This is a picture of a traditional Indian tiffin carrier: an Indian-style bento box, if you will. Made of stainless steel, each compartment contains a different item of food. We Indians are fussy eaters and we take our food (and our siestas) very seriously. The tiffin carrier is a brilliant invention. Your food does not get gets mushed, the flavors stay separate and all the containers up stack nicely and are held together with a clasp. There’s even a nifty carrying handle.
Why are we talking about tiffin carriers on this blog? Because this blog is designed like one. I blog about different things here: tea, the writing process and my views on life. The subjects may seem unrelated but they all have something to do with my novels. My novel is the clasp that holds it all together. I have deliberately kept the topics compartmentalized because my followers are all different: I have writer friends, tea drinking friends and just kith n’ kin and old buddies who want to see what I am up to. I am not exactly tech savvy and you may run into detours and dead ends on this blog, so please bear with me. Meanwhile how can we put off lunch? So do peek into the compartments and see what’s inside. There are several ways to navigate this site:
- Use the CATEGORIES tab on the left to find a topic of interest.
- Check the Drop-down MENU BAR on top.
- The ARCHIVES will have it all chronologically
- Finally You can always do a SEARCH if you are looking for something specific
For the latest updates please follow me on FACEBOOK and TWITTER and thanks for stopping by! Cheers!
Your tea guzzling friend,
Shona
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of pictures used on this website. If you are the copyright holder of any uncredited image herein, please contact me so that I can either credit you properly or remove.
Please let me know if there is anything special you would like to see on this blog or drop me a line just to say “Hello.” 🙂
Tea Buddy 
Hi Shona
Yes, the ubiquitous tiffin carrier resides in my home too – in fact we have two of them, and when we go one of our “Indian” (actually Bangladeshi) Restaurants, we always take our tiffin carrier with us to be filled – both are four compartment carriers so we can have bhindi bhaji, brinjal bhaji, chana dhal, subji and moorgi curry, nans, puris complete the package! Naturally we have to have dhai as well to help the digestion!
We don’t have dhabawallahs in my hometown!
Very best regards from an old koi-hai!
Alan
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You speak my heart Alan. All this food makes me hungry. Long live the good ole tiffin carrier!
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Shona, you have an incredible way with words as you engage the English language beautifully and properly to represent your message. I am eager to read the rest of Teatime for the Firefly, and would like to know when will it become available for me to read?
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I certainly have a few of them at home; we used to carry that to the local restaurant to get buy dishes from our local “chap fun” (mixed rice) seller. Fond memories 🙂
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What is “chap fun” – Thai? Vietnamese? Anything inside one of these tiffin carriers is yummy!
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What a nice post! Hello from a fellow tea-guzzler. Will look forward to your future posts.
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Thank you tea-guzzler. Glad to connect with you!
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I love these carriers, they’re such a fantastic idea!
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I want one of those carriers! Lovely, post 🙂
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I want one of them! 🙂
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Hey Stuart, I just found out WorldMarket carries these. I don’t know if you have a WorldMarket where you live. WorldMarket also carries this other stainless steel thing that you find in every traditional Indian kitchen- the “masala-dani” – a round lidded container with tiny compartments (“katoris”) inside to hold your all spices. That is super cool too!
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That is very clever and I love the canister.
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Surprising how many people (non-Indians) say they like these tiffin carriers. They are so common in India and considered grannyish and so-not-cool. Styrofoam and McDonald’s are considered cool. May be they will make a come back. Thanks for stopping by my blog.
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hi,
I have nominated you for the versatile blogger award. click here to see your nomination:
http://jaajaabor.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/merci-merci-detre-ici/
have a wonderful day !
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Many thanks for the honor!
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