Pears Soap and Cyclopaedia

[To enlarge, click on the pictures, all in the post]

Many of us were fond of this transparent [actually translucent], oval shaped, darkish amber coloured, delightfully fragrant and mild bath soap. It was one of the very few soap brands, even doctors and paediatricians were safely recommending to patients esp. with sensitive skin.  Long lasting and hard, the fragrance filled the home when someone came out after a 'Pears bath'. How we enjoyed looking through the 'transparent' soap when it got thin!  How automatically we put it close to the nostrils to take in the smell when a new bar was opened for use!  'Pears soap' was not missed when the monthly list of 'essential items' to be bought was prepared.

Pears Soap is the world's oldest registered brand. Who made this beautiful soap? Andrew Pears. He had trained as a barber and had stepped into manufacturing cosmetics in 1781. Andrew was observing that people who used general cosmetic products were coming up with problems that resulted from the content of Arsenic and Lead in them.  So after experimentation he came up with a soap formula in 1789 with just a few ingredients like glycerin and natural oils that was gentle on the skin.  The first "Pears Transparent Soap" was marketed in 1807.  The virtues of the soap gained people's acceptance because it lived up to its claim as "pure soap".  'Pears' became a household name in the following decades for its pure quality and also due to vigourous marketing and advertising.  "Good morning, have you used Pears soap?" was one of several popular advertisement slogans used by Andrew Pears.

This Wiki link has plenty of information on Pears [Click]

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A thumbnail sketch of Pears.

1781 - Andrew Pears, a Cornish barber sets up business;

1789 - soap first produced and sold by Andrew Pears at a factory just off Oxford Street in London, England, the world's first transparent soap;

1835 - grandson Francis Pears joined the business to form A. & F. Pears;

1838 - Andrew Pears retired;

Francis' son-in-law Thomas J. Barratt, [often considered as Father of modern advertising] joins the company; under the stewardship of Barratt, A. & F. Pears initiated a number of innovations in sales and marketing. According to Unilever records, Pears Soap was the world's first registered brand and is therefore the world's oldest continuously existing brand.

1862 - production of the soap moved to Isleworth;

1865 - Francis' son, Andrew, joined A. & F. Pears Ltd. as joint proprietor and ran the factory; Thomas J Barratt ran the head office in London.

1910s - A. &  F. Pears Ltd. became part of Lever Brothers and production moved to Port Sunlight, Cheshire, England;

2011 - Pears soap is now made in India by Hindustan Lever, a company in which Unilever controls a fifty-two percent stake.

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Pears also started to publish a Cyclopaedia.  The first Pears' Shilling Cyclopaedia was published in 1897, it aimed to offer a taxonomy 'not of all knowledge, but of necessary knowledge'.  The edition from the following year, 1898, which seems to be the first the British Library has in its catalogue, is split into nine distinct sections: English Dictionary, General Knowledge, Dictionary of Synonyms, Desk Information (how to mix paint, postage rates, how to remove stains from books, the order of precedence of the Royal family, etc), Gazetteer of the World, Atlas of the World, Dictionary of Cookery, Language of Flowers and Medical Dictionary. Here, then, is a compact reference library in a single volume.
And this, the 1898 edition, my great grandfather, had purchased as early as 14.1.1899 for One Rupee.  Here is his account book entry:

Here are some images from this edition, which survived a bad termite attack on the bookshelf.  The paper has become very brittle.  I made some external repairs.

On the right is the 40th edition,  July 1931. Actually, it was published as and when they found demand for it, sometimes more than once a year. 

The first three pages.

The 'English Dictionary' section.

Termites can destroy libraries.

A page from the section 'Language of Flowers'.

There are several entries in my great grandfather's account books having purchased "Soap".  But he does not mention any name, like he mentions "Kesharanjan Oil" or "Eno's Fruit Salt".  So the brand he was bringing home remains a mystery.  It could be Pears, though there were brands like 'Vinolia' also at that time. That soap was also from England. 

My great grandfather's home library had two later editions of Pears Cyclopadeias, both printed in 1931, one in March and the other, July. One had survived with its jacket in tact.  [See picture] But his account book does not have any entry for having purchased these during 1931 or 32. It is also not known where they were sold.

Soap makers by appointment to Their Majesties The King and Queen [King George V / Queen Mary] and to Their Late Majesties Queen Victoria and King Edward VII.

The morning bath is baby's joy. With Pears he wants no other joy.

Pears' Soap is transparent because it is PURE! "It wears, but does not waste" ~ an ad of Pears, 1789.

It did not waste in my time also. When it became nearly paper thin, just before it could have snapped, it was stuck in the concave surface of the new cake.

The painting: St. Paul's from Blackfrairs Bridge, 1840, in possession of A & F Pears. 

3 million copies printed. July 1931.

