Mango Milkshake and Memories of College

Last Updated on June 3, 2014 by Babita

Here in New Jersey summers are ripe with mangoes. They are everywhere. You can find them in Indian and Asian stores, Farmers markets as well as our local grocery stores. With availability come endless possibilities, and I wanted to take advantage of this fact and make the timeless classic and one of my favorite drinks “Mango Milkshake”. I also wanted to make this for my girls, and as they had never tasted it before I knew they would be wary. To counter that, I told them that I would serve it with ice cream.

As soon as I had that thought I mentally flew back a couple of years to my college days. Mango milkshake with ice cream was a tantalizing treat for me and my friends – a drink to be savored only during our birthdays. You see unlike today’s college kids, my friends and I did not have generous allowances. The only time we would splurge was whenever we were celebrating our respective birthdays. We would go to one of the restaurants (Gokul, Arassa, Vaibhav etc.) outside our college. We would check into their air-conditioned unit, which had higher priced menus and go all out. After ordering and chowing down the main course, we would look forward to the desserts or sweet beverages. Mango milkshake was highest on that list and for little extra bucks you could top it with ice cream. There are no words to describe the feeling of exuberance. The only way I could describe it would be to borrow the quote my girls use all the time “it tastes like heaven”.

If I could go back in time, I would go back to those days. These days my friends from my group are scattered all around the world. Reunion between all of us is next to impossible but due to the great world of social network we are able to peek into each others lives now and then. For once though I would have loved for all of us to sit together, with our spouses and kids and toast our reunion with a round of mango milkshake with ice cream . Since that seems impossible and a distant dream, I am sending with love to all my friends Vijaya, Gladis, Tehfeen, Zaheer, Chandu, Manoj, Arun, Sayed, Srividya and Tasneem a huge chilled glass of Mango Milkshake with ice cream. Enjoy.