The issue of tissue

I recently hosted a dinner in honour of Ambassador Park Soo-Gil, President, World Federation of the United Nations (WFUNA) and some of the representatives from other United Nations Association (UNA) member countries who were here on my personal invitation to visit the City of Joy.

The dinner was held at The Conclave where I host many of my events. While having tea, some of the diplomats praised the quality of the tea and it caught my attention that The Conclave had started serving Newby teas. It was only about three months back that I saw Newby tea sachets for the first time at Rajputana Sheraton, Jaipur.

A couple of years ago when I visted Moscow on an invitation from the Moscow State University of International Affairs, I found Newby tea sachets were served in many of the cafes. Unlike India, Newby brand was very popular in that part of the world that time and even today.

My association with Newby goes way back to 1994-95 when it so happened that the first few boxes of Newby teas were packed by me in Nitrogen pouches, in tin caddies and then in CFC boxes of 24 each. At that time there was an article about Newby Teas in London’s most prestigious pink daily The Financial Times and it was sold as a premium product by the first tele-callers.

After more than 10 years I saw Newby tea again at the Rajputana Sheraton and then at the The Conclave in Kolkata.

I also noticed The Conclave had changed the paper napkins or tissue paper to that of a far superior quality. Since the 25 Year Celebrations of The Conclave, some sweeping and pleasant changes have been incorporated starting from the crockery and cutlery to the events and even the quality of tissue paper.

I am emphasising on the tissue paper because most readers would agree with me that there is a huge difference in the quality of tissue / paper napkins served to us at the star hotels and those at a shop in the street .

On many occasions I have found that some of the eating joints and snack shops give very poor quality tissue paper and that you actually end up using close to a dozen to dry your hands or to get rid of the oil. The issue here is that the purpose a single good quality tissue paper serves is not possible by using scores of cheap quality variants.

Most of the wash rooms in the airports are full of cheap quality paper towels. The result, everyone grabbing out five to ten papers to wipe off hands.

I don’t understand the business or the economic.  But a common sense approach tells me that it definitely costs less to have a single quality tissue paper to satisfy our need rather than use scores of tissues which does not serve the purpose. It is simply quality over quantity. I think it is high time for us to become a little quality conscious follow it up in action. Why not begin with a tissue paper.

This weekend was an events galore in Kolkata. On Friday there were nine high voltage events including Leslie Lewis' performance at Hyatt, a play at The Park directed by Koushik Sen, a comedy show at The Oberoi Grand and the premiere of Birsa Das Gupta's movie Jani Dekha Hobe featuring Rupa Ganguly. As the date of the premiere coincided with her birthday she was elated. Rupa also did the first day's shoot of Ringo's movie and Srijit's next film Muharrt.

With Home Minister P Chidambaram

I missed all the events as I was in Delhi on Friday afternoon to attend the release of India Inside by P Chidambaram (picture) at the Long Champ Room of Hotel Taj Mansingh. The book is co-authored by Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam. Later in the evening, I attended the fashion show Ragas by Payal Jain.

On Thursday, I was at the Sarbari Dutta fashion show at ITC Hotel. Every year in Kolkata, this time of the season, the number of events are at its height. The disaster of the week was the Doon Express accident and Tendulkar getting out on 94. The news of elusive Kishan ji's death is also all over the media.

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