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Capturing the quirky and colorful set of cultural influences that surrounded our childhood.
Mysore Sandal Soap!
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A bottle of Rooh Afza is a bottle of concentrated goodness. Filled with water lily and rose extracts, raisins, fruits and a whole lot of other exotic goodies. It’s best had with cold milk and one ice cube. This was often served to kids during birthday parties.
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Holi. the festival of color. This s a great video by Variable. "The world is fascinating. People and cultures inspire us. Sadly, the fast paced lifestyles of our generation result in many not taking the necessary step back to soak in the existing world around us. Our goal with this film is to help viewers further appreciate and take notice of the beauty in life & culture that lies within our world..." Cant wait to show baby S Holi in India!
by Variable
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Vishu! Vikram and I would be woken up by nani at 4am , our living room would be decorated like this picture and had a huge mirror in the middle. With confusion and slight irritation , Vikram and I would be asked to then spit in nani's hand , make a wish into the mirror for the new year , wish the family and go back to bed. We were always amused and actually loved this little ritual we had at the Bhaskaran household. Thanks to Nani!
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prasad kaladi Happy Vishu!
Oh i did !!
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Taanya Thanks Divya.. this board is hilarious... Made me laugh.out.loud at all the memories of growing up in India. Looking forward to more pins here.. pls keep it going
Suraiya Khan OMG........u page is wow.........i can relate to all...n somehow it seems....I'M NOT ALONE....tks
Kristen Masucci My daughter Ali does this all the time!
Khaled's Didi. @Madhavi Jagdish and I were talking about 90's music last week and I remembered to pin this.
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Love this illustration. If you haven't checked out Samosapedia , you should. This site actually reminds me of my childhood in India with words like "bucket bath" , "sidy", "crank calls".
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Sadhashivnagar, Bangalore in the early eighties. Today it's all huge houses and apartment buildings, and you can't see that much sky. Photo by Clay Kelton
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imitu india wow ! thats so much different from what it is now ! we currently are based from very close to sadhashivnagar and not a single plot empty !
British Council: Every major city in India has one of these. They had the best libraries and you would go here to scan books and articles for your 10th grade "project." You had to be a member and membership was fairly expensive. I would sneak in!
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Vik B from google.com
Ayue Zakaria hey, Divya :) I work at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Unfortunately, we closed our library 3 years ago
Milkman: Yes we had milk delivered every morning by a milkman who would show up at 5am and drop off milk outside the door. When we went clubbing (see goa trance), the goal was to come home before the milkman came!
by Verry India
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Vik B from flickr.com
MAGGI
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Tara Kelton from google.com
R Wind Dayal Having it
vouchersmate every home fav
TYPEWRITERS: Even in the 80s they seemed anachronistic. But we had one lying around, collecting dust. The sound of the keys is something we all know well from waiting in line at government offices and banks indefinitely.
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Vik B from theatlantic.com
Puttu, Plantain and Rice! This is unique to us malayalis. What an amazing combination.
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Vik B from google.com
Lakshmi Devan i can never get enough of this :)
Anna John I never thought I'd miss eating this, but now that I'm 3,000 miles from my Mom...
HAM RADIO: Ham radio clubs become popular in the late 80's. The intersection of socially awkward Indian nerds and older creepy uncles were members of "ham radio clubs." They would sit in their rooms for hours and communicate with the Russians.
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Vik B from google.com
MILLIPEDES: This may have been just my weirdo school, but we used to catch millipedes, store them in our crazy mechanical pencil boxes, then dig tracks in the sand for them to race, and then race them - using sticks and paper to keep them on track towards the finish line. We also did this with little frogs, but they got squashed in the pencil boxes sometimes.
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Anthony Koithra from nps.gov
ELOCUTION COMPETITION: Indian parents love making their children participate in elocution competitions. Some poor kid like the one pictured typically memorizes a poem/chapter from an English author they have no connection with and gets up in front of everyone to recite random poem/chapter verbatim.
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Vik B from google.com
PENCIL BOXES WITH F-ING BUTTONS: Awesome super high-tech pencil boxes with buttons that would make sharpeners pop up, pencils pop up and calendars bounce. The more advanced ones could be engaged in battle with each other. You could only get one of these if you had a foreign connection.
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MODERN BREAD: The default brand of bread in most homes was Modern Bread (or "maadun" bread). Most cities also had a particular little bakery that someone in your family (usually an uncle) was a big fan of which sold a softer, much better bread that would be bought for special occasions and sometimes Sundays. Days when this special bread showed up were awesome.
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Vik B yes! and when you bought the special bread, you would buy it freshly baked and uncut.
Tara Kelton this modern bread is incredibly bad. its like cardboard. do you remember that other bread that would come with those small red and green sweet things in them. im not sure what they are called. that was also pretty gross. india has progressed a lot in the bread department.
Anthony Koithra It was calkled TUTTI FRUTTI
Mike Nandra Anyoe remember Wibs bread?
CAMBLEE BOOCHEE or, according to google, "kambli poochi". these bugs were the bane of our childhood. a single prick from one of their spines would cause incredible pain and agony. also a great word to say using your scary voice, a close second to BHOOOOTH (ghost).
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Tara Kelton from google.com
Vik B 5 thumbs up
Annu Singh oh how could i forget about this little monster! i happened to press my entire palm on to one of these when I was little. oh the pain!
BANGALORE CLUB: A great part of our childhood was spent at the Bangalore Club. Swimming, tennis,high-school romance, borrowing books from the library all took place here. Highly overprivileged but we can't help but look back fondly at this idyllic location in the middle of a bustling and chaotic city.
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Vik B from google.com
Rock Machine and Rock'n'Roll Renegade. Well before all that Indus Creed nonsense.
this was also one of our first "grown up" concerts in bangalore. how embarrassing.
