An ashtray with attitude

The problem with most of what you see on the shop shelves is that they are so dreadfully earnest "" so a glass will be a glass, a bottle a bottle, with only colour, slight deviations in shape or some frilly embellishments to tell them apart.

Products with attitude, products that have a fun element to them, probably the only ones doing these is Happily Unmarried. A venture by two ex-advertising hands, Rajat Tuli and Rahul Anand, Happily Unmarried is all about fun, quirky odds and ends for young people, just starting out in life, with money "" but not too much "" to spare.

You get the point just looking at the things "" the ashtray shaped like an Indian pot, a set of "his and hers" underwear fridge magnets, the doormat with the funky messages ("Beware of the wife", "Egos and shoes outside").

Even better are the names "" "Meg Peasurer" (you guessed it...a peg measure), Love Handles, Unreal Nariyal, Cha-cha-cha, and so on. But best of all are the prices "" starting from a paltry Rs 100 and going up to Rs 1,300. Happily Unmarried products are available at the company store in Goa and Surajkund, besides a few scattered outlets in the metros.

Point of sale

Play'n Speak, a venture by Poonam Bir Kasturi, Bangalore-based NID graduate and founder of the Shrishti School of Design, was the result of this product designer's engagement with issues of "intense urbanisation, rampant consumerism, ecological degradation, stress and feeling of isolation".

Her conclusion "" "If a product laughs at you, you will not mind as much as you would if your friend did." Play'n Speak has a range of products with quirky names like Mood Mirror, Age Mirror, or the stone (paperweights?) with the stop, pause and play signs engraved on them, or pointer, which "you get so used to seeing what it's pointing at that you miss the point".