HOME FRIDGE: MORE THAN A SMALL COOL FOOD WAREHOUSE:

 He (or she) belongs to the family of goods and gadgets that furnish and fills our homes' interior essentials. It is an item, almost indispensable in contemporary living, that we turn to the max when hungry or just yearning for something to devour.

The standalone entity is called the refrigerator, in short, the fridge.

The vital cool little warehouse helps manage the kitchen activities by providing a safe space to prevent the cooked or uncooked foods from being spoiled, besides a storage facility for all the leftovers.

While its inside presents a loaded and crowded account of our food preferences, the outer surface of the fridge door is the display centre of family pictures. It is an open mini-album of the latest snaps, particularly kids and grandkids and their crayon artworks. Or just for our favourite quotes, jokes or greetings.

Since the fridge door is generally booked for display only, its sides are handy to stick reminder notes for appointments with doctors, dentists, plumbers, handypersons, etc.

The fridge top is another space to put things out of reach for kids, a fruit tray, a banana hanger, etc.

With its tall rectangular personality overlooking the kitchen domain, the fridge, over the years, has not gone through many avatars in its basic functioning. However, fridges have changed colours; from turquoise and pink, which were popular in the '50s and early '60s, to harvest gold, avocado green and almond in the '70s, and then the rerun of white and black as the popular colours.

Fridges seldom break down, but buying a new one is always cool when they persistently refuse to offer their cool performance.   

My first encounter with a fridge happened back in the early '60s in  India during my teen years. Before, no gadget like this had ever been heard or seen by me. There was hardly anything unconsumed or over purchased in our big family of parents, brothers and sisters, and some drop-in relatives or friends in those early days.

But when the fridge got introduced, it was love at first sight. Together our Kelvinator, coca-cola(the Original), and I comprised a relishing and refreshing company.

The tall, elegant and pride of the kitchen is indeed a boon on occasions when a sudden craving awakens us for midnight snacking, notably laddu, burfi, chocolate or anything sweet while everybody is asleep. That night-time break-in is heavenly.

But the heavenly feeling and the luxury necessity of having a refrigerator are denied to the overwhelming world's poor struggling for one meal at a time, with no money or space in their confined living place.

-Promod Puri