artnlight

I am just so touched by all the responses on the MORA give-away's comments section. Somewhere unwittingly a chord has been touched. I have resonated deeply with so many of the comments and some of them so much that I could have written those very words. Its made me re-think my reactions to tradition and what one defines as tradition. It has inspired me to look back into my archives and pull out  visual records of my interaction with tradition across the past couple of years. 

From someone for whom traditions primarily meant rules, do's-don'ts and therefore resisting it, to helping my mother with her firm adherence to it with more and more ease and acceptance with each passing year, I think I'm making my peace with where I come from.

This post is a virtual hug & is dedicated to each one of you who graciously and genuinely wrote your selves and your hearts out for the MORA give-away. 

These pictures are from different times from different places. They are not linked, but all of them are symbols of tradition and rituals of different sorts. And since I'm a south Indian that part of Indian tradition is what is mainly represented.

Pooja or Puja is an offering / prayer to a deity or God/goddess. More explanation here.

The Aiyappan Puja.

This is the same as the picture above this. Looks so different because during the Puja, all the lights in the room were put off & the lamps were lit. This picture is taken after the puja, and after the lights in the room came on.

This is recently shot, after I knew in my head that I want to post about Tradition.

Kolam - am so delighted to find wiki links to most of these traditional words :) 

Tuesday is the last day for the Mora Give-away, so all interested, please do remember to log in your comments. And if you are having trouble doing so, just shoot me a mail saying so. We will see what we can do :)

Sound Horn Please is a blog I've loved to read. Initially because there was something very real and authentic about the way Divya Rajan picked up interesting new entrepreneurs and told their stories. The posts were always well researched and comprehensive. Then I read about MORA on her blog. That spun off a whole new series of events, from my contacting Ritika to do a post on MORA, to my going to Nagaland and meeting Ritika to forming of a very special bond between the two of us. For this in my head I will always owe Divya. Paralelly Facebook happened to all of us and from not being sure if we wanted to put our faces out there for the world to see to gingerly beginning conversations to sending long mails to each other, before I knew it there was a genuine fondness and friendship that had already bound us. 

Naturally, for the Anniversary celebrations of this blog I had asked if she would want to do a guest post. Which has now turned into a post-Diwali give-away on her blog. 

Whats the give-away? It is one of my Artnlight Trays. It is the 1st time I'm ever giving away one of my products. All details of how you can win it are on Sound Horn Please. The bonus is you get to read a  beautiful and honestly written blog.

What needs special mention are her pages 'Featured on SHP' 'Shop Indian' & 'Favourite Indian Designers'.I have not seen a more useful or diligently put together list of online and offine shopping destinations to shop Indian. 

About the give-away, everyone can participate, this is not restricted to only those living in India. I'm curious to see who it will finally go to :)

It is Diwali. Everyone has strung up lights. Everyone is making sweets and snacks. I don't know if it has to do with the passing years or if I never felt much excitement about Diwali. Or any festival for that matter. Festivals are the one time I've felt more like a spectator than a participant. I wear the festive clothes become happy to meet people, but somewhere inside I don't quite get it. Maybe I'm just a little weird. I woke up happy today, and lit lamps with mom. Who is highly excited about everything and one of the most quietly (but firmly) enthusiastic human beings I've ever seen :) :) So everyone is wishing each other. And all is well and the good cheer is contagious :) And i want to celebrate in a way that has meaning for me. I know all of you love Mora Sarees and Ritika Mittal. I do :) 

This is for all of you who faithfully read this blog despite the erratic posting. Really. Thank you.
For sticking with the blog and with me.

So we will have a Mora Giveaway for Diwali :) 

When Ritika and me were doing the Mora shoot this blog had turned 5, and we were discussing it, so I was telling her about the give-aways I was planning & she said - even I want to do a give-away on your blog! How do I do it? I explained and both of us promptly got busy with our lives. I didn't push for it because i knew her life was crazy busy, there was just too much happening and like me she is a one-woman army. But before she left Bombay, she called me and said we have to meet & I have to give you the give-away! 

I always smile when I think of the few times I have spent with Ritika, full of mad laughter, high voltage, but always at home. Whether we are dancing through the streets of Kohima, whether we are bumping along in a rick in Mumbai or sharing our deepest thoughts over a quiet meal. Always full of light. Sometimes bright, sometimes blinding and sometimes muted but very warm. So here's celebrating the festival of lights with a MORA giveaway.

Sharing a few behind-the -scenes pics from the Mora Shoot.

We were bumping along on our way back from the shoot & I saw this. This has to be one of my fav pictures of Ritika :)

Coming back to the give-away. 

What do you do to win this gorgeous MORA Stole?

Just share with us in a comment what tradition means to you and what you do to keep it alive in your life.  This give-away is not limited to only those who live in India. Everybody stands a chance & everybody can comment :) :) 

The last date for commenting is 20th November 2012. Spread the word and comment away :)

I can finally share this with you. LimeRoad.com the most exciting online shopping destination is LIVE. And Artnlight products are available on it!! Its really exciting for me to be part of such an exciting website. I love the way it looks, how beautifully everything is shot and  how lovingly it is designed and laid out. Like a publication that takes itself and its readers seriously.  Sharing a few spreads with you so you get an idea of what I speak of. Its like entering an online mall where everything from beauty to fashion to decor to food is available at a click. What I like is there are brands as big as Rocky S and as blingy as Paris Hilton to solid brands like Allen Solly to much lesser known but fun & funky names like Kya Cheez Hai to Diana India. But all offering amazing products. You are warned, you will spend quite a bit of time on this website. 

