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Brunch
|February 22, 2025
Why is India's souvenir game so weak? Even kitsch can be cool. Instead, we're stuck with tacky stereotypes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that no vacation is truly complete until one buys the perfect fridge magnet.
Flying in from Japan? Not without the light-up 7/11 one. Returning from the UK? Pack the Harry Potter snitch and the Canterbury Cathedral mediaeval goblet. Spain? Make space in the suitcase for matador-cape shot glasses.
But what happens when flying out of India? Laddoos, Darjeeling tea, and pashminas are wonderful. But you can't exactly put them on the fridge or workstation board. 
The trinkets we do have are terrible: Badly finished replicas of the Taj Mahal; tiger-paw-print keychains from national parks; generic moustaches and turbans; gaudy, oversaturated imagery of Rajasthan. It's boring, it's dated, and it doesn't say a thing about the India of today.
This story is from the February 22, 2025 edition of Brunch.
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