said, leave worldly pleasures she could say. Its sugar for god's sake, not cocaine I thought. Yet I heard her wide eyed with pained heart, in the end I decided... upon deferment of decision! 

Avoiding sugar is to decline my best friend's invite, on a warm sunny day, to go swimming or go shopping in the mall, with barbecue lunch thrown in between, followed by more swimming or more shopping again. All the while chit chatting, gossiping about friends old and new, sharing notes on the latest fashion and the best parlours in town, fussing over what suits each other and what does not, sharing little secrets of heart. And ending up the day with sipping tea served with biscuits and sweet bun, sitting in a patisserrie amidst the lingering fragrance, of freshly baking cake. Ahhh how could I miss that, even if it cost me a day at work, even if it cost me working till late and losing some sleep.  

These are ideal imagination, idyllic must say. Only in our imagination. But sweets they are for real... I dream of ice-creams, fudge, sundae, chocolates, cakes, biscuits and sweet buns and mithais of milk, besan, dryfruits and nuts, jalebies, gulabjamuns and puddings and kheer, gajar halwa, moong dal halwa, yum... and the crispies and creme that go with it all. Don't stop me in my musing, don't stop me please, for someone just took away my dessert bowl, can you find out who?

When I look inside, the one thing I desire is sweetness, sweetness of heart, sweet sunny day, sweet dreams, sweet smell of earth in the first summer rain, sweet heart, sweet kid on the lap to sweet talk to, sweet success or sweet scent of it, some lagniappe to sweeten up a deal, sweet smelling flowers in the garden, in vase, in wreaths and in garlands, sweet slumber and sweet awakening too, sweet memories from those sweet moments of life, sweet angels without and sweet memories within. Sweetness seems so inseparable from me. Why...? All our dreams are crusted in sugar, plated neatly like dessert, right there for us to chase them every waking hour. All the best thoughts are served sweetly by our mind. Why sweeten people's mouth when exuberantly happy... when sweet itself is an unspeakable sin?

Oh no don’t get me wrong. Don’t imagine I am in favour of guzzling down sweet meat, the question I ask is more profound than that, what if there was more sweetness in the world, no wars, no battles, no slavery, no killings, no torture, no murder… no heartbreaks, no pain, no suffering, no suppression… No one ever hurt another in truth or in thought! Served in fine china bowls sprinkled with sugar, topped with frothy white cream, garnished with chocolate syrup… Let everyone be sweet, sweet, sweet forever….