India, Jan. 9 -- As I have said many times before in this column, the Christmas-New Year period in Calcutta - where I grew up - is truly magical. So, this year, my husband and I decided to bring in the New Year in the city of my birth - and the city in which we first met. The idea was to enjoy the lights of Park Street, make a pilgrimage to Botanical Gardens, and relive memories of our youth.

But it was in pursuit of a childhood memory that I decided to venture out to some nearby mishti dokans to buy the favourite sweet of my growing-up years: The gaja. But no matter where I went, the shop assistants informed me (with a certain grim satisfaction) that they no longer made gaja. Undeterred, I asked some local friends for help and they very...