The (Mis)Adventure of a Parle-G Biscuit

He bought me and my biscuit-buddies from the hostel canteen at 8 am in the morning.

He has a pretty simple routine - he always buys a fifteen-rupee glass of warm milk with extra sugar and drinks it with a five-rupee packet of Parle-G. He has a very specific choice when it comes to biscuits and he doesn't prefer anything other than Parle-G and Good Day. 

He especially hates those NutriChoice Cracker Cookies. He says they are "oversized square-shaped twats that taste like something I'd eat in case I plan to die by eating a biscuit someday."

I agree with him. Not about his opinion on NutriChoice Cracker Cookies. But about the fact that he is someone who can totally imagine himself dying by eating a biscuit someday.

To understand what I've been through, you should know a bit about who I am. I used to be Biscuit 5 in my Parle-G packet. We were packed so close to each other that I was forced to (literally) kiss the ass of Biscuit 4 while (literally) getting my ass kissed by Biscuit 6.

Let me make this a bit simpler - have you seen The Human Centipede? A biscuit packet is basically the biscuit version of a human centipede, but without all the gross stuff.

...

My biscuit-buddies were really happy when they realised that they were bought to be eaten. We were all tired of (literally) kissing each other's asses, and we wanted to break free. 

We wanted to know what it feels being inside a human body. We wanted to know the experience of being tasted and getting swallowed. 

We all were pretty excited.

As he tore open the packet seal, our hearts filled with joy. I could now smell the air outside, filled with the aroma of the rancid butter sitting in the canteen for almost a month. 

It smelled of freedom.

As he picked Biscuit 1 from the packet, our hopes began to rise. Every biscuit ahead of me was one step closer to liberation. 

And as his hands finally, finally reached out to pick me, I could feel myself rising up. This is what I was meant for. I was meant to be eaten, not lie in a packet suffocating forever. 

He dipped me into his glass of milk, and I couldn't help but shout out to my buddies still inside the packet - 

"Screw you, people! I'm going inside his mouth before you do!"

It felt really good when the warm milk touched my body for the first time. It was kinda like the biscuit equivalent of what humans call "skinny-dipping". Feeling the warmth of low-fat, skimmed milk on my naked body felt a lot more rewarding than I expected it to be.

Except that it wasn't. 

It was too late when I realised he was busy fiddling with his mobile while keeping me submerged in milk. 

My body was starting to melt. I was beginning to lose parts of me - bits and pieces - to the white, clear, lactic abyss below. I was starting to drown, and I was losing contact with the grip of his fingers.

And he, busy with sending stickers to his friend on WhatsApp, had no idea about it. 

I was drifting away. I was losing myself. And before I could realise the entire horror of the situation, I slipped away from his fingers.

The last thing I saw with my eyes before going down was the panic-stricken face of Biscuit 6 staring straight at my inevitable fate.

I tried my best to come up back to the surface. I had to. There was no way I would turn into a wet, sticky, soggy piece of biscuit coagulum stuck at the bottom of the glass without even making an effort to survive. 

But as luck (and specific gravity) would have it, my efforts made it all the more easy for me to be pushed down to the bottom. 

And I laid there, waiting for the milk to eventually turn me into a muddy, mushy chunk. I had resigned myself to my fate.

Was this my destiny? 

Was this really why I was made? To be drowned in hot milk by an ignorant self-centered creature who doesn't give a crap about his biscuits?

Was this really my legacy? Is this really how Biscuit 6 would remember me? I wondered how he would describe me to his friends – 

“I used to kiss Biscuit 5’s ass. No wonder he drowned in that cup of milk. That little shit deserved it.”

My existence after coming out of the packet was nothing but waste. 

As the milk washed up the “Parle-G” stamp on me, I could feel losing sense of my identity. I was a nobody. I had lost my shape, I had lost my flair.

I had even lost my crunch. No more crunchy noises from me.

It was then that he realised the absolute atrocity he had committed. He finally shifted his eyes from the mobile screen to the glass of milk, discovering that his fingers were dipped inside without anything to hold in them. 

He muttered an expletive to himself, probably acknowledging how MIND-BLOWINGLY STUPID he was to let a biscuit slip away from his fingers.

And then he moved to the packet and picked up Biscuit 6. I knew this was the indication that he had ignored me and moved on. This meant that my role in his breakfast was nothing, and I would eventually go into the canteen sink without being eaten by anyone.

I closed my eyes, ashamed of my wasteful, pointless life.

A few moments later, I opened them. Someone was tapping me on my back.

It was Biscuit 6.

He had dipped Biscuit 6 inside to use it as a spoon to scoop me out of the glass. 

I never thought he could be so considerate. And I immediately regretted my attitude. How naïve it was of me to jump to the conclusion that he was ignorant!

As I pushed my half-dead, lifeless form on top of Biscuit 6, I cried tears of joy and relief. I hugged my buddy and thanked him for giving me a piggyback ride to safety.

Luckily for Biscuit 6 (and me), he was cautious enough this time to not keep him inside the milk for that long. If he had, I would have had to suffer the pain of bearing the weight of Biscuit 6’s soggy, muddy form on top of my own soggy, muddy form.

My piggyback ride on Biscuit 6 ended when he finally put both of us in his mouth. 

And as good as it felt to be tasted and chewed and swallowed, it was nothing compared to the feeling of sheer thrill of what just happened.

Today, as I sit comfortably with Biscuit 6 inside the stomach and watch as other biscuits come along, we don’t really remember how we were eaten and swallowed.

What we do remember is how Biscuit 6 saved my life.

And I will never be able to repay him.