Rimjhimpur's scoop!

The freezer in Kakaji’s ice-cream parlour is stocked with goodies and the boys are all set to taste fame, but something unexpected happens... 

Aakash and Zubair never missed their Sunday trips to Desserts Etcetera, the ice-cream parlour. It was run by Kakaji, an elderly man who was very popular among the children of Rimjhimpur.

The two boys perched on highchairs near the deep freezers, and Kakaji served them their treats.

“I bet we’ve eaten a hundred ice-creams each to date,” said Zubair.
“No, just sixty or seventy at the most,” said Aakash. “Two or three ice-creams every Sunday for the last seven months.”

“When we do touch a century, we must celebrate – ice-cream sundaes for all the people of Rimjhimpur!”

“Sure! You take care of the expenses; I’ll invite everyone in town,” said Aakash, teasing his friend.

Zubair didn’t continue the conversation. He finished one ice-cream and began tackling the next.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Aakash.

“The Guinness Book of World Records! Aakash.... Kakaji, I’m sure I can eat enough ice-cream in one sitting to set a world record,” announced Zubair.
“I’ll have to shut down the business then!” smiled Kakaji.

“On the contrary, my victory will take your parlour to new heights. People from far and wide will visit you and business will boom. Kakaji, may I use your laptop?”
Kakaji nodded. Zubair logged on to the internet and spoke animatedly about his plans.

“May I make a suggestion?” said Kakaji, suddenly. “What if I arranged for a giant wafer cone and piled it high with 100 scoops of ice-cream in five minutes. Would you be able to eat it in record time? It would be a record for both of us!”

Aakash gasped.
“Can you really arrange for a cone that huge?” asked Zubair.
“Of course! I’ll call up my supplier right away,” said Kakaji, dialling a number on his cell phone.

“Could you please put him on speaker phone?” begged Zubair.
Kakaji did so. A woman’s voice came through.

“Anita, this call is for a rather unusual but important request.”
 “What is it, Kakaji?”

Kakaji told Anita about Zubair’s plans for a Guinness record. “Will you make a three-foot cone for us? I’ll also need enough ice-cream to fill it up!”

“Sure,” said Anita. “In fact, how would it be if I invented a hundred different flavours especially for this feat?” she asked.
“That would be wonderful,” said Kakaji.

 “I’ll apply on the Guinness website right away,” declared Zubair.
It was decided to hold the mega event on Friday, June 8. Word got around quickly. Rimjhimpur was no longer a nondescript town; nor was Zubair an ordinary boy.

Television crews and newspaper reporters from the capital city swarmed the streets of Rimjhimpur. Zubair roped in Aakash and Kakaji for every TV shoot and media photograph, leaving them ecstatic.

Anita arrived at Desserts Etcetera with the ice-cream vans a day before the event.
And then the unexpected happened.

The town’s power supply failed!
At first Kakaji thought nothing of it. Power cuts in Rimjhimpur were not unusual. But when two hours turned to four and then eight, Kakaji panicked. His deep freezers would retain their sub-zero temperature for 10 hours, after which the ice-creams would begin to melt.

He made frantic phone calls to ice-cream parlours in the neighbouring towns, but discovered that they too were powerless.
Dinnertime neared and the town lay swathed in darkness. Kakaji asked Aakash and Zubair to come to the parlour.

“We’ll have to delay the event till I can arrange for more ice-cream,” he said when they arrived. “My current stock will surely turn to milk by morning.”

The boys comforted the elderly man. “It’s true we can do nothing about the power cut. But we need not delay the event, only change its form,” said Aakash. “Kakaji, you need to arrange for 500 paper glasses by tomorrow morning. This is what I have in mind.” He whispered his plan to Kakaji.

Morning arrived and with it began a nationwide telecast of the making of Rimjhimpur’s record.

However, viewers were in for a surprise. They had hoped to see a young boy slurp one hundred scoops of ice-cream from a gigantic cone. Instead, row upon row of children were gulping down a glass of milk each in tandem. The judge clocked the time taken: 4.63. Four minutes and 63 seconds! It was a world record! Rimjhimpur cheered.

That was not all. Two days later, Rimjhimpur went down in the Guinness Book of World Records for another reason – a town affected by the longest ever power cut of one hundred hours!