मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… . . 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Used to get it at Poona! VENCAT thats the flavah!...a Dalit Family Once Ruled the Global Condiment Industry

 On Feb 29 2024, I saw a tweet of William Dalrymple on the subject of curry. 

It had following picture, an ad c1955.


I started wondering what Vencat was. After some googling, I found this article dated August 2023 in The Hindu written byA.B. RAJASEKARAN. . 

Vencat is "Vencatachellum Madras Curry Powder", "the preferred brand of spice at Buckingham Palace over a century ago."

"Long before Indian companies ventured out to foreign shores, one Indian brand was already truly a global brand. It ruled the global curry powder and pickles industry for close to 100 years. The brand, Vencatachellum Madras Curry Powder, is owned by a company founded by an Adi Dravidar, a scheduled caste, from Madras.

The brand name was synonymous with Madras Curry Powder the world over and continues to be fondly remembered in many countries including the UK and Australia long after its heyday."

"P. Vencatachellum Condiments registered their name, ‘Vencatachellum Madras Curry Powder’ along with distinctive label with peacock as a trademark in the UK and Australia in 1894. P. Venkatachellum’s products were made from the finest ingredients sourced from India and abroad using proprietary recipes. Curry powder was made of red chilies from Odisha, turmeric from Chittagong, coriander from Kerala, and couple of secret ingredients."

"It is an incredible feat that such a large global company was built by a Dalit family in the 19th Century. This is an example of the entrepreneurial spirit of Dalits. The fact that the trademark Vencatachellum is still recalled around the world speaks volumes about the goodwill the company created."