"Bubbles" the painting [1886] by Sir John Everett Millais was purchased by Thomas Barratt in 1890, a famous advertisement for Pears soap.  See the soap near the shoe of the girl. In the 1931 edition.

Read the first two paras of the above. Interesting.

Section separators with interesting messages.

From the Atlas section.

Pages.

Section of Dictionary of Photography. Most of the jargon in it for the present 'digital' generation will be like Greek or Japanese!

In 2017, came the 125th edition by which time demand had gone down drastically and the publishers decided that the 126th would signal the final edition which was released this year, 2018. 

Pears' Cyclopaedia, 1897 - 2018. 

One tin box which my late aunt was fondly keeping is treasured.  

"The original glycerine beauty soap". 

This is a plastic freebie, a soap box Pears offered post 1995, along with a pack of three. 

The beautiful texture of Pears' soap, not too hard on the knife as to break nor too soft to stick to it was found by soap carving artists highly suitable for their crafts.  Around the year 1970, I remember having visited with my late aunt to the house of such an artist in Chamarajapuram's Balakrishna Road.   The best among his many displayed works I vividly remember was Krishna-Arjuna's chariot, a very complicated work of his, entirely from Pears soap, including the thin reins. It was somewhat like this wooden sample:

Millions of patrons found it hard to accept when Pears altered the original formula.  We were no exception and thereafter our Pears' priority dropped low. We are left to imagine and resort to olfactory memory to recall that 'heavenly fragrance'.

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Our Jackfruit Tree

Many houses in olden times had ample space around them for trees and shrubs. In the Devaparthiva Road house my grandfather had purchased in 1950, there was a big jackfruit tree, among other fruit bearing trees.  This jackfruit tree with its huge girth, large canopy of leaves and tallness gave an imposing sight. It must have been planted by the first owner who built that house around 1905 or it may have been there even before.  I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in such green environs and yard space to run around, even managing to play my solo cricket on the northern side. The jackfruit tree was the start of my bowling run-up. I would bowl at a single stump and wanted to see it fly, on hitting with the cork ball. 

 Colour pictures [click on them to enlarge] in this were taken as memories during 2007-8 when we had to leave the house to move to another ancestral house in Lakshmipuram.

Cricket in the backyard [posing]. The 'umpire' was the Jackfruit tree!

That was the space for cricket. The rose apple tree is seen. The extra room in the background was built later.

Here, my cousin has climbed to pluck fruits. The branches needed periodical pruning to prevent trouble to the neighbouring house and spreading too much.  

We kept an eye on the eyes of its spiky outer rind to check their widening and yellowing, a sign of maturity.  Its fruity aroma would start wafting in the air, a hint for removal.  But sometimes, crows and monkeys would find it earlier than us, with the opened rind making the aroma stronger.  A hollow sound on slapping the rind with the palm was also a guide for removal. When the fruit was low on the trunk, just slitting the thick stalk was enough. 'Thud'!  For those that were high, a rope was tied and lowered to prevent breakage.  It was kept there for a few minutes for the latex oozed out from the cut portion.  A huge one was a pleasing sight and the first of the season 

was tastiest.

Two cousins on the tree.  See the girth of the trunk up there! I could climb only up to a certain point. 

The sweetest things come at a cost.  This one, by way of sticky latex! Smearing castor oil or coconut oil to the knife and fingers prevented the goo from sticking. In no time, a passing cow stood at the gate having picked up the sweet scent from the jackfruit filling the air.

On the left, uncle is waiting anxiously to lay his hands while cousin cuts and mother already has hers on the sweet bulbs, also called fruit pods!  When I was younger, once I had gobbled up about 40 'bulbs'!  But this figure of 40 is an utter shame.  We had a relative in Shimoga, one Suryanarayana, a renown glutton. He was known to gobble up all the fruit pods in a medium size fruit, from his own trees!  There is a separate post dedicated to his eating exploits, here: [Click]

2009 picture.  Roadside neem tree in the foreground.  The big canopy of Jackfruit is behind.

The tree also attracted jackfruit thieves at night.  They would jump over the tallish conservancy wall [above picture] and got in, but would step on the dry leaves producing a rustle.  The alert neighbour, Acharya's shout on hearing that from his adjacent kitchen made the thief fled. In the dark, we dared to go out there to chase.  The dry leaves were used for the hearth in the bath. Sometimes the dark green, roundish leaves would be plucked and served 'kosambri' during festival -- they were no-plastic days!  The pruned branches of the tree after drying provided plenty of firewood, which mother or I would chop into suitable lengths and store.  The soft wood of the tree is suited for making musical instruments like 'mridangam' and 'veena'. The thick soft seeds are nutritious, finding use in cooking with 'sambar' or roasted on charcoal, both have good taste. There are numerous dishes that can be made out of this nutritious jackfruit.

