'Dear Mr. Bradbury

“Dear Mr. Bradbury…
Or are you a Mrs? Or are you many people?

I have some serious problems with your chocolates. Not with the taste. Oh no, THAT is very nice. I like your Roasted Almond the best.  

When the Government of India has a Family Planning Policy asking mothers and fathers to make only two children each, why can’t the Bradbury company also follow the same policy? Your Roasted Almond big bar has NINE rows! What a silly idea! I hope it was not yours, Mr (or Mrs) Badbury? How are 2 children from a well-planned Indian family supposed to share 9 rows?

Mr brother is 4 years older than me and is a fast bowler, so you can guess who always gets that 9th row. Why can’t chocolate bars come in 4s, 8s or 12s? So easy to share! I am now just 2 inches shorter than my brother, and I’m not going to put up with him getting 5 rows of chocolate every time, and me getting only 4. And Mr Bradbury (or Mrs), why does each row have an odd number of pieces…three, for God’s sake. It’s impossible to ever share that 9th row equally.

Also, when the chocolates are being made, can you please stand there and make sure that the full almonds fit neatly into their rows. Now, every time my brother breaks off my share (the smaller portion of 4 rows), the almonds that were half in his row and half in mine, somehow go with his chunk. It’s horrible to see my 4th row of chocolate with big gaps where almonds should have been. It makes me mad! And I don’t know how my brother always manages to break the pieces so cleverly. Of course, being the younger brother, I never get a chance to do the sharing.

And Mr Bradbury (or Mrs), I’ve tried some experiments with your chocolates, which you might like to hear about. Maybe if you try it out (and like it) you could make a bar of my recipe. Would you put my name on the packet? I would love that and you don’t need to pay me anything. Just put my photo at the back so my classmates will know and maybe, my brother will let me do the sharing of those bars of chocolate.

Here’s what I do…

I take a bar of your Dairy Milk chocolate and melt it. Part of the recipe is to make sure my big brother is not around. There’s not much left to melt if he takes off his share of 5 rows of chocolate. When it’s nice and liquidy, I pour it over a narrow plate layered with fresh pop corn. I quickly put this pop corn covered gooey mess into the fridge and try to forget about it for an hour. I always remember to hide it behind a whole lot of other food so that my brother won’t know what’s happening.

Then, when he’s not around, I take my popcorn chocolate bar out and, guess what? I EAT THE WHOLE THING! No rows of 9 and no sharing! It’s yum!

You can try it out at home before trying it at a big factory. Last week, I had a close shave because my brother, who’s hungry all the time and has his head stuck in the fridge every alternate half-hour, almost found my secret bar. Luckily, he spotted a new packet of cheese slices and ate the whole lot. He’s disgusting. There again, cheese slices come in packets f 10 (which can be divided equally between 2 brothers), but my mother always seems to buy the 5-slice packets! Last week, it wasn’t a case of difficult-to-share…where I get only 2 slices and he took 3. It was a case of ‘Not shared’ since he ate all 5 slices.

So Mr Bradbury (or Mrs), you can see that there’s a lot of family unhappiness and suffering caused by your bad planning. I’m hoping by next moth, Bradbury’s Roasted Almond chocolate will come in sensible bars of 8 or 10 rows.  

And if you like my popcorn-chocolate recipe and decide to make bars of them, I’m sending along a photograph of myself, for you to add on the wrapping.

Arvind Shenoy
Std 6