This Fan Is Always Going To Travel With Me

I spend most of my waking hours in Delhi, and summer weather can be oppressive here. If the heat wave (hot, dry winds locally known as the loo) created massive havoc in 2023 and 2024, lately, humidity seems to have shot up. It’s almost like the tropics, which I love, by the way, but not when they come to the city that I live in.

And so, I’ve been noticing a glut of these tiny little things lately. Clutched close by people pacing around in markets, on benches under trees in public parks and even open-air cafes. They all seem to have little plastic things whirring and buzzing in their faces. The humble little hand fan (and I mean hand fan only), which historically has so many interpretations and diverse avatars across cultures, has undergone a huge design and mechanism evolution.

I tried using one, too. The NUUK BFF Personal Hand Fan. Lightweight and shaped somewhat like a microphone, it arrived in a two-layer protection casing, the one inside carrying the fan, a microfibre drawstring case, charging cable, and instruction manuals. Customisation’s available, and I got my initials printed on mine.

The BFF is nothing like the little toy fans you see proliferating outdoors. It should be what Stanleys and labubus have tried so miserably at being. It is decidedly a design-forward accessory, a fun little doodad, with a clean UX and Scandi-style minimalism. The digital panel neatly displays the fan speed you’re at (there are a hundred, so you can go from 0 to 100), IceTouch activation when the mode is on, and the battery percentage you’re at. Apart from the fun colourways (Matcha Green, Tokyo Totti Candy, Lemonade Yellow and Blackpink Grey—what fun), I loved the fact that it had one slider button on the side, for everything.

One of its coolest features is the IceTouch. During my week with the BFF, I decided to test the mode by using it on my post-dinner walk on the terrace. It’s been a humid week because of the monsoon in the Capital, and activating the IceTouch mode made the airflow a lot cooler. When I took it inside, little water droplets formed on the circular central panel, which gets really cold as the mode is activated. Maybe even press it to your skin, like I did, for the occasional burst of hot-weather coolness that cold-water sprinkles are often known to provide in the Indian urban/suburban experience.

The BFF can be attached to a lanyard and worn around the neck for easy access, though I preferred keeping the fan, duly encased in its sleeve, in my sling. Though I am not sure how much I can walk around holding it against my face in the city, I used it on public transport and experienced an odd sense of refreshment after a tiring workday. For someone who reads on the go, I found it a great companion for a book—place it in the centre and it will not only keep you dry but prevent the pages from constantly getting flipped over.

Likewise, I was told it would be an excellent must-have for those into make-up (brownie points with your lady) as well as avid picnickers and poolside regulars. The mesh prevents hair from getting tangled or stuck. Its bendy neck allows changing the direction of airflow in one direction to 180 degrees, so place it any way you need to; the silicone base at the bottom allows stability when you place it on the stem. I often watch my favourite shows on my laptop, and the feature made it easy to direct airflow to my face without the noise impacting my viewing experience, since I don't like to plug in my earphones when I'm at home.

LOL, the BFF left me so spoilt with its kawaii energy (make it the Scandi version) that I almost missed having a soft bendable appendage on it that I could wind around my neck, clip on and sleep away peacefully at a bus stop in Thailand (I told you I love the tropics?). Yes, because besides everything else, this hand fan should never leave your waist-pack, coddled, of course, in its soft micro-fibre sleeve. It's great to travel with and will keep you fresh and well-fanned as you wait endlessly at the baggage counter at Charles de Gaulle or pass time while the staff takes its own sweet time to bring you the check at a restaurant stopover in Santorini. It has top battery life, after all, running for well over two hours at max speed—though mostly you wouldn't need the meter to go up to one hundred.

Everybody needs fans. Or at least one.