Of dervishes and whales

IN STORE

The shops are full of interesting knick-knacks for the home. But the office, where you must needs put in long hours to get in the moolah, is sadly neglected. Just once in a while you'll come across a few imaginatively designed and exquisitely produced office "accessories" that are a joy to see and use.

For example, these "Dervish" tape dispensers and "Whale" staplers in tinted aluminium, in bright red, blue, yellow by Mukul Goyal. Guaranteed to liven up the drabbest of Mondays, they're available at Rio Grande, The Next Shop and other such high-end stores in the metros. (Also check out Goyal's funky line in book-ends and pen-stands.)

Knife through

The Wenger Business Tool is a Swiss Army knife but there's more to it. This collector's oddity from Wenger, a well-known brand of made-in-Switzerland pocket knives that goes back to 1893, also has a flat-clinch stapler and a punching machine that can cut through 20 sheets, besides all the regulation blades and scissors and files. Price "" a cool Rs 5,260!

A little bit of silver shine

The Frazer & Haws beauty on the left is a bookmark, in sterling silver. Indeed, silverware manufacturers are quite pushing the fad for silver with little, affordable odds and ends in the luminescent metal like this bookmark, sundry card and memo holders, and so on. They make great business gifts too.

On the table

But you won't find too many of the expensive, aspirational brands offering this kind of stuff, except perhaps Art d'Inox which does a nifty line of card-holders and table alarm-clocks.

Then, of course, there's FCML (in pix below) which has this range of products "" a set of scale, rubber cover, sharpener, tape dispenser and stapler in steel, which come in their own zipped case.

Looks like something a school-going kid would give an arm and leg for, but what about a high-flying executive type?