This picture of the tree was taken from the road a few years after we left and before the new owner started building his big bungalow.  In the open space [foreground, where Acharya's house existed] also a hotel building has come up. The jackfruit tree seems to have survived but suffering due to damaged roots judging by the sparsely leaved end branches that could be seen from the road behind new structures. 

Till we were in that house we got our annual supply of jackfruit and there was no jackfruit tree in our ancestral Lakshmipuram house where we had moved.  But sometimes, one or two per season were sent by our kind neighbour Lady Shenoy, from their tree.  Irresistible temptation shoots when we see good fruits with the push cart vendor [below].  The parcel is taken home, washed and savoured, at times with honey. Seasonal fruits must be eaten!

 

  

Grape-like bunch, my friend's tree.  Neighbour's tree.  Another tree in a campus.

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Deepavali festival of bygone days

Every October, the time of Festival of Lights, Deepavali, takes me down memory lane.  Let me recount the scenario from the 1960s and early 70s.  We eagerly looked forward to one or two more holidays for Deepavali which followed the Dasara holidays of September end or October.  

We lived at Devaparthiva Road in Chamarajapuram. The first preparation almost a month ahead was stitching of new apparel for all male members of the family.  The female members would have had their new sets a month before for the Gowri Festival.  My father would take us to a cloth store and buy a long measures of cotton cloth. The children [me and brother] would get shorts [ಚಡ್ಡಿ] and same type shirts was common for all, like uniform, excluding my grandfather who did not need.  They were given to Tailor Narayana Rao whose shop was just a furlong away.  We preferred custom-made dresses.  'Comfortable loose-fitting' was our formula, which ready-mades never provided.  Narayana Rao was to deliver the stitched dresses ahead of the festival day, but he doing so was a rarity, which forced us to remind him several times.

Fireworks would flood the market a week prior to the festival. Initially my grandfather would take us to one of the temporarily erected stalls.  We would mostly buy the sparklers, flowerpots and their likes but only a couple of small chains of the smallest crackers which we called 'horse crackers' ಕುದುರೆ ಪಟಾಕಿ.  The items were given in paper covers.  The lot was divided between the two brothers, sometimes unfairly, for which there used to be little fights.

ನೀರು ತುಂಬುವ ಹಬ್ಬ. ನರಕ ಚತುರ್ದಶಿ.  The evening before, the ladies of the house would clean all the water storage vessels [mostly copper and brass, which shone] including the hearth vessel in the bath and fill with fresh water [24-hour supply then], which was customary. They would be decorated with religious markings from rice flour.  Mango leaves were pluck from the tree in the yard and a string of individual leaves neatly arranged side by side [ತೋರಣ] would be tied to the front door frame and the worship room door.

On the previous night, my mother would draw a lovely pattern of rice-flour rangoli in front of the main door, which lasted a week.  My grandmother, mother and aunt would get busy making various preparations, including food and worship for the festival.  It was a very enthusiastic atmosphere.  Recent picture of mother's rangoli.

We slept early, ready to wake up at 4 am.  During exam time, we needed to be shaken up from sleep, but now, we were awake well ahead, all by ourselves!

'Oil bath' [castor oil] for the male members was a very important ritual.  Mother would apply oil to the heads of her sons as soon as we got up. After half an hour, bath, one by one. My grandmother would have got up ahead of all of us and put fire to the hearth [hot water boiler]. New clothes were worn after bath.

Image from facebook depicts a very common joint family scene.  Castor oil on the head gave an awkward feeling, leave alone its smell!

We wanted to be the first in the street to burst a cracker, but always, some friend would be doing it already!  Then later he would boast 'Did you hear at 4 am itself?'

There used to be 'caps' - small red paper buttons with a tiny bit of explosive sandwiched in the centre.  Same was also available for toy pistols called 'caps', in rolls [all cracker images here, from web].  One or two of these buttons were placed between washers of a thick nut-bolt and thrown to the ground - the caps would produce a 'phat' sound.  It echoed in the street! 

When we grew up a a tad bit older and bolder, louder-boomers started to fancy us. The loudest sounding item in our lot was ‘elephant cracker’ with that Red Fort picture [see] on the packet. It exploded with a loud but tolerable sound.  In a bid to stretch the pleasure value and duration to the maximum, we did not mind the extra work of separating the chain of crackers to burst them one by one!  Even the cheap little 'horse crackers' were separated, tips of the wicks peeled and kept ready! The odd one that fizzed delighted us because of the fear shown when the wick caught fire from the incense stick!  Others watching would shout and say if the wick had caught fire or not!  Sometimes they used to fool us by shouting that the wick had caught fire when it had not, but not the other way, so that we could run away in time.  At times, the wick would fizzle in to the cracker so fast and explode before we moved away a couple of feet. 

