Fair & square

Mona

A car on your mind, or a water feature for your sprawling lawn, pure Phulkari dupatta for a wedding or the latest kitchen appliance – well, all these and more are available at CII Chandigarh Fair 2016 at Parade Ground-17, Chandigarh.

Divided into few neat sections—auto, finance, real estate, food and fashion, the fair offers a neat walk too. One side belongs to cars – big and small, old and new. Toyota Kirloskar Motors offer the new range of Etios Platinum and Liva, the new variants of their existing models offering a lot of innovation and safety features. The stall attracted a huge crowd to have a glimpse at the newly launched models and also win numerous on-the-spot prizes.

Then there are bikes and accessories; you will find a range of eatables or gift packs. There are clothes too, Indian and western – not a huge collection though. Knickknacks to add a new flavour to your abode or for gifting claim the major share here. Rajasthan and West Bengal are the official partners with The Tribune as the media partner for the fest. Here are top five that caught our fancy:

Tea time

How about moving from the staple regular green tea? Black tea is the buzzword and it comes in flavours like peach, strawberry, ginger and lemon. Dilmah tea starting at Rs 200 a pack offers a neat range for tea connoisseurs, and it’s not the only brand offering variety. There is Te-A-Me too with flavours like cranberry-apple, orange-ginger and strawberry-cream.

All that colour

Dream catchers anyone? Doesn’t hurt to step into the unreal and wish for a miracle. Colourful feathery trinkets make for a lovely gift for kids and at Rs 150 a piece is not a bad deal at all.

Garden life

Like its previous outings, Wonderland garden accessories offer cute curios which are hard to miss. Cute hedgehog eating apple flower pot; colourful, fat birds on a bird bath or a dog in a tote pot, the stuff here that starts at Rs 200 is certain to bring an edge to your garden space.

Traditionally rich

Now how about lending a helping hand to a cause too as you continue some merrymaking? NABARD-sponsored stalls let self- help groups bring the craft made by rural women to the forefront. Be it for a gota patti work, velvet stole or Phulkari suit sets in brightest of the colours, do check out this pavilion. Just to give you an idea, the fancy stoles are priced at Rs1,600; the Phulkari shirts Rs500 onwards.

A Thai treat

Now that Thailand is here and Diwali calls for some over-the-top decor, the showy lamps are almost hard to miss. Equally tempting are their fabulous hair accessories.

The list is almost never ending – masalas and dry fruits from Afghanistan, marble decor items from Agra, ragi aata from Uttaranchal or a variety of artificial jewellery, if you are ready to walk and pay anything from a few hundreds to lakhs, this fair will take care of your needs.

On till October 24