The death of DBC

"Ladies and gentlemen. We are gathered here in memory of the DBC. As one of Bangalore's favourite sons, the DBC ..... "

Bombay has its Vada Pav, Delhi has its Chaats, Madras has its Idli / Vada / Sambar combo and Bangalore, well Bangalore has its DBC (Death By Chocolate). For those of you who just did a 'A DB-what?' , it is the specialty of the Bangalore based ice cream retail chain called Cornerhouse. For years the DBC has been Bangalore's favourite dessert, something that everyone who visits / stays / works in Bangalore has told everyone else about. In fact I still remember the day when my then new batch mate dropped his jaw when I told him that I had visited Bangalore a couple of times but had never heard of DBC. And so after 2 years of continuous DBC hype (while I was studying in Manipal), fate deemed that I would end up working (being employed is a more appropriate term, not that it matters ....) in an IT company in Bangalore. So on one of my first weekends here I headed out to fall victim to the heavenly and ironically sinful DBC. What I got was a large bowl filled with a few scoops of ice cream, a load of chocolate sauce, a brownie and some cashew nuts. "This is DBC?!" I asked my friends incredulously. Credit where credit is due - it is tasty and filling but undeserving of all the hype for sure. Almost like growing up idolising Sachin Tendulkar and finally bumping into him in the neighbourhood gully playing street cricket with kids and watching them flummox him with their crude bowling.

A couple of years have passed since my memorable initiation into the DBC-eaters club. Our team had planned to head out for dinner that was to be followed by a round of desserts at Cornerhouse. It was deja vu all over again as a colleague of mine - Mr X who had never sampled DBC or anything else at Cornerhouse was being fed the hype by another colleague - Mr Y and I had a sneaking suspicion that events were going to play out the same way as they had in my case. I warned him about the brand building that DBC lovers do and to keep an open mind going into the evening. Eventually the team split into 2 and the next morning while discussing the events of the dinner it turned out that Mx X wasn’t impressed by the DBC and that Mr Y (remember him as the pro DBC-er) had got one as a take away and gone home to discover that there was hardly any ice cream and that they had resorted to peanuts instead of the regular cashew nuts. Which is how the DBC fan club lost yet another one of its members. The numbers are dwindling and while it might be premature to herald the demise of the once mighty DBC, it is but inevitable.

" ...May the soul of the DBC rest in peace. Amen"