Dawn would be still an hour away when boys and girls would come out and start fireworks.  There would be a break for breakfast at about 8 O'Clock.  The ladies in the house would have it prepared as the kids enjoyed the morning session.  Our  family priest Puttaramaiah who came daily for the ಷೊಡಶೊಪಚಾರ rituals would do the extra festival related rituals. He also came the following evening, as ಬಲಿ ಪಾಡ್ಯಮಿ Bali Padyami rituals were for the evening.  We enjoyed his sprinkling of holy water chanting 'ಬಲಿ ರಾಜ ಚಕ್ರವರ್ತಿ ಹೊನ್ನೋ ಹೊನ್ನೋ ' [Bali raja chakravarthi honno honno] with a raised voice and stopped with a cresendo.

We never bought either Rockets or Atom bombs.  Only once or twice I went up to the extent of ‘Lakshmi cracker’ and ‘China chuvva’ in very small numbers, only to 'compete' with friends in terms of decibel output!  They were the young brothers of the atom bomb.  The sound of a bomb fired by someone in a distant locality reverberated in the pre-dawn silent skies of Mysore, pleased me more than what was fired by me!   But I felt sorry for the crows that were then aplenty spending the nights on roadside tree branches.  Sparrows [now vanished from here] were found flying funnily, confused by the loud sounds everywhere.  Street dogs were never seen, nor the stray cattle, obviously rattled and confused too.

We were curious to know 'for how much' a friend bought his crackers. It was commonly inquired. If someone crossed the hundred mark, he would be 'looked up as rich'. For us two brothers, the expense would be hardly twenty five or thirty rupees at the most.  A few crackers, some sparklers, coloured match sticks, incense sticks [for igniting], flower pots, threadlike sparklers, ಭೂ ಚಕ್ರ and ವಿಷ್ಣು ಚಕ್ರ - Coiled tape - one for the ground and the latter which was risky, made up most of our list.

There used to be special sweet dishes for lunch.  Everything was prepared at home.  Grandfather stayed at home, watching us and enjoying the rest from his busy but organized routine. So was father. But out on the streets, it was a busy scenario, children running in and out, firing a cracker every now and then. 

I do not recall people exchanging festival greetings in a very showy manner like now!  But there was an exchange.

In those days the festival was not a nuisance. The sky did not choke much, nor did asthmatic people complain of smoke.  Things were in moderation, less people, less fireworks and they stopped by 11pm.  Haze in the normal sky was negligible and hence quite starry, except during winter fog.  Only on the two days of Naraka Chaturdashi and Bali Padyami the night sky would get smoggy.  Pollution was not a word on people's tongues like now!  The municipal sweepers the next morning would sweep all the paper debris left by the fireworks.  We used to look for fizzed out crackers and extract that 'explosive powder' from them and light a match to it to enjoy the little adventure, taking care of safety. This was more fun than bursting crackers!

Once my young brother had burnt his fingers trying to light a bunch of coloured matchsticks together. It was a painful experience for him from that one-time adventure.

In the evening also there used to be a small session of fire crackers.  Pre-dinner time was reserved for sparklers, coiled wheels and flowerpots, enjoyed by all the members of the family.  It used to be a great fun-filled time. Once a flowerpot exploded when I was lighting it. Luckily nothing untoward happened.

In the evenings for the entire duration of ಕಾರ್ತೀಕ ಮಾಸ [4 weeks] oil lamps in small clay diyas would be kept in pairs at the gate, at the front door and on the ತುಳಸಿ ಕಟ್ಟೆ [holy basil pot].  Some people made the decoration of lights more artistically, keeping a long series on the compound wall.
After all, this is a festival of lights, not of sound!

In 1970, we had been to the Dasara Exhibition [old building].  I think it was a day after the Bali Padyami. We were returning home on foot at about 9 pm.  There were a couple of fire engines and a crowd in front of a house in our street.  They owned a couple of cows.  Hay which they had stacked on the terrace had caught fire from some rocket which had landed on the stack.  Luckily only a part of the house was gutted and no one was injured. Damage was minimal.

Around 1977 or so, a lorry carrying a large stock of fireworks had caught fire.  It was passing on Jhansi Lakshmi Bai Road near the junction of Medical College Hostel close to where a lovely little building known as 'Bharat Scout and Guides'.  Only the driver's presence of mind saved lives or caused any damage.  He had swerved the vehicle, stopped it by the side of the road and jumped out to safety.

As we passed the teens, this thrill of firing crackers waned away slowly and many years later, it was time for nextgen to enjoy their teens.  Digital cameras had arrived to capture the moments.
I have to depend on memory and words!

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We used to buy and mail Deepavali greeting cards to some relatives and friends, well ahead of the festival, which too stopped with the advent of the e-mail.  But aunt Rathna has enthusiastically kept up this lovely tradition [Picture below].

Diwali Greetings from The Narayans.

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Deepavali Song - 1963. [Kannada Movie]