Pink bowls & yellow bottles: Tupperware's journey from desire to necessity

Tupperware entered the scene in India in the late nineties and quickly infiltrated the urban kitchen

Back in the day, kitchens in urban homes looked quite similar. There would be steel utensils for daily use and ceramic ones — either all white or with floral patterns on the border — for when guests came visiting. Then came the eighties and the kitchen started changing. What was until then a purely functional, no-frills space had a new entrant: Melamine.

Melamine dinnerware positioned itself as a replacement for those simple steel plates and bowls. It added colour and patterns to everyday dining, and since it was “unbreakable”, you didn’t have to worry about it getting chipped