Things Always Remind Me Of Childhood !!!

  

 COMICS: Series published in India, which featured (among more common characters such as The Phantom and Mandrake,Nagraj,Chacha Coudhury,Billoo,Pinki,) the distinctly the skintight turtlenecks.

 READERS DIGEST: Indians not only subscribe to readers digest but also hoard old copies. Many Indian homes will have a room with lots of old readers digests collecting dust.

 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.

 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.
 LIMCA beats 7up hands down.
LEHAR PEPSI: When Pepsi and 7-Up first came to India they were brought in through a partnership with local firm Lehar - while initially everyone dutifully included the Lehar Prefix when referring to the drinks, it eventually became passe to say it.
the RASNA GIRL - rasna was the drink and the this played on DD all the time. her line was " I love you Rasna
 MANGO FROOTI:...fresh n juicy! It's the old Green cover Package.
PARLE-G: I loved dipping these in tea.
 This drink called "ROOH AFZA" was a red concentrate that you could add to water, milk or just drink plane. It was extremely sweet and popular at birthday parties.

 BRITTANIA BOURBON BISCUITS: If you've eaten them you know what I'm talking about.
 ROSE CAKES: We got the best Rose Cakes's during festive holidays.
 POPSICLES: after school! Kaala khatta was my favourite flavour
 KULFI ICE CREAM. So easy to make these at home. my favorite flavor was pistachio. yum

 COMPLAN: This was a nutritional product that most of us took. The face of the company was "the complan boy." His sister was a "complan girl."

 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.
 REYNOLDS PEN: The venerable "rennolds pen" - mainstay of school when fountain pens became just too damned inconvenient to use.
 MILTON WATER BOTTLES & LUNCH BOX: Part of every schoolkids arsenal - along with a giant backpack and a lunchbox - essential for dealing with hot days at school.
 FOUNTAIN PENS: A right of passage for all of us was the switch from pencils to "fountain pens." Fountain pens had to be re-filled once a day which meant we all carried little ink bottles. This also meant lots of white uniforms with spilled ink!
Camel Geometry Drawing set. This is how we became so smart in math! haha.
the famous black and red Natraj pencils. I really wanted a paper-mate instead.

STREET HAWK: One of the few English shows on Doordarshan back in the day - essentially Knight Rider with a motorcycle. Every kid in school would do their impression of the "The Man. The Machines. Streetawwwwwkkkk..." 

DETECTIVE KARAMCHAND: with his assistant Kitty. Karamchand's thing was that he would eat a carrot after solving a case. Again, screened on DD.

BYOMKESH BAKSHI: the Sherlock Holmes of Indian tele. Extremely understated and highly intellectual. For those days, I actually think it was a pretty good detective show.

EK TITLI...ANEK TITLIAN: This was a video called 'Ek titli' (one butterfly), an attempt at explaining the importance of unity to children. It used to be screened in every possible break on DoorDarshan, the Indian National television. It's an elaborate animation of a girl telling her younger brother a story in the form of a song.

VIKRAM AUR BETAAL: Children's program containing stories from Indian mythology that aim at teaching kids life lessons. However, most of us were really creeped out by "betaal," a vampire like character who would hang upside down on a tree in the center of a cremation ground!

 In second grade our teacher mrs. matthew introduced TOM SAWYER - the book by Mark twain. But apparently this book was a TV Serial.

RAMAYANA ,MAHABHARATA, SRI KRISHNA, OM NAMAH SIVAYA: 100 million people would watch all the episode series originally aired weekly on Doordarshan on Sundays at 9:30 a.m.

 Milkman: Yes we had milk delivered every morning by a milkman who would show up at 5am and drop off milk outside the door.

ELOCUTION COMPETITION: Indian parents love making their children participate in elocution competitions. 

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. 

 

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/... 

 

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. 

 

ONIDA DEVIL: The centerpiece of television brand Onida's marketing campaign - a green-accessoried devil for the tagline "Neighbour's Envy, Owner's Pride"

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. 

 

P.C Sarkar Jr. India's David Copperfield. He is well respected for having "vanished" among others, the Taj Mahal and the Amritsar Express. 

 

JUMBO CIRCUS: Sad thing is, I never went but everyone else did!

 ATLAS CYCLE: If you wanted a cycle, you had one option:ATLAS.I remember i have tried a lot to break my cycle,as i never liked it,but it prooved to be a strongest cycle.

FIDO DIDO - the cartoon in the 80's that was used to popularize the drink 7 up. It was super cool to have a Fido Dido T Shirt!! 

 

FIRST INDIAN RAPPER BABA SEHGAL: This guy was awesome. Big in the 90's. His song 'Thanda Thanda Paani' (a remake of "Ice Ice Baby") was pretty catchy. 

 

POWER CUTS/LOAD SHEDDING/HOMEWORK: Unexpected power cuts at night were a regular part of our lives growing up. Homework was done in candlelight. 

 

During the monsoon's , when the rain would flood all the sidewalks and ditches, we'd make paper boats and float them on the water. good fun. 

 

the plant "Touch me nots" i was fascinated with these! 

 

CRANK CALLS: Since we had limited options for entertainment, making prank calls (we used to call them "crank calls" for some reason) to unsuspecting people in the phone book was a very acceptable way to spend ones saturday afternoon.