The summers are here and boy did they truly bring the heat. The sweltering situation truly does call for the champions of heat, the cooling messiahs, the commanders-in-chill – icy cold beverages that save us every time we come dangerously close to vapourising into nothingness.
And sure, when the heated moments come around, you may grab yourself a chilled Coke or Fanta or Tropicana juice if you’re into that. But I believe we can all agree that while these drinks have their own place on the Avengers of chilled drinks, defeating this unforgiving, face-melting desi heat sounds like a job for a true blue, desi chiller – our trusty banta.
Limca and 7UP are child’s play. In banta we believe.
Lemon, undeniably, is the eternal flavour of summer. Nothing cools you off like a blast of citrus and sure, Limca, 7UP and Sprite seem completely adequate in delivering it. But why would one settle for adequate when the pop of the banta bottle opening brings the pursuit of said citrus blast to its most glorious fruition?
Banta ain’t no cold drink. It’s a whole other league of refreshment.
Let’s face it, banta is no ordinary sweet, fizzy cold drink – there are plenty of those – it’s an explosion of flavours. A masterfully made sweet, sour and spicy concoction, every banta drink and its fresh nimbu, kaala namak and chaat masala seasoning is unique and extraordinary and not many other beverages known to mankind have managed to upstage it.
And it’s been a part of our lives for too many summers to count.
It’s cheap AF and available around pretty much every corner. Be it while waiting for our school buses on hot afternoons, or during a free hour at college, we’ve found icy relief in the popped banta bottle for years together.
To most of us, the popping sound of the classic banta marble still transports us to a simpler time when we’d pray for the school bus to be slightly late (so we could run and buy a banta), and when khelne jaana (and afterwards banta peena) was practically a daily tradition. In its true essence, the banta is a symbol of summer fun, and if you think otherwise, then…
Go out and have yourself a drink of that banta goodness. ‘Cause the last thing you wanna do with summers getting worse each year… is take our beloved desi chillster for granted.