the lost art of … stencilling ;)

September 15, 2008
 

wet birdGo on, look at that image carefully. Remind you of anything? No, this isn’t an old photo. It was taken at the Plaza cinema near Opera House in Mumbai just a few weeks ago. I was waiting in line with a friend for tickets to see “Singh is Kinng” when I noticed the sign and I was overcome with nostalgia for an age before computers, spell check (“Good lock!”) and printers, when all our signs for school and on our bedroom doors were painstakingly stencilled so they looked uniform, clean, and official. I still can’t believe someone at the cinema still does this! It’s so, so cool! I guess there are at least some arenas in life where a little effort is ok – and less expensive than an upgrade.

(Speaking of upgrades, my trusty Nokia 6233 died last week. I’m upgrading to a phone that has a slightly better camera. An expensive upgrade, but then I’ve never pretended to be anything less than lazy :D)

 
BombayDeshExperienceMoviesNostalgiaPhoto
 

13 Responses to “the lost art of … stencilling ;)”

  1. Pallavi says:

    so which one did you pick… ?
    What is good lock ?? πŸ™‚ Name of a movie ?? hahah !! Or its saying good luck in figuring this out.. πŸ™‚ LOL

  2. arunima says:

    I like the sleek monitors displaying the movies and ticket availability. πŸ™‚

  3. chhavi says:

    @arunima I like being able to book tickets online and look at the options on a screen, myself. πŸ™‚ But this was so … quaint. And I felt like I’m too young to be so nostalgic …
    @Pallavi, yeah, “Good lock” was their version of the Ranvir Shorey film “ Good Luck” but it applied either way πŸ˜‰

  4. manuscrypts says:

    i had an ‘innovative’ pencil box with a stencil lid πŸ˜€

  5. Sumit says:

    Will never forget the stencils. Used to enjoy using them. And for school projects, cannot forget the pictorial charts that stationers would sell… “Animals”, “Festivals”, “Trees”…”etc…. ok, I might be talking about when we were in class 4th or 5th.

  6. Stud says:

    What phone did you upgrade to?

  7. chhavi says:

    @sumit @manuscrypts I remember having to make a poster for the green house when I was a prefect in 10th grade. and about 3/4 of the way through I misspelled one word (Vegation instead of Vegetation!) I was so upset, I let it be πŸ˜€
    @stud I haven’t yet, that happens later today – the nokia 6500. I linked to it above. check it out.

  8. roop says:

    hey that’s cool!! u know wha tho … i was telling husband about your blog last night …. and how i liked ur name too …. and how if we named our kid chhavi, she could be teased as chubby hehe …. anyway, totally, we gotta hit it up in mumbai. i’ll be there this december for a bit! :)))

    plus i started a fotu blog recently http://roopsnap.wordpress.com
    obviously, yours is a lot better … i’ve only got photus i click and post up for narcissism sake hehe …

    pleasure to meet u! πŸ™‚

  9. T.O. says:

    I am sure the new phone has a great camera… considering the entire premise of this blog…

  10. T.O. says:

    You know this post brought back memories of engineering college… those long hours bent over drawing numerous sheet- and stenciling words like “plinth”. I am going stencil shopping tomorrow. Oops, day after.

  11. Kalyan says:

    Hi! This post took me book to school projects when one discovered the joys of stencilling

  12. shilpa says:

    oh gosh! this is Nostalgia 101… i remember stencilling from school days, had the whole box and stuff πŸ™‚

  13. Gopal Sea says:

    It’s a bit late for me to be commenting on this post but hey I’m all new here and I haven’t read all your posts which I intend to (in my to-do list) but hey how’s your new mobile doing. I think a Nokia N96 should suit your purpose.

Leave a Reply

 
WordPress Design & Development by Ekta Paneri-Gupta