Torment of Tantalus

Date: sometime in April 1986
Location: The haven behind the pearly gates of Heaven

God: There! This lil life was tough creating .. let me save the changes and create the life.
He hits the save button on his brand new computer , sets the physical traits of the lil life , determines the sex ( female ) ,determines the date of delivery ( 10-01-1987) and then gets to the likes screen.. He sets various traits and then goes to the sweet tooth option when he nods off .. he wakes up quickly and hits the generate button and then we see a cute , cherubic , smart lil gal come out of God’s printer with a lollypop in her hand….

God is taken aback by her sweetness and places her on the conveyor belt before he could note that he had set the sweet tooth option to 200% and the conveyor belt moves towards earth …

Date: 10-01-1997
Time: 10:10 am
Location : A Hospital in Adayar

 The smart, cute , cherubic, all-knowing lil gal ( with that huge sweet tooth ) has travelled a long way from heaven to earth ( and also had tasted the different varieties of sweets and toffee that were on  display in the various intergalactic sweet shops )  drops out into the world and starts wailing at the top of her voice attracting the attention of the entire populace within a radius of 2Km ( Her mother always would tell her later that she was the sole baby who cried as if she had an embedded music system complete with the woofer system in her voice box) before she sees a person distributing sweets to celebrate her birth..

She thinks “So they have chocolates over here too… wonderful… I am going to love my journey here “and promptly goes to sleep.

Days pass by and so do months.. The little gal whom we shall call K has developed a real affinity for sweets and discovers new brands of chocolates and toffees as days pass by . She has chocolate flavored cereal for breakfast , chocolates for every other meal of the day . Her parents are not so much bothered by this trend as they think she’ll grow out of it.

Date: Some time in March 1988
Location: K’s house in Coimbatore
Situation: K’s parents want to tell her that she is going to have a lil sibling soon

K’s dad: So K what do you want? A baby brother or a baby sister?
K thinks hard, finishes her diary milk chocolate, licks her fingers clean as her parents look on eagerly and then after serious contemplation opens her mouth
K: No I don’t want either! Can I have a truckload full of diary milk chocolates instead?

K’s mom starts laughing out loud and her dad joins her and they continue their merrymaking without realizing how much of a choco-addict their daughter has become..

Years pass by. K has grown up into a cute little girl of ten and her chocolate obsession still continues..

Date: Sometime in June 1997
Location: At the friendly neighborhood dentist’s clinic

Dentist: Does you daughter eat chocolates
K’s Mom: Well that’s the only thing she eats..
Dentist: I am afraid that she has 11 of her teeth affected with cavities. We need to fill them up. I offer two types of fillings: Ceramic and white cement. Which one would you prefer?
K: Doc do you have a filling with chocolate flavor? I’m game for them!
Dentist: ?$%^%&^*&(*?
K’s Mom: ^&**#@@!

K undergoes the painful process of getting her teeth filled but that does not affect her obsession for chocolates anyway.

Time passes .. K is now a young woman of 23. She has outgrown most of her childhood traits and has become a software engineer with a reputed MNC. She has developed a liking towards books , music and gadgets but that does not diminish her love towards chocolates …

Date : 14-12-2010
K’s cousin : Hey I’m coming to India next week. What should I be getting you..
K : Chocolates would be capital
K’s Cousin : what chocolates exactly
K ( excitement spilling into her voice ) : Ghirardelli , Ferrero Rocher , Mars , Hersheys,*@$%^&^ , #$^& , $&^&* ………
K’s cousin cuts the call ,alarmed at the rate in which the list is growing..

Date : 12-24-2010
Time 1:00 am

K raids her cousin’ s fridge , grabs a bag of Hershey’s kisses and takes them to bed with her for comfort eating .. She falls asleep with her hand clutching the bag of the chocolates possessively.
The night passes calmly ….

Suddenly K hears a thud and wakes up to find herself at the converyor station where she had began her journey 23 years ago..

A good kindly woman tells her … never worry dear ..  people who come up for the last judgment are full of nerves. This way please .

 K has her retina scanned . The kindly attendant then attaches a dog tag to her wrist and says ” Judgment hall K - Third room on the right ” .

K then walks into the hall where she finds a Dumbledore like character reading a huge tome. The man beckons her close and the judge ment begins…

 K starts listening intently but gets bored after five minutes .

 She starts looking at the various portraits and other heavenly artifacts in the judgment hall wondering if she could get some chocolates when the kindly man pokes her shoulder. ” Well young woman. That was your judgment. In short though you are nothing short of a saint , you’ve committed the grave sin of not sharing your chocolates with friends and family and consuming around 1/4th of the world wide supply of chocolates. Therefore I sentence you to undergo the torment of Tantalus…

K finds herself neck deep in chocolate syrup and a chocolate tree with branches loaded with all kinds of chocolates. she bends down to taste the chocolate syrup but the syrup turns into water. She jumps up to reach the chocolates on the tree branch but the branch keeps moving higher .. K keeps jumping , jumping until…

K ! K ! Hey Somberi wake up .. Look at her .. she is not yet awake but she is still possessive about her chocolates K’s NRI cousin mused.

K wakes up .. rubs her eyes and still finds herself in her aunt’s home in Chennai..”Whew ! what a weird dream “ K thinks. Scared by the vision she just came out of K decides to make a new year resolution to abstain from chocolates for the greater good of mankind ( i.e. to assure herself that she will have enough chocolates when she passes from her current existence to the higher planes err. heaven )

PS : K is an acronym for Krithikaa who is self .
PPS : Though the post is a humorous take on K’s obsession for chocolate some of the incidents stated here may be true … or may not be so. I leave it to the discretion of the reader.