Brands I Grew Up With

Dalda- There was a shortage of this cooking oil most of the time.

Binny- Many clothes were made from this cloth brand.
Bata- Shoes invariably had to be Bata. Learnt much later that this was a company started by a Czech immigrant into the West.
Cadbury- the end of desire.
Chiclets- the first chewing gum that we had.

Tata- The trucks and buses we saw were either Tata or Ashok Leyland.
Godrej- They made locks and cupboards. Life's valuable possessions (few then) used to be under their lock and key.
Camlin- Oh, the excitement of a new compass box in school!

Taj Mahal- This was a Udipi restaurant in Hyderabad.
Kamat- and this too.
Modern- Mummy, mummy Modern Bread-an iconic ad.

Philips- Listened to marvelous songs on the Philips radio through the ages..Binaca Geet Mala, Bhoole bisre geet, Aap hi ke geet, Jaymala, Chhayageet, S. Kumar's ka Filmi Muqaddama, and many sponsored programs. Murphy with the iconic Baby ad was another big radio brand.
EC TV/Uptron TV- at home and at IIMB respectively. On the latter, watched in 1983 as India lifted the Prudential World Cup from the West Indies' hands.

Abids- High Street in Hyderabad for shoppers.
Chowpatty- The only one, in Mumbai. Bhel was made famous by it.

Ambassador- Travelling in it was rare, and we felt like royalty when we did travel in it.
Air India- The Maharaja was only aspirational. No air travel for the middle class, was the norm.
Jeans-any brand- The ultimate in cool.

Brands I Grew Up With

As a user, the first brand I recognised was Philips, most likely. Our radio was Philips, though Murphy was probably around at the time too. The next one that I became aware of was Colgate, which had a dominant market share, followed by Binaca and Forhans.

When I had to wash clothes in the hostel, it was always the blue Rin detergent bar that would be the preferred choice. The restaurant brand was the Hilton (not THAT Hilton) cafe at the corner of Osmania University campus. (there was a branded women's college called Andhra Mahila Sabha pretty close by, and I was aware of that too).

We had a club branded as Yellandu Club in the mining towns we lived in, and I spent a lot of  time playing Badminton or swimming there. Theraja is a great author brand in Electrical engineering, and we worshipped him.

Among the Hyderabadi hotels, Kamat and Taj Mahal were the most frequented for their south Indian meals, followed by Alpha or Garden for their biryanis. The theatre brands were awesome in Hyderabad, with Ramakrishna 70mm being the pick of the lot, till Maheswari and Santosh came in. Royal in Koti was also a good theatre. Sangeet was very good for English movies, with an upmarket crowd.

My first camera was a Pentax, though I learnt photography on a German folding camera my parents had.

Cars- I drove a Datsun, a Ford Granada (huge) and a Subaru while in the U.S., and a Premier Padmini and a Maruti 800 before moving on to an Esteem later (still drive it).