Icy Pleasures

Colourful push-peddle carts abound this time of year throughout perennially hot Mumbai. These carts, know as Golas, feature a local favourite beach-side treat: rustic ice lollies made from big balls of ice shavings stuck on rudimentary bamboo sticks.

People living in countries where snow and ice are easily accessible have probably always paired sweet syrups, honey and fruit juice with natural snow or ice chips, like the famous shaved ice in the form of snow-cones, made of crushed ice topped with sweet syrup served in a paper cones that are consumed in many parts of the world. In fact Sayuri, the protagonist in Memoirs of a Geisha, actually falls in love with her general after he buys her a cone of shaved ice doused in red syrup.

It is hard to pinpoint the exact point when these shaved ice treats came to India. India's foremost food historian K.T Achaya in his book “A historical Dictionary of Indian food” tells of the Mughals importing ice from the colder areas of India, (Ice blocks would be cut from lakes and ponds during the winter and stored in large heaps in holes in the ground, insulated by straw). A practice probably inherited from their Persian ancestors who perfected this process of storing ice by 400 BC, used well into the summer for consumption in Sherbets or crushed and flavoured with saffron, fruits, and various other flavours. So the Mughals could be a likely source for popularizing them in India, if not creating them.

But these Baraf golas (ice balls) have been in Mumbai for a long time, a fact that is evidenced by golawalas across the city who have been hawking their wares from the same corner for decades. The Kala Khatta cold drinks house on the corner of Victoria Terminus, Mumbai's iconic train station, has been in business for close to 100 years according to present (third) generation. The Ram Krishna Juice centre at Khar has been selling golas since 1948 with the second generation of the family at the helm today. And while it is hard to pin down the exact origin of a the gola, Ram Narayan Yadav of Ram Krishna Juice centre says that golas came to Mumbai from Gujarat along with other varieties of street foods. A theory corroborated by Pinky Chandan Dixit, owner of Soam restaurant at Babulnath. She says that all hand cranked gola making machines are made by the Amir company based in Surat, Gujarat. 

The golawala shaves ice off a block with the help of a rudimentary contraption which consists of a sharp blade on a block of wood. He will run the ice over the blade, harvesting chips into a receptacle underneath. When he has enough for a gola, he scoops up a generous handful, sticks a split bamboo stick in the middle and sculpts the shaved ice into a ball around it. This ice lolly is then put in a glass and a generous measure of syrup from one of the jewel bright bottles around him will be poured over it. This is the point where you get to tweak your gola according to personal preferences: add more syrup if you want it sweeter, an extra squeeze of lime if you like heightened sourness, or add zing with an extra sprinkle of rock salt.

There are a range of flavours to pick from; orange, lime, rose, khatti kairi, kesar pista and Kala Khatta. And if you are one who can never decide the very practical cocktail gola, a blend of all the flavours! Like all Mumbaikars have a preference for sour flavours and most golawalas concur on this, sharing that the Kala Khatta flavour is the most popular followed closely by the Khatta Kairi. Khatta Kairi means sour green mango but Kala Khatta is another story. According to present owner of the Kala Khatta cold drinks house, Firoze, his grandfather, Najimullah Khan, who set up the shop more than a hundred years ago, was also the inventor of the Kala Khatta flavour which literally translates to 'black sour' but is in fact a piquant combination of rock salt, sugar syrup and lemon juice. 

There is also a milk gola in which the ice ball is doused with milk and syrup and a malai gola in which the condensed milk and syrup are poured over the gola. In case you find the stick golas unwieldy you can opt for "slush" like versions in which the ice and syrup are combined in a glass sans the stick. There is also a plate gola that some golawalas offer, in which the ice is piled on a plate and doused in your choice of syrup or syrups
 
When asked about the future of golas, Ram Narayan broke out into a wry smile. Recounting how his father opened the first shop in Khar in 1948, and that today the family owns five shops across the city, the latest being a shop in the at Evershine city in Mulund. Clearly, he was not worried. But what about Ice cream, wasn't that a threat to his business? To which Ram Narayan responded, “Gola khanewala ice-cream nahin chahte, madam.” (Those who eat golas do not eat Ice cream).

Which is true, there is no comparison between a Gola and an ice cream. A Gola is a tactile experience that connects us to the child within.Twinkling like a cluster of diamonds on a bamboo stick, syrup dripping off its sides, the moment you see a Gola your mouth begins to water, and you long for satisfying sluuuurp... watch as the colour disappears, leaving an icy filigree of clear chips as you suck out the syrup. But don't worry it will come alive again when you dip your gola back into the glass of syrup. Keep dunking the lolly in the syrup until either the lolly or the syrup is gone. Hope that it is the syrup runs out before the ice, as that is the true delight.. or unlimited refills of flavours like orange, khus, mango and pineapple. If your lolly finishes, you can still take solace in quaffing the now thinned out syrup in your glass. Simple pleasures!