The Day I Met Ice-Cream

Anay had heard about ice-cream more times than he had heard his own name.

Every cousin, every neighbor, every friend spoke of it like a treasure.

“Cold as snow!” said his cousin Meera.

“Sweet as a dream!” whispered his friend Arjun.

His mother would smile and say,

“It melts faster than you can say its name.”

Anay’s eyes would widen every time. He had never tasted ice-cream. Not once.

So, what was it really like?

One evening, sitting cross-legged on the veranda, Anay decided to ask everyone.

“Pa, what does ice-cream taste like?”

Pa scratched his chin, grinning.

“Like frozen happiness, my boy.”

He ran to his mother.

“Ma, is it like cold rice?”

She laughed,

“No, it’s like… a cloud that learned how to be sweet.”

His grandmother added,

“When it touches your tongue, it disappears like magic.”

Anay sat with his head full of flavors that didn’t make sense—clouds, snow, dreams, magic. None of it told him what it really was.

Finally, his parents said,

“Enough imagining, Anay. Let’s go.”

They took him to a small shop with glass counters glowing like treasure chests. Inside were bright tubs—pink, green, white, and golden.

Anay pointed at the white one.

The man behind the counter scooped a soft swirl into a crispy cone and handed it to him.

Cold air kissed his fingers.

His first bite was a shock—freezing, sweet, smooth like butter, and then… gone!

The second bite made his eyes close.

It was nothing like he imagined.

It was everything he wanted.

That night, Anay didn’t use fancy words.

He just told his grandmother,

“It’s… ice-cream. That’s what it is.”

And then he whispered to himself, smiling under the stars,

“Some things… you can’t explain. You just have to experience them.”

Some things cannot be told, only experienced; and the truth that some truths live beyond words.