LARKS AND STICKJAWS

Much before I got acquainted with Shelly and his odes or with bird watching, Larks featured big in my life. Larks was the name of the store just below my grandmother's house. In fact they were and still are my grandmother's tenants. It was also the one of the most elite stores in town back then. The only place which kept tinned sardines, yellow blocks of cheddar cheese, chocolates, cocoa powder, condensed milk , packets of dried mushrooms, cocktail tinned fruits, China grass etc. It may not be a big deal now but to find all these things some twenty odds years ago my town was a big deal. And yes there were those stick jaws wrapped in butter paper invitingly looking out at us greedy mortals from the glass jars. They stuck when you chewed them so I guess the name. Moreover one would amuse me for at least 20 minutes - a great feat considering I could give the Amazonian Piranhas a run for their fame when it came to finishing off sweets. I had all but forgotten stick jaws till I had a sweet reunion at Elora's in Dehradun, only now they were dressed in cellophane paper. I happily stick jawed (how else do you describe eating them) and carried a bagful to Delhi only to find that they had all melted. They were not really worth eating since the molten ones didn't stick your jaws. Now this accounts for finding the stick jaws only in the hilly towns. And Larks is now a pale shadow of itself with the ubiquitous orange kurkure packets looming large in its shelves as it desperately tries to measure up to the more fancy shops in town.