Whiteware in India isn’t white!

After a bed, the next thing we looked for was a fridge. Fridges in India have a few differences from the fridges commonly available in New Zealand.

Bottom freezer models are uncommon. Even though people use predominantly fresh vegetables and don’t freeze things often, the most accessible part of the appliance is usually the freezer. LG makes one big, expensive fridge with a bottom freezer, and Panasonic makes a few, but they were expensive and hard to get.

Fridges all have locks. One reason is so you can lock them closed during transport, but mostly so that you can lock up your fridge while you’re out so your servants can’t open it.

Designed for power cuts. Many have big chiller blocks mounted in the freezer so they will stay cool for longer when the power goes off. Others have a special insulated bottle pocket, so you can at least keep a bottle of water cold.

They’re not all white! In fact, I don’t think I saw a white one. Grey is common, but they also come in black, pink, red and purple and very commonly have some sort of design on them. We had decided on an LG model that came in blossom pink or wine red, but unfortunately it wasn’t available immediately:

We ended up getting a very good price on a Panasonic single door fridge with slight damage (that Gopal was easily able to fix). At the same time, we picked up a washing machine (which are pretty much like New Zealand ones except more colourful and mostly without hot water):