PVM - Hot chocolate Drink

Its quite natural that, Bal Mandir, being the biggest children's home, here in Nepal, used to get so many donations from across the nations and some time in form of food items too. Once somebody donated P.V.M.  loads of it. Its full form was protein, vitamins and minerals It's kind of hot chocolate drinks, something like horlicks or boost. Unlike today's time, what I do remember distinctly is, then in the mid 80s, when they use fine sugar in any powder drinks, they used big grains of sugar, that can be seen with our naked eyes. It was the same thing in some big brands biscuits also. Let me tell you this, it gave me a very good feel about the food then.

When people donated anything to to Bal Mandir, it always came in abundance, I mean truckloads of it. Its like the donor knew small portion is not going to help anyone good, when there were about 200 children in Bal Mandir to feed all the time.

The powdered hot chocolate drinks was packed differently than today's packing. It was paper roll  packaging just like pringles packaging, with tin on top and its bottom; but only its was for about a kg or one and half kg packaging hot chocolate drinks. Everybody liked it. in fact they liked it so much that the children used to steal it from where it was stored and  and then have it dry, just like that. But in daytime milk it was given to all, but what  I just can't remember now is, we it having in our morning milks too.  It was so good that I do remember it being stolen from the staffs also and I used to give it to my teacher who taught us sticking, from whatever I could have my hands on. The lady wanted more from me even if the stealing was not an easy task but she presumed, we were really good at it, to be precise I was good at it. Does this tick your imagination, that she was encouraging me to steal more, so that her need to have it  and feed more to her three children will be satisfied. I denied it, as I am not known to doing things that only please others and not me. Besides, there has to be limitations when we get things, which is stolen.

I don't know at what time, the managers or the housemother learned, that the generous givings was closing to an expire date soon and one day they just burned loads and loads of it long before we had enough of it, to be tired of its good taste. A housemother, did the whole burning and burying task. In this case I do remember so vividly that, it was Sabitri Basnyat. Once she  got tired of burning it which seemed like for hours, then, she asked the junior staff and some big boys to dig big hole, and then buried the whole with unopened packaging.

That was a good news for many of the boys and girls, because seeing that good tasting food burning under the big fire was some thing we did not feel good about and not good news from any angle. Some of the boys, later dug up the hole and then unearthed the still good conditioned package and then rejoiced eating it again. How come they can think of burying food which tasted so good  ? I bet, we were not aware about the expired date on the packaging or it was something we did not needed to know !

Sometimes, when we gather then, we do look back and remember those time we had in Bal Mandir and then talk in length, that if bad food was really that bad for children, then we would have died for maybe thousands times in our lives; instead it only made us more strong than we could ever imagine. Our digestive system is a lot better than the people, who are over protected from the dirt and germs when they were growing up. But more than that, what I find so surprising is, that those foods or the condition that surrounded us, made us mentally strong too, not just physically.

I never ever thought in my life, that eating expired date food[s] or rice and lentils that was so insect infested and stone filled, smelled bad; will make me physically and mentally strong when I grow up. And yes, with all the memory intact in my mind except; I have a bad memory power, but others do not have my bad memory power.