Childhood brands

I seriously want to go to Delhi sometime, I dont know if & when it will materialize... I want to go eat Crax, Hullygully, Uncle Chipps, Fun Flips... 

I never saw these in Hyderabad so I assumed them as dead brands. But I was pleasantly surprised when my school friends told me that they are very much there even today!

Great snacks, that ugly garlic-laden Lay's Magic Masala is nothing in comparison. 

I miss the predecessor of Lay's in India- Ruffles, which is a dead brand, it died sometime around 1995/96, when they rebranded it as "Ruffles-Lay's", and then as "Lay's".. But they changed the flavour, they added too much garlic & citric acid to it... And they pulled out the Pudina flavour... It was there for a while, branded as "Peppy pudina", I don't know why they pulled it out!

Everyone I discuss this issue with (all my schoolfriends actually got together & held a snack conference on my facebook wall ;-)   ) say that they miss Uncle Chipp's, they miss all those yester year products, my Delhi friends say that they're still sold in Delhi! So why do those products die or shrink (either it's not available, or it's not widely available)? I notice how madly crazily PepsiCo advertises its Lay's crisps & the "Kurkure" line, some of its flavours are actually disgusting, I don't know how they sell! But how come Pepsi doesn't market the "Uncle Chipp's" brand with as much vigour? I can only say, perhaps they acquired it to eliminate the competition, and now they'll slowly phase it out???? I saw Kurkure being sold even in Kenya and New Jersey, but no Uncle Chipp's even in Hyderabad!! I actually wrote to Pepsi Co on an email mentioned in their website, I was replied to that they don't export the Kurkure, they probably reached Kenya/NewJersey through illegal channels!! :-O So how come Uncle Chipp's doesn't reach through those channels? 

Some of this 'phasing out' is done for cost cutting probably? During my childhood, there used to be REAL chocolate in Cadbury's Eclairs, there used to be REAL chocolate in Mr.Pop-lollipop, a huge ball of toffee with a chocolate centre... Mr.Pop was a purple-gold coloured monkey with a bow-tie. The toffee had a papier-mâché stick stuck into it, thus appearing to be a large lollipop.. Sometimes after I was done with the toffee-chocolate, I used to chew into the stick until I felt the paper dissolve in my mouth :-) The purple-gold covering was made of metal foil, Parakka taught me how to make dolls by folding & tying a knot in the foil! It was silver on it's inside... A purple-gold-silver doll... 

But recently, when I noticed Mr.Pop in the stores, I realized he was dressed in a plastic wrapper, he had a plastic stick stuck into him, that regal look was totally gone. And the candy inside, it didn't have real chocolate. Then I realized that even Cadbury's eclairs didn't have real chocolate. The Mr.Pop story is surely about cost cutting, it must be so much cheaper to package in cheap plastic wrapper rather than fine foil! 

There was another brand I loved in my childhood, Binnie's chips, ammmmazing... That died too, way back in 1992/93, I don't know why it died, but I miss it... And I still remember it, "हमको बिन्नीस मांगता!", that was its tagline, that's what appeared in the advertisements. What we found absolutely thrilling about these crisps, their packaging had a transparent bit in the middle, and the chips would show through! Wow, truly enticing to my kiddy eyes ;-) Fun flips had this same idea later, its packaging showed a bowl, and there was transparent packaging just there, so that it looked like the bowl contained the corn puffs!

I remember when we were at Kantishikhara Apartments in Punjagutta, sometime around 1992/93, Parakka bought two packs of Binnie's for us, we were sooooo happpiiiee, we didn't want to share them with the neighbour's kid, we were so happy to get them out of Parakka, mom would have certainly refused to buy us junk food :-P Mamata stores used to hang out large plastic-weave baskets at their entrance, full of Binnie's & Uncle Chipp's! 

"Mamata Stores", it is still there, at Kantishikhara Apartments in Punjagutta, but there's no grandmother there, no Binnie's, no Uncle Chipp's, their baskets hang full of Lay's & Cheetos- both PepsiCo snack brands... and they sell the mutated Mr.Lollipop... 

All this makes me feel very old, it reminds me of how my mom used to recollect brands from her childhood, soaps, Tajmahal chocolate, Tajmahal icecream, God knows what... 

Soap reminds, I miss Breeze, that lovely pink soap with Rose fragrance... It used to not be available in south India, so Tittu used to take back some for her relatives!!

When mom used to tell me about dead brands from her childhood, I used to wonder why they died if they were truly as fantastic as her description. Now I know how they die inspite of being fantastic! 

O am feeling all old and nostalgic... 

I know what I need just now to get out of this mood, I need a pack of Uncle Chipp's, which are so far away and inaccessible!!!