A sweet Christmas tale from Gogol

As soon as Suraj Lamani pipes melted chocolate into moulds, Rajat Borkar races off with them to the freezer to let them set. Twenty minutes later, the chocolates are laid on a table, where Elphinston Colaco and Joseph Rodrigues are ready with coloured wrappers. Once the chocolates are colour-coded — pink wrappers for the orange-flavoured ones, purple for the almond and gold for the rum and raisin — they are put in baskets and sent off to the next room to be weighed and packed into hampers.They are now ready for delivery.
Everything works with clockwork precision, but it is no Charlie’s Chocolate Factory, it’s no industrial assembly-line. Welcome to Daddy’s Home, a shelter for the differently-abled at Gogol. Beginning Easter and Diwali, the school starts accepting orders for chocolates, sweets and simple decorations and continues delivering them till Christmas. “Teachers and well-wishers help us out and we make a small profit in the end. We need every penny we can get to sustain ourselves,” says Fr Valmiki Gonsalves, owner of Daddy’s Home. He says demand for their products has been increasing over the years. “So much so that I transformed one of the wings of the school that was lying bare into a baking wing. Here we have an electric oven, a freezer, a microwave and all our moulds and supplies. We only pray every day that the power doesn’t go out. And God has been good to us,” he smiles.
As special as the products Daddy’s Home ships out are the people behind the consignments. Take, for instance, Josh Rodrigues, a slow learner, who dreams of becoming a chef. As he helps a volunteer at the Home, Irene Stevens, pack rum-doused fruit cakes, the oven timer goes off. Josh runs over and brings out the freshly baked baticas. “Aren’t we going to put rum in this as well?” he asks. Irene laughs and tells him, “Not everything has to have rum in it!”
He then goes off to double check the quantities of flour and butter in the short crust pastry that goes into the making of the date rolls. Josh says he likes baking brownies the best. “Look teacher, I’ll put the brownies into the packet, and you wrap them. Why should we both get our hands dirty?” he asks his teacher Yvette Almeida, as he slowly savours brownie crumbs, clearly his favourite part of the process. He offers a bite to 15-year-old Kevin Rodrigues, also a slow learner, who takes pride in ensuring everything is clean after the day’s baking activity is done.
This time the school’s making a total of 125 gift hampers. Margao-based Ian Menezes has also ordered his own quota of 2,400 Christmas boxes. “We have always been inspired by the amazing work done by Daddy’s Home and have tried to support the school in any way possible. Besides, the goodies here are delicious,” says Ian.
They might have begun well in advance, but the last three days before Christmas are a mad rush and all the children participate in the joys of baking and wrapping sweets. Some, in more ways than one. Gracy Medeira, for instance, takes a break from her hard work, and sneaks into the hamper-assembling room, hoping that a sweet or two might be in excess, and given to her. Then Gonsalves shows up. “No one’s allowed to be in here,” he says, as he receives a call on his cellphone. “Marzipan?” Gonsalves asks the caller. “We’re out of marzipan,” shouts back Irene, the genius behind the recipes that end up making everyone’s Christmas sweeter.
Gonsalves says the kids’ enthusiasm never ceases to amaze him. “In between morning classes, the teachers led by Savita Fernandes and the kids work on these sweet treats. The best part is that the children enjoy it. See for yourself,” he says, pointing out to Joseph, wrapping chocolates as he sways to the music on his cellphone.