A petti-full of your grandmother’s kitchen hacks, illustrated on postcards

Coimbatore-based Make Mail invites you to share kitchen hacks and recipes handed down by your grandmother, to get them illustrated on postcards for its Paati’s Petti intiative

On Saturdays in Panvel, growing up, we would make a weekly trip to the past. Just for my sister and me (as nosy then as we are today), the house would transform itself into a maze of trinkets waiting to be unearthed: some resting in the loft, some under the bed, and some in the back of closets. Daadi’s cupboard, generally out of reach, was especially enticing. On one such day, when she wasn’t around, we fished out an old box comprising thatha’s bulky frames, photos, coins, and a Pentax MX camera.

It is over a year since she passed away but these markers of memory live on; her own moonframes now give company to thatha’s.

Everyone has a petti like this at home, belonging to their grandmothers, believes Shuruti Vengatesh, founder of postcard service Make Mail. “A battered old tin which draws us to pry it open in hopes of yummy treats, only to find an eclectic mix of knick knacks — jewellery, photos, shopping lists, sewing kits, kohl, coloured tablets… Things that have no business sitting together!” says Shuruti.