Made with cow's milk

"Made in China" I used to tell my friends, back in a time when this was not supposed to be derogatory remark. I was talking about my pencils and erasers that we had picked up during our tour of Hong Kong, being the son of an Indian Airlines' employee definitely had its perks. It almost created a class system in my class, people who had the nice, white erasers that left the paper clean and smudge free and those who used the kind of erasers I mentioned in the previous post.

In those days I enjoyed standing out as much as I now enjoy blending in. The journey of life does transform you... sometimes completely.

About today's title, when I was in primary schoool, some of the kids also used to say that the white erasers are made of milk and I felt it was completely idiotic. Years later in Bombay when Prashant compared paneer to Staedtler, it didn't sound all that stupid after all.

26th March 2011

The luxury of a good eraser

You can pick up good erasers at a price as low as Re.1. When I was growing up, things were different. In the name of erasers what we used to get as kids were those small blue-green colour erasers that were quite unpredictable. Some of them would leave green marks on paper, some would smudge what you were trying to erase and yet others would just disintegrate. I remember the most famous and probably the best among those used to be "Sandow". Now we have all the imported ones like Rotring Faber Castell and Staedtler widely availabale in India and some of them at very affordable rates.

Funny how what was a luxury at our time can now be taken for granted.

20th March 2011

Its not a fair fight

Just a day before Holi Manu broke his water pistol. Lucky for him that it broke a day before Holi and not on Holi itself. So we went to market and picked up a new one, actually it would be wrong to call it a water pistol, it's more like a water cannon. Raghav doesn't stand a chance in this fight. Does he?

We missed the holi of Bombay which definitely used to be more enjoyable with a drum full of water, a big water hose and a gathering of 200+ people. Here it was a much quieter affair and I'd say Manu was lucky to find some company.

17th March 2011

Staedtler ki bhaji

Paneer is popular among Punjabis, especially who are vegetarians. In Maharashtra it is not so popular. When I used to take a paneer dish for lunch to work, especially if it was cut in big square chunks, it used to remind Prashant, my art director, of Staedtler erasers and "Staedtler ki bhaji" was a name given by him.

The previous image is a close up of this same eraser and those yucky white thingies is the eraser dust.

15th March 2011

Worms?

Can you figure out what this is? Actually the clue is right there in front of you... besides its not very tough.

13th March 2011

Pink Dahlia

It's not only vegetables that grow in the kitchen garden. Manu and Mira are fond of flowers as well so we have a few of those as well. As of now, only half of the garden is used. Once the easonal things are removed, it will be mstly empty, leaving plenty of rooms for flowers.

12th March 2011

Out of the box

A lot of emphasis is put on "Out of the box thinking". Have you fully explored what is inside the box first? Once the initial "WOW" of out of the box is over, what will allow you to sustain yourself? The interiors or the exteriors of the box.

2nd March 2011

The welcome song

Last year we went to this ceremony as Manu graduated. This year, we were invited because Manuraj was a participant. Here he is during the welcome song.