The Cherry Blossom Story

Skimming the till, a shoe polish brand, a luxe body cream, and an old school friend.

Cherry blossom shoe polish, sold in India under the tagline, “Did you Cherry Blossom your shoes today?” Photo by the author.

I was introduced to Japanese Cherry Blossom products by my husband’s classmate, Anand Sinha. He would come to our home in India from the US, and he’d usually carry chocolates for our kids and perfume for me.

I’d ragged Anand about how I preferred taking baths to “using perfume to mask odors,” and on his next visit he responded seriously by getting me a nice smelling body cream instead of perfume. “Useful and nice-smelling,” he said.

Japanese Cherry blossom body cream, (recent India purchase, bought on sale for rupee equal of $7.45). Photo by the author.

Cherry blossom, of course, is the Japanese flower that blooms in the spring. Sweet smelling and ephemeral, the white flowers set the scene for a million proposals and meet-cutes in books and movies out of Japan.

Why ever did the makers of shoe polish choose that name? They could have stopped at Cherry.

Oh well, God knows! Back to the Japanese Cherry Blossom story, and why I think fondly of my husband’s friend, Anand Sinha, who introduced me to the fragrant cream back in 2010.