What do Bangalore-based accessories label Chumbak and online language resource samosapedia.com have in common? They are both obsessed with all things Indian. While Chumbak is known for imprinting the quirkiness of the Indian way of life on everyday objects like mugs, tees or tins, Samosapedia gained huge recognition in 2011 as a fun online resource that documents colloquialisms and Indianisms from the subcontinent. By merging their passions, Chumbak and Samosapedia have created a new line of products called Things Indians Say. Launched two-weeks-ago, in select stores in Bangalore and online, on chumbak.com, the series borrows words and phrases from Samo-sapedia’s vast content.
US meets India
“The Things Indians Say is the next phase of our collection, Indian Series, that was launched one and a half-years-ago, says Vivek Prabhakar, who owns Chumbak wi th wi fe Shubra Chadda, adding, “We have been fans of Samosapedia for quite a while and when two of the founders came down from the US where they are based, we met up and decided to collaborate with them.”
Samosapedia’s huge repository of content was just sitting on the website, according to Prabhakar, and needed to be translated into a quirky visual style and that’s where Chumbak came in. Samosapedia, founded by Vikram Bhaskaran and Arun Ranganathan (both Bangaloreans) and Braxton Robbason and Arvind Thyagarajan, widely featured in the media last year, is a crowd sourced online resource and was the perfect dictionary of sorts for Chumbak to borrow Indianisms from to put on their products.
Think funny
“We chose the top 20-25 popular phrases from Samosapedia and decided to use them,” says Prabhakar. And what phrases are these? “A lot of them are actually silly things we would say as kids. For instance, ‘Shame shame puppy shame’ or when you get married and nosy relatives soon start enquiring if there is ‘Any good news?’,” he tells us. The collaborators have also created a YouTube video of the same name and ran a contest on its Facebook page asking for more Indianisms and got 1,200 entries within the first month. The winning entries will soon find place on Chumbak merchandise. The Things Indians Say collection is available nationwide. Priced from Rs 75 to Rs 250. Details: chumbak.com
