Tea Cup Inspirations

Melbourne-based designer Sian Pascale’s latest design is an interesting innovation on the kulhad chai. She sipped tea from a kulhad for the first time when she visited India last year. “The experience of drinking tea from an earthen cup and tossing it without any guilt offered a pleasure that is hard to quantify,” says the designer,who has come up with the ‘pi ke phut’ cups. Her design idea was to embed the cups with seeds of carrot,rocket salad,parsley and so on. Once they have been used,they need to be discarded to fulfill their potential. “I saw how these traditional cups were being replaced with plastic cups,disrupting the cycle of earth,clay,cup,earth. I wanted to present an alternative view on the consumption culture; something that was beautiful,yet functional.” The new kulhad not only retains its earlier utility,but also provides a beautiful design-based solution.

At 3FC Design Palace on FC Road,Pune,a replica of the tapri chai glasses sits pretty in the showcase. A similar theme can be found at the Either Or store,where chai occupies a special place on its glass shelves. “Our product designing students have been using a lot of such local motifs to present a cultural stand. In fact,these products have quite a big market abroad,” says Dhimant Panchal,director,MIT Institute of Design.

At the Bombay Store on MG Road,there are coasters with yellow taxis,notepads with women wearing big bindis,and there are keychains,trays,curtains,and table covers with images from the Indian streets. The humble chai tapri occupies a space here too. The typical image of the chaiwalla is captured on a fridge magnet. But for designer M K Gokul,niche stores in the country are going over-the-top with this imagery. “Yes,it was a brilliant idea,but now it’s overdone. These everyday images are bombarded in a very unconvincing tone. I am not sure if I want a very ‘on my face’ imagery.”