Sudipto brought me sweets from Kolkata. Bengali sweets have made a major contribution to the build & single packs of my body. They are a craving beyond all material craving that the world can offer. And, as a close friend Sudipto understands !!!

This time too, they tickled the taste buds endlessly, leaving an indelible craving in the mind and and a near permanent addition to the hip. When the sweet was served, i spotted ‘MITHAI‘ engraved on it. My curious mind, examined each piece that was served. All of them carried this engraving. Why did they label a Mithai as Mithai, i wondered !

I thought of Nuclear Radioactive material which get labelled.
I thought of safety equipment which get labelled so. Hazardous chemicals get labelled.
Examples abound. You get the hint. Dont you !

But to see ‘Mithai‘ labelled as ‘Mithai‘, that too engraved on the sweet was a bit of an intrigue.
My mind worked overtime as thoughts ran in all directions as a fountain in bloom!

Did they think this sweet would be mistaken for rat poison or something ? Perhaps they wanted to label it in order to separate the mithai from the other genres of offerings from the store. Perhaps they wanted to have a sweet way to learning the English language during the years of the Raj, and it kind of stuck.

Such other sundry thoughts occupied my mind. And this was, long after the sweet rested for those fleeting moments on the tongue and was well on the way to be deposited on the hip (and god know s in which other body part )!

Little did i realist that the mystery would be solved in the stealth of the night, by the dim light of the refrigerator, just as i was giving in to a sweet pang. Or rather, the Bengali Sweet pang. Thats when i cared to read what was written on the box !

Mithai was the brand !

How neat ! It took me a while to figure that i had not thought of that option at all. A generic name for your brand name. It sure must be ringing in the cash registers if they were pioneers in the field. But why didnt i think of it ? Many facets of the human mind & its contours lie in its unseen whorls !

I have since made peace with myself, enjoying Mithai’s Mithai piece by piece.