ARTNLIGHT on LIMEROAD.com

 

Personally I have been dealing with them for the past few months and I have to say its been an amazing experience and I have been the fortunate recipient of their professionalism, but more than that their willingness each and everytime to meet me more than half way. You can see the labour of love that it is. The team at LimeRoad.com have worked their butts out for months on end and the results are there for all to see. Do enjoy this website & shop to your hearts content. This is a direct link to my page for those interested.

 

It was such a joy to see my products styled and presented in this way. 
And you will see a hear button on each picture. If you like a particular product you can click it. You can put together your own scrapbook. Have fun with it :)
 

Do shop away and do spread the word :)
This is the LimeRoad FB page. You can like them if you so wish :) They also have an app on Facebook.

Had to quickly share this gorgeousness with you. I met Deval Ambani and saw her products first hand last year when we were neighbours at the IMC exhibition at the Taj President. I loved her idea of using mirrors to reflect lights and what graceful shapes she has had them designed in. 

 

 

The charm is that all the mirror pieces can be mixed and matched to make a new
arrangement each time.

Just enough bling to glam up your home this festive season.

This is the Obliq FB page, feel free to 'like' it :) And more interesting is her
MY SHOPO page where you can see more of her designs & buy them at the click of the button.

For all those in Mumbai, right now, these are being sold at OBLIQ, 27, Juhu Supreme ShoppingCenter, 1st floor, 9th Gulmohar road, J.V.P.D, Juhu, opp CriticareHospital. November 11th is the last day, 11am- 7pm. Or can even call Deval directly to place an order on 9967013844. Or write to her on deval@obliqdesigns.com

Happy Shopping :)

End of October saw a really exciting event happening in this city. GoodHomes Magazine had just announced it 'GoodHomes for Art - a public initiative'. Which meant the magazine initiated and engaged in many events and conversations around art, met artists, met art bloggers, created experiments in partership with artists to observe how the common man reacted to art. I had the happy opportunity to be invited to the art bloggers meet and that's when i finally met Ronitaa Italia Dhanu, the very effervescent and articulate editor of GoodHomes the decor magazine. I say finally because I had earlier been invited to a GoodHomes blogger event in the city but couldn't make it because I was out of town & had also read about the Blogger Bonding event in Bangalore. I knew I will meet Chandan Dubey, who was the only person i knew there. 

We were an interesting mix of artists, art bloggers, art curators, gallery owners and art magazine editors. The discussion started with why when it came to art there seemed to be this whole mass and class divide and why art seemed to be perceived as something only a certain section of society engaged with, went on to how the whole art initiative by GoodHomes came to being, to how the way art was interpreted sometimes became more of a wall than a bridge between the viewer and art. The things I will be gladdest about was that if it were not for that afternoon I would not have met so many interesting people in one go and actually had an engaging conversation with them. I know for a fact that I will definitely meet most of the people who came there because all of them were so real and came from a place of genuinely loving art and all the work they did came from that honesty. Let me introduce you to the people.

Young and articulate and enthusiastic Jai Ranjit is a self taught artist who lives and works in Mumbai. Jai enjoys photography and writing, and is part of several art and photography groups in Mumbai. He is also part of some really interesting website projects of which I can't speak here as yet :) Suspense. there is some excitement brewing here. Will keep you posted. Meantime you can see some of his work on his blog here.

Ornella D'souza worked with the magazine Outlook for 5 years and wrote the blog art umbrella before she decided her life must be more interesting than it was. She is now a freelance writer and is doing a course on art appreciation that's making ideas fly out of her head at a pace she is finding tough to keep up with. She is quite amazed by how different each day in her new life is. All this I know because I got chatting with her after the blogger meet up.

 

And because I have a thing for leaving you with a happy picture in the end...

It was mom's birthday and we had friends over. Its been a long time since we had so may people coming  and preparing for it really felt like a festival. And with Diwali round the corner, we got out the lamps and polished them up. And remember this post I made about Paper Source? I had picked up a few gorgeous papers from there & got them framed just for the lark, as an experiment. And since they came in the last minute I didn't get any guy to drill holes & nails on the wall to hang them up. So they were just propped up on the floor, I was cringing, but what the hell, all those who came over were close friends and this was no sit-down dinner. All of us had a great time & the next morning, I just loved the light through my applique worked yellow curtains, and after ages I took pictures of my home. 

 I have a habit of turning double bedsheets into curtains. That ensures I have a lot more interesting options to choose from.

 

 

 

 I'm in love with the Fish print & can't get enough of it :)

 Till I went to Paper Source, I didn't know wrapping paper can be SO pretty. So really choose very lovingly before you go ahead and frame them.

There's nothing like zooming in to catch the details. This is a very small part of the living room & yet its amazing how the focus makes it look like it is part of a traditional room. Photography really puts the power into your hands, to tell it like you want it. The chatai tray is from my trip to Nagaland.