Calcutta classic Paramount

This post is inspired by my friend Finelychopped's comment about retracing his college day hangouts. He mentioned Paramount. Paramount is an age-old shop behind College Square that sells sherbet. I have been there as a little portly kid with my father and remember none of it.
My college days were as far removed from College Street as possible and hence it never featured on my beat. My work also rarely took me to that side of town, and slowly it disappeared from my memory.
Till the comment by Finelychopped.
As luck would have it, I was going for a business meeting the next day and I had to drive past Paramount. My colleague is also a kindred soul in the sense that he also specialises in Calcutta food. In fact, he is a walking talking encyclopaedia of Calcutta Classics -- Putiram, Anadi Cabin, Royal, Chacha's, Dilkhusha, Allen, Mitra Café, Basanta Cabin et al. I am sure I am missing a few names from his list of expertise.
Having found a common interest, we planned to stop at Paramount at the last minute. Past Putiram, on Surya Sen Street, behind College Square is the best direction to Paramount. Around the corner is the famous Coffee House of College Street.
You'd wonder how a place can be in business selling only sherbet. Well, we were there on a weekday afternoon and the place was filled to the rafters. We entered, both forming a relatively elderly presence among the teeming college crowd.
We occupied a recently empty table, attracting a lot of stares for our semi corporate garb, sunglasses and touristy looks. Not to mention the few pictures I could take without being totally conspicuous.
My colleague seemed to know exactly what to order among the myriad choices ranging from things as mundane as green mango to as eclectic as tender coconut. I was under the impression that tender coconut is the house specialty. My colleague had a different opinion.
He insisted that I try a Malai as well. So I tried both. The cool sweetness of tender coconut came with some of the flesh of the nut. Though it had a bit of an artificial taste to it, there is no doubt it is a great refresher.
The Malai was a different ballgame altogether. Crushed ice mingled with a little milk and syrup, topped with what I can best describe as grated 'sandesh' and some dried fruits. The trick is to slurp away at the liquid, letting the solid part gather at the bottom, then have a go at it with the long spoon.
The 'sandesh' was I'm sure a reduced sweet variety as the whole package was not cloying sweet, which it could easily have been.
Refreshed with tender coconut, rejuvenated with Malai, off we went for our meeting. And the princely price for this experience? Around 200 rupees. That is around 3 dollars.
Who says happiness does not come cheap? And to boot, I found a fellow food lover in my colleague.