Tuesday 17 October 2017

Akshar Diwali

As I always says Calligraphy is not just an art of writing letters. It is that art form which can be easily mixed with any other art form and its beauty gets blend in such a way that the resulting creation is just Awesome. While celebrating Akshar Diwali at APSC, I came across such an extraordinary combination which was a beautiful experience for me.

Diwali is the festival of light, colors, lamps, rangoli , crackers , sweets. Most of these beautiful things were there at the spot. I was very excited on that day as I had to give my calligraphy demonstration later. Though I have got photo colors, brushes, palettes n all , Still till that moment I was unaware of what I am exactly going to present in front of all. But I too gets busy with the preparations like others. Some were preparing lamps, some were arranging light decoration. I came forward for my favorite hobby i.e. making rangoli. Let me tell you something about rangoli.

Rangoli is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘rangavalli’. Rangoli is an art which precedes sculpture and painting. It is both an auspicious and a preliminary necessity in any religious ritual. The two aims of drawing rangoli:
  • Beauty
  • Auspiciousness/Spirituality
Rangoli art is an adornment or decoration that has different names in different states of India. Rangoli designs can be simple geometric shapes, deity impressions, or flower and petal shapes (appropriate for the given celebrations), but they can also be very elaborate designs crafted by numerous people. The base material is usually dry or wet powdered rice or dry flour, to which sindoor (vermilion), haldi (turmeric) and other natural colours can be added. Chemical colors are a modern variation. Other materials include colored sand, red brick powder and even flowers and petals, as in the case of flower rangolis. The materials used are easily found everywhere. Therefore, this art is prevalent in all homes, rich or poor.

At that moment I prefer doing a simple rangoli in only white color dry powdered rangoli with just few calligraphy strokes which came out a beautiful creation. 



With this rangoli in front of door, suddenly an idea emerged in Sirs mind. We took a black colored card-paper and stick it to the bottom from all the sides. Now it was a great base surface for making rangoli. With only white color I started drawing random letters on the paper. You see and tell how was the calligraphy and rangoli combination looking. 



After my demo there were 4 more demos by my friends. Everyone gave Diwali wishes in their unique styles. Avadhut used Gothic and black letter fraktur style while Deepa gave Diwali wishes in her favorite uncial style. Both these are different styles of roman letter writing. With the Mangesh's demo in Telugu and Panjabi we all get to see Diwali wishes even in Indian fonts.  






After few days, I tried the same combination of letters on colorful rangoli in my office Diwali function and got a good appreciation.

-Rupali Thombare