Ever since I was a child, I have been obsessed with fizzy drinks. My mother tells me that when I was three, I used to strut into the Army Officer’s mess in Dinjan, Assam, where my father was posted, clamber on to the bar, and lisping atrociously, demand Tota Tola. I also confided delightedly to her that the bearers at the mess were so kind, all you had to do was tell them your father’s name and rank, and they handed over the chilled, fizzing Coke bottle ‘for free!’
The other thing the cantonments had in plenty (and also ‘for free’) were libraries, so it wasn’t long before I discovered fizzy drinks in fiction too. There was lemonade, orangeade and gingerade galore in my Enid Blytons and I loved them all with a passion, but it wasn’t till I got my hands on The BFG by Roald Dahl, and discovered the jumbly, delumptious marvel that is Frobscottle that I realised that fizzy drinks could be bottled magic.
‘But look, it’s fizzing the wrong way!’ Sophie cried. And indeed, the bubbles, instead of travelling upwards and bursting on the surface, were shooting downwards and bursting at the bottom.
These gravity-obeying bubbles cause you, not to burp, like the ordinary fizzy drinks bubbles, but to make you errr... whizzpop. This embarrasses Sophie, but the BFG pooh-poohs away her well-bred qualms.
‘Redunculous!’ said the BFG. ‘If everyone is making whizzpoppers, then why not talk about it? We is now having a swiggle of this delicious frobscottle and you will see the happy result.’ The BFG shook the bottle vigorously. The pale green stuff fizzed and bubbled. He removed the cork and took a tremendous gurgling swig.
‘It’s glummy!’ he cried. ‘I love it!’
For a few moments, the Big Friendly Giant stood quite still, and a look of absolute ecstasy began to spread over his long wrinkly face. Then suddenly the heavens opened and he let fly with a series of the loudest and rudest noises Sophie had ever heard in her life. They reverberated around the walls of the cave like thunder and the glass jars rattled on their shelves. But most astonishing of all, the force of the explosions actually lifted the enormous giant clear off his feet, like a rocket.
‘Whoopee!’ he cried, when he came down to earth again. ‘Now that is whizzpopping for you!’
Soon I grew up, and got a job in advertising, selling (surprise, surprise) Pepsi Cola and all its yummy variants. Now I got to not just read about fizzy drinks, but write about them too. I did this for over 14 years, celebrating bubbles, effervescence and irrepressibility with great enthusiasm. One campaign in particular, inspired by whizzpopping, was fittingly called ‘Oye Bubbly’.
Not all fizzy tales in fiction are happy though, and one description particularly stayed with me, of the hairy, horrid Orangedrink-Lemondrink man from The God of Small Things , who preyed upon poor, sweet Estha (the one with the Elvis puff!) in the empty Abhilash Talkies Princess Circle lobby.
Basically, after reading it, I grimly followed my children into the movie lobby every time they wandered out to get a cola. I do this even now, when they are 16, 19 and 22 years old.
As I grew older, I started liking my fizzy drinks spiked with a little something. About that time, JK Rowling gave us Butterbeer, the tipple of Winky the house-elf’s choosing. Apparently, Butterbeer (which I imagine to be tasting like fizzy, melted Alpenliebe) is based on buttered beer — a Tudor-time concoction of beer, sugar, eggs, cloves and butter. It’s only very slightly alcoholic, but does lower inhibitions, causing Harry to worry about what Ron and Hermione might do at Professor Slughorn’s party, under the influence of Butterbeer.
But the happiest grown-up fizzy drink description is in PGW’s frothy Uncle Fred in the Springtime . Here, we slope into the Emsworth Arms with a heavy-hearted Bill Oakshott and discover the Oven’s home-brewed, a magical pick-me-up, a sort of Cracklin’ Rosie, of the type Neil Diamond sang about, a store-bought woman who can make you smile.
‘It is a liquid Pollyanna, forever pointing out the bright side and indicating silver linings. It slips its little hand in yours and whispers ‘Cheer up!’”
Sounds Delumptious!
The writer is an author and advertiser. Her new novel Baaz is in stores now.