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Divya Silbermann (Bhaskaran) MLTR!!!
the first concert in Bangalore - i think part of the Boney M band played. our parents were so excited about this concert.
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Bukola @ Mindbolt Design Studio They were incredibly popular in Nigeria too!
NEEDLEWORK CLASS: all the girls had to do needle work once a week. I thought this was a complete waste of my time, but Im glad that I can stitch back buttons.
by Shandeh
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CANDY CIGARETTES: These were super cool since you kinda felt like an adult!
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Anthony Koithra Yes! Its funny how much the Phantom keeps popping up - the most common brand of these in Madras was Phantom Sweet Cigarettes - http://blog.aditto.inf...
BLACK FOREST CAKE: the only delicious cake in India.
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Kamal Gaur This doesn't look like BLACK forest... unfortunately! :P
vouchersmate Hahaha... Chocolate truffle has taken the market now! :)
The first pizza in India - Pizza Hut. This was actually a special place to take your family or have a romantic night with your partner. Very upscale and fancy!
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Jen Wentz Meador This board provides a neat peak into a different culture!
FANCY DRESS COMPETITION: instead of Halloween we had fancy dress competitions. Most schools in India had uniforms so this was quite a treat to come to school in a "fancy dress". Kids looked totally ridiculous.
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MANGO DUET: In the summer this was great. Mango on the outside and vanilla on the inside (hence "duet"). The afternoon sun would melt the ice-cream and eating mango duet always meant contending with ice cream on your hands and clothes.
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Vik B from google.com
GODREJ ALMIRAH: Everyone had one of these "almirah's" which means cupboard. Made by the famous Godrej company. Mothers would lock up their jewelery in here and this also provided for the only full length mirror in the house.
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VIDEOCON WASHING MACHINE: Washing machines came to India in 1987 or maybe 1989? The first washing machine was made by Videocon and the ad went like this "It rinses , it washes, it even dries your clothes - VIDEOCON WASHING MACHINE!"
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TAMBOLA: The overlap between septuagenarians, anglo-indians and the bangalore leisure class would play this game.The game was always run by an old man with a handle-bar mustache who took great pride in saying "two little ducks...22" or "two fat ladies..88' or "Sweet sixteen - she's lovely - never been kissed"
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Vik B from google.com
HORN OK PLEASE: Behind every truck, there is this sign. Why? Did we really need this sign to tell us to horn? I found a great wiki entry with many competing theories: en.wikipedia.org/...
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Vik B from google.com
Tara Kelton "use big dipper at night"
Tara Kelton "speed thrills but kills"
Tara Kelton and india is the LAST place we need to encourage people to horn!
Sharwari Tilloo "boori nazarwaale tera mooh kaala"= "one with the evil eye may black be your face" (literal translation My personal fav- "sau mein se 90 haram phir bhi mera Bharat mahan" = "90 out of 100 are rascals, even then my India is great"
ABSCONDING CULPRITS NABBED: Every Indian newspaper uses these three words in every article about robbery or theft - the "culprits" are always "nabbed" while "absconding" with untold quantities of valuables.
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Vik B so true!!!!!!!!
Anthony Koithra Dont miss the awesome mustache.
PARACHUTE COCONUT OIL: Lots of kids put oil in their hear. Pretty nasty especially in the summer. Overwhelming preponderence of parachute use with the malayalis kids.
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Vik B from google.com
GOLDEN JUBILEE: If we love our "felicitations" then the golden jubillee is where it all goes down. These are typically held at big halls, involve some cultural programming, speeches, music and lots of bad microphones.
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Vik B from google.com
YONEX "Baddie" Racquets: Since I grew up playing tennis, badminton was a natural extension. "Baddie" is played everywhere and Yonex was our racquet of choice.
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Vik B from google.com
FELICITATION: Indian's love being "felicitated." Typically this is a "function" where some person is "honored" for their contributions to the village/school/local community center etc. Felicitations involve much pride, honor and garlanding. People rarely question the merit of the award. Felicitations are felicitations!
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Vik B from bellevision.com
ONIDA DEVIL: The centerpiece of television brand Onida's marketing campaign - a green-accessoried devil for the tagline "Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride"
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Vik B amazing
Sharwari Tilloo If I''m not mistaken, this one is the second devil. I think there was one before this guy
Vik B Also its said - neighbors envy, VONERS pride.
Anthony Koithra I'm sure you're right - this is the only onida devil picture i could find though - I remember the ad and the costume being quite elaborate.
Divya Silbermann (Bhaskaran) Anthony!! you and i think alike. I was going to pin this last night and my computer batteries died with too much pinning.
Holy crap! Fat polissmen AND Brittania biscuits!!
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MARIE BISCUITS: The original. I'm thinking we may need a whole board just about Brittania biscuits.
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Divya Silbermann (Bhaskaran) YES!! with tea
BRITTANIA BOURBON BISCUITS: If you've eaten them you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, go home and think about how your life has gone wrong. Enough said.
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The Ideal Indian boy poster. He has all the good habits like 'saluting parents', helping the elderly cross the street, praying, joining the NCC and also having a bath in his underwear.
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LIMCA beats 7up hands down
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Tara Kelton from google.com
Rohini Chojnacki my favorite!!
Divya Silbermann (Bhaskaran) yes totally!!
Sangeetha Venkatraman still drink atleast one bottle everytime I go back to India
Jeshu P remember Thumbs up!??!
Puneet Chawla *Thums up.. and Gold Spot!
Growing up in a half kerala home, we got the best Achappam's during Christmas and other festive holidays. definitely reminded of my kitchen and Nani making some delicious Kerala food.
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Amruta Prakash ah this reminds me of my childhood too...especially before Diwali when your mom would bring this home :)