The handwritten delight !
Everyday routine life is no doubt dull and mundane. But it does get sometimes peppered by a few trivial little things and situations which usually go unnoticed. I guess what is needed is an eye to observe them.
As I walk to my office every morning, I see dainty little black menu boards neatly placed outside cafes and restaurants. These wooden framed menu boards are put up early in the morning listing out fresh breakfast menus for the day. A typical menu usually temptingly reads like ‘Fresh cranberry oats cereal with warm bagels, Peanut butter sandwich with banana pie and coffee or Cherry almond oatmeal with biscuits and gravy’.
Every morning, the black chalk boards are wiped clean with damp cloth and the menu is painstakingly written in a delicate cursive style with traditional colorful chalk sticks. The letters are usually written in red and blue with some catchy lines thrown in. One of them read like 'Roses are red, violets are blue, let us serve a hot healthy meal for you' !
Every morning, the black chalk boards are wiped clean with damp cloth and the menu is painstakingly written in a delicate cursive style with traditional colorful chalk sticks. The letters are usually written in red and blue with some catchy lines thrown in. One of them read like 'Roses are red, violets are blue, let us serve a hot healthy meal for you' !
These display boards to me are reminiscent of the black chalk boards put up in front of the small grocery shops tucked in the old market areas of the Pune city. They used to exhibit a carefully handwritten list of grocery items with their prices in Marathi. Or those charming little chalk boards hanging inside popular authentic Maharashtrian or Udipi joints in Mumbai.
I guess what made these ordinary looking display boards irresistible to me was the fact that the food items were thoughtfully written with crude simple chalk sticks. In my eyes, it somehow exuded an unmatched touch of simplicity and a homely feeling right in the middle of a super urban city like New York.
I guess what made these ordinary looking display boards irresistible to me was the fact that the food items were thoughtfully written with crude simple chalk sticks. In my eyes, it somehow exuded an unmatched touch of simplicity and a homely feeling right in the middle of a super urban city like New York.
Just like anything which is handcrafted, those black display chalkboards possessed a wonderful feeling of genuineness and an earthy touch. It felt so simply nice to see something so refreshingly plain and unpretentious.
So now every time I rush past these dainty black chalkboards proudly displaying their enticing menus, I cannot help smiling and reminding myself of the fact that some of the most delicately charming things in life are totally free and well, of course at times are handwritten !
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