A Bit(e) of Nostalgia

For millions who grew up in middle-class India during the late 1970s and 1980s, chocolate was never an everyday indulgence. It was an event. It arrived carrying stories, anticipation and, occasionally, a touch of prestige. An uncle brought it from Delhi. A cousin returned with it from Dubai. A family friend remembered there were children at home and pulled it out of a cloth bag. The chocolate itself was often secondary. What mattered was the journey it had taken to get there.

There was usually a ritual attached to its arrival. Adults insisted everyone wait until tea was over. The wrapper would be passed around and examined. Someone would read out the name. If it was foreign, excitement doubled. If it was a flavour nobody recognised, it became the evening's main topic of discussion. The chocolate disappeared in minutes. The memory lingered for years.

Children growing up today would struggle to understand that level of anticipation. Chocolate is no longer scarce. It is folded into breakfast cereals, blended into milkshakes, stuffed into cookies and poured over desserts. A craving can be satisfied with a few taps on a phone. What was once a rare treat has become an everyday commodity.

But before liberalisation, before supermarket aisles overflowed with choice, chocolate occupied a very different place in the Indian imagination. A Cadbury Dairy Milk bar felt special. An Amul chocolate bar variant, including the evergreen Fruit n Nut  was enough to brighten a week. A Melody could rescue an otherwise forgettable exam result. These were not merely confectionery brands. They were markers of small joys in an era when indulgence was occasional rather than routine.

As India opened up, incomes rose and international travel became more common, a new hierarchy of chocolates emerged. Airport shopping bags arrived stuffed with treasures. Names such as Lindt, Toblerone and Ghirardelli acquired an almost mythical aura. There were Swiss chocolates, Belgian chocolates, dark chocolates with intimidating dark chocolate percentages printed on the wrapper and boxes of truffles presented with a quiet ceremony after every overseas holiday.

For many Indian families, bringing back chocolates became part of the ritual of travel itself. You bought them because everyone bought them. They were easy to carry, easy to distribute and almost universally welcomed. Over time, however, the chocolate evolved into something more than a gift. It became a subtle announcement. A way of saying, without saying it, that you had been somewhere else.

The evidence was often displayed prominently on drawing-room tables after every foreign trip. Duty-free boxes. Assorted truffles. Single-origin dark chocolate from Ghana and other countries most people had never visited and never heard of. Sometimes the giver knew very little about the chocolate itself. That hardly mattered. The packaging did most of the talking.

The funny thing about children, however, is that they are rarely impressed by the things adults think should impress them. They notice other details. They notice who sits beside them and asks about school. They notice who remembers their birthday without being reminded. They notice who knows their favourite flavour. They notice who turns up consistently and who appears only for weddings and funerals. 

Long before children understand money, they understand attention.

Which is why a curious thing sometimes happens.

A relative arrives from abroad carrying a bar of chocolate . They travel frequently, earn well and can easily afford shelves full of gourmet confectionery. A single  chocolate bar is handed over almost mechanically. Sometimes it arrives through another relative. Sometimes it is sent through a delivery service. There is little conversation, no questions and no attempt to know the child any better than they did a year ago.

The transaction is complete. The adults are satisfied. The child quietly moves on.

Nobody complains because there is nothing obvious to complain about. A gift has been given. By most standards, it is a generous one. Perhaps even an expensive one. Yet somehow it never becomes special. It is placed in the refrigerator and forgotten. Days pass. Then weeks.

Every family has had one of these chocolates. It sits on the top shelf beside forgotten sauces and half-used jars. Occasionally someone asks whose it is. Nobody is entirely sure. The wrapper remains untouched. The child who received it has long since lost interest. Not because they are rude or ungrateful. The excitement simply never arrived.

Years ago, children could spend an entire afternoon talking about a single chocolate bar. Today, premium imported chocolate can disappear into the visual clutter of an affluent household. The difference is not inflation, globalisation or changing tastes. It is something less tangible.

Perhaps children possess an instinct adults sometimes lose. They can tell when a gift is carrying affection and when it is merely replacing it.

Many people become more generous as they grow older. They earn more, travel more and buy better presents. Yet some become less present. The gifts grow larger while the relationships grow smaller. Chocolates arrive. Conversations do not. Souvenirs multiply. Familiarity fades. Nobody intends for this to happen. Life simply gets in the way.

And so the chocolate remains where it is until the inevitable refrigerator clean-up. Someone decides it has been sitting there long enough and passes it on to the household help before it expires.

What happens next reveals far more than the gift ever did.

She takes it home, unable to hide her excitement. The next day she is still smiling. Her children have never tasted that brand before. They want to know where it came from. One child tries to save a piece for later. Another insists on keeping the wrapper. There is an argument over who received the larger portion. The chocolate that sat ignored for weeks in one household disappears within minutes in another.

Suddenly, it has a story again.

Not because it was imported. Not because it was expensive. Not because it came from a fashionable supermarket in a foreign country.

Simply because somebody was delighted to receive it.

For all the changes of the past four decades, that part remains remarkably unchanged. The brands have evolved. The packaging has become sleeker. The chocolate itself is richer, better and infinitely more varied. Yet what people remember is rarely the chocolate.

They remember who brought it. They remember how it was given. They remember how it made them feel.

Most of us can still recall a chocolate we received decades ago, even if we cannot remember what it tasted like. What survives is not the flavour but the feeling attached to it.

That may be the real difference between the chocolates we remember and the ones we forget.

The forgotten ones are bought with money.

The memorable ones arrive with attention.

Children have always known the distinction. Adults simply take longer to learn it.