I was like a kid on Christmas pulling all of the interesting items out of the box. My Secret Santa even put together a letter explaining each of the items:
The Bandhanwar fits perfectly across my front door and I’m saving it for the next time I have friends over. I’ve already worn the stole (it got loads of compliments!) and eaten the snacks (the soan papdi is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted - I love the texture). Next up is putting up the Madhubani painting, which is my absolute favourite part of the gift…
@kaustav The post office gave you away, so I don’t need to guess who put together this beautiful gift. Thank you so much! I really love each and every item, and appreciate all the thought and effort that went into it.
P.s. When I was organising your gift, I wanted to send something from South Africa, but it turns out sending parcels from SA to India requires a mountain of paperwork, including proof of residency from you. That’s why I ended up using Amazon. I hope you didn’t have to jump through too many hoops sending it the other way.
Yayy, I am really that glad that the gift reached you safely and that you liked it.
The soan papdi is one of my most favorite things to eat. Madhubani art form is amazing and I am always at awe at the amount of work that goes into making such intricate designs.
Kantha is something very local to our region, so much so I have grown up seeing my grandmom stich quilts with this method.
For a red-tape heavy country like India, sending international parcels is surprisingly easy. Just need to fill-up a pretty simple customs form listing the contents of the package and hand over a copy of some form of photo-ID.
I have also just received my secret santa gift! :D It had arrived a couple of weeks ago at my PO box actually, but then it took some time to get re-routed here. :)
