Forgot your pencil?

Remember the time at school when you forgot your pencils back home? So scared the teacher will yell at you, weren't you?

``Teacher Teacher....4got my pennsilll''...you had to pout your lips for an innocent look exuding apology and pray she'd let you off a little light.

Or begged your bench-mate, often your competitor or enemy of life in school!

It's true that children move on to pens from pencils at flying speed these days. But what about, if the morning rush made you leave behind that homework pencil on the table rather than tuck into your pen-pencil box or pouch?

Here's a super solution that left me zapped. It was when I went to an elementary on some work near home recently.

Am already singing in my head, ``Pencil bekaamma, Penciluuu!'' (Want pencils?)

A pencil vending machine! Wow! It's time cities in India decided to use these large scale! I wasn't sure if this is the in-thing though. I am still not.

``Do you know this is the only such machine I have seen my entire life?'' remarked the official at the school office that evening. She did not know much about it either.

It works similar to the coin-operated washing machine that I used at my earlier apartment laundry room.

Push a 25 cents coin or a quarter of a dollar on to one of the slots and push the flexible piece below the slots in. I haven't tried it myself, but the structure is similar.

No idea what the brand of these pencils is, but I loved it anyway.

Image flash: our petti-kadai stationery stores. Natraj pencils. And the like. Am imagining if in future, we'll have vending machines for erasers, rulers and papers too in schools.

Traversing cities here, I find umpteen vending machines for Coke n Pepsi kind of soft drinks, snacks - mainly fried chips and wafers, machines to sell detergents, coin vending machines (you insert a note and get coins in return) and even machines that vend tampons and sanitary napkins at Women's Restrooms (read toilets).

But pencils? First time. It's out-of-box cerebral cells at whacky work here.


Pictures: Radhika M B

Cost of a Ganesha

Just how would you react if you walked a mela by the riverside of a foreign shore, and found among all the stashes of locally made goods and colours, a slice of your own desi wares?

Ditto the way they were displayed at our craft fairs and village santhes I mean.

I found the brass danglers that make up for our desi wind-chimes or doorway decor and got pulled towards them like to a magnet. This was at the Bear Mountain State Park's Fall fest. Or Oktober Fest.

This Sun God doorway hanging, with the Om hanging, make up for a lovely grab in our craft fairs and decor stores! What a welcome sight! To see home out here! Bandni dupattas getting converted into table cloth! And even Evil Eye charms (though I doubt they have an Indian origin).

Curious, my friends and I check out the price - in the range of $ 20, which is, if you calculate `multiplied by 50', about Rs 1,000 for Sun God chime alone. Ouch. I guess the would have been in the range of Rs 200 or Rs 300 back home.

We do not check out the price of Rudraksha mala or chain. But the little figurines of Ganesha, Buddha and the agarbatti or incense stick stands, are so so inviting!

Tough luck. Ganesha (the blue green one) here costs $ 34 which is Rs 1,700 or more! Agreed that even in our cities, we've such statues that cost sky high. But the size here simply does not justify that cost! The incense stick stands, are at $ 20 each. Everything else that I ventured to check about was in a similar price range.

The man at the stall looked every bit like he had gone to India for a holiday and decided to put up whatever he picked up as a souvenir hunter, on a yard sale! Isn't that a super business opportunity?

Travel to the place you like, pick up the stuff, not as a businessperson, but a tourist, and sell them away anyways!

I've seen Pashmina shawls acquiring the fancy name of Cashmere that I bought at Rs 100 or Rs 150 at Delhi's Janpath Market go here in malls, for $25. At times, even $50.

This bit leaves me in a dilemma. Shall I feel happy for the fact that our culture tingles the interest of people in other countries, or sad that they profit so much from it?

Or is it simply an H4 wife ranting because she is not allowed to sell? And earn money for herself?

Picture Courtesy: Radhika MB
If you need pics without watermark, write to: radiscribe@gmail.com

See related posts: Writing on Sand

Uh Oh!

Thinking aloud. Why do most Indian housewives refuse to discard their 20 year old sewing machines that they would have hardly used 10 times in all those years?

During home makeovers and moving, the toughest thing ever is to convince the quintessential woman of the household to discard that unused four-legged piece replete with its table-top dome-box, the stitching wheel and the pedal lever. After every move in their new households too, the machine remains an artefact, except that you cannot admire its boxed up beauty.

Bucket thinking this

Water woes of the last one month have spurred many bucket thoughts in my head.

When there is no water, I end up moving the water-full bucket from the bathroom attached to the kitchen, to the Indian style toilet through the passage.

Quick search on google with some ...wishful thinking of course. I googled `bucket with wheels'. Voila.

They exist! Whew! And to think of, our country with so much water trouble has no buckets with wheels! Our women (yeah its mostly women) end up carrying buckets from public taps to homes, from one room to another at homes, and many a time, from homes to backyards. Interestingly, for all the reproductive hassles they go through, they are...expected to do it?!

Wonder why no one thought that ubiquitous bucket with wheels under it could be a business idea! After all, we have travel suitcases that have turned a billion dollar industry from nothing!

My eco-possibility hunting head also thinks aloud if there are other materials than plastic that could go into making those containers. That is...just a thought.

Upping brand value? Learn it from hawkers

Research into brand value improvement and better marketing strategies for products runs into millions. Forget boardroom debates. We've got to take lessons from hawkers out there on the street.

Wanna bet? Try it. But picture this before you decide.

Smart Sale One:
A bunch of flowers costs about Rs 5 outside a temple, or at your neighbourhood market. A coconut you bargain for anywhere between Rs 5 and Rs 8. As for a pair of incense sticks, you cannot dream of paying more than one tenth of a rupee. Six mini-pieces of the cheapest of sweets would come at Rs 10 for 50 grams, if you calculate the cost by weight. In the compound of famous temples, YOU, the devotee must shell out more to show your devotion to God. Call that fleecing opportunity. But marketing brainwaves too.

Siddhivinayak compound stalls price a steel-plate pooja thali at Rs 30 for four flowers (yeah, count them), and Rs 40 for a few more. His coconut is the tiniest you could find in a wholesaler's godown. The vendor expects you to pay only when you return. And when you return, you give him back his steel plate. Would a devotee risk inviting God's wrath by forgetting to return it?

Congratulations, you've just paid Rs 40 for a few flowers, some state sweets and a coconut.

Smart Sale Two:
Have you as a die-hard urbanite fallen for berries that sell at berry carts anytime? I mean the jamuns, gooseberries, and the likes?

Now a normal cart guy would sell you these at a decent Rs 5 for maybe less than 100 grams wouldn't he? Yeah, it would mean his packet is a rough cone made of old newsprint. On the up-hill towards Elephanta Caves after you've gotten off the jetty, you'll find a countable few berries cleverly thrown into tiny plastic sachets slightly bigger than a shampoo sachet. Or one fifth of a raw mango sliced thin - into five pieces. Sprinkle in some salt and chilli powder, and that fancy looking shampoo-sized sachet sells for Rs 5!

Of course, transporting costs of these precious things from mainland Mumbai would be passed on to you too! Even so, calculate the profit margin. Its just five times the cost of ...err...`manufacture'.

Still, you can take heart because such fleecing is anyday less hitting than when you pay ridiculous tens and hundreds at cinema multiplexes - all for some spiced corn and a sandwich. Or Rs 20 for packaged water that should cost you Rs 12.

Remember, you don't protest when they frisk you like you are some potential terrorist. And as if food packets are explodable bombs, they don't let you carry them in! At least, these hawkers sweat it out in the sun.