Diwali - Festival of Lights

Traditional earthen diwali diyas

Diwali is the biggest festival of India, much like Christmas in the west. On this auspicious day, people light up diyas and candles all around their house. They perform Laxmi Puja in the evening and seek divine blessings of Goddess of Wealth. The festival of Diwali is never complete without exchange of gifts, diwali gifts are presented to all near and dear ones and the unprivileged.

People lighting candles at a Gurudwara

The exact day of the festival is decided by the position of the moon. According to the Hindu calendar, Amavasya or 'no moon day' is considered as the perfect day to celebrate Diwali. This dark night comes after every fortnight and in the month of Kartik, it marks this festival of lights and diyas. As per the English calendar, the festival generally comes in the month of October and November. For all Hindus, the festival holds an imperative meaning since the festival is reckoned with Lord Rama's victory as the King of Ayodhya after his return to the kingdom from 14 years of exile along with his wife Sita & brother Laxman after killing the demon, King Ravana. Diwali is celebrated by lighting diyas and candles to drive away the darkness of Amavasya.

The festival is celebrated for five continuous days, where the third days is celebrated as the main Diwali festival or festival of lights. Bazaar's are decorated and entire streets and neighbourhoods are lit up. This diwali eve I happened to walk through the humongous crowds doing shopping in the by lanes of old Delhi. Here's is a sample of some of the sights, wish I could add the sounds and smell too.

Bazaar in Old Delhi

Idols at a roadside stall

Fresh marigolds

Jewelery shop lit up

Mithai - traditional Indian sweets

Setting up shop - Done

The last couple of weeks have been like mad, there is just way too much happening all around me. I had completed some designs and fine tuned them and was now all ready to get them in my shop and start selling. Suddenly the studio space thing came up and I just went for it and left everything asides for a few days.

Besides all this happening at my end there is a lot more happening at home as this is the festival season here in India. You are supposed to shop for everyone, visit friends and entertain a lot of friends, family and other folks who visit you to wish you for the holidays. I have simply not had the time for everything this year and I know for sure that some folks are not really happy with me - I hope I have some free time going forward and make up for the lack of hospitality that I have shown in these past few days.

I was finally able to open my Etsy shop earlier today, I started with just one iPad sleeve and I hope to add a few items in the next couple of days. It has been a long road to come to this point, though it has taken me way longer than what I had planned but I am really excited and happy to see a product in my shop.

New Studio Space - WOOOHAA

This had been in the works for the past few weeks, and I finally managed to find a small space not too far away from my house, where I can work out off and set up shop. This space just came up and I grabbed it immediately as it is not far from home, is not the top most floor (they heat up like an oven in the summers) and has ample natural light.

Real estate in Delhi is expensive and when I say expensive I mean really expensive. A small artist can not just afford any kind of a commercial space as the growing economy has got up the rents to levels that an individual just can not afford. The only option for a lot of people like me are the Lal Dora areas of Delhi.

The term `Lal Dora’ was first coined in the early 1900s during the Raj. In 1908, land was consolidated by the then revenue officials and maps made. In Delhi area, there were 365 villages. On each village map, officials marked in red the area where the villagers had their homes. The area within the red line was residential and the land outside that zone was agricultural. It was from this red line that the term Lal(red in Hindi), Dora (thread in Hindi) originated.

In 1961, when the Delhi Development Authority acquired land for development, it was decided that the villages would not be disturbed. So, while agricultural land was acquired, the lal dora land remained intact. Over the years, many villages were urbanised - of the initial 365, a little over 200 remained rural - but the lal dora rules apply to both urban and rural villages.

One of the most prominent Lal Dora areas in Delhi is Hauz Khas Village. There are a lot of art galleries, restaurants, high end designers and other creative folk based there. A few independent designers came and set up shop here decades ago for its cheap rent and the quite vibe, these days Hauz Khas Village is a commercial hotbed with real estate prices going up to a million US dollars for about 2000 square foot of built up space. Hauz Khas is now featured as a destination in Delhi on most travel books including Lonely Planet, Fodor's and a host of other travel guides and websites.

Hauz Khas Village

I am so excited to finally have a place of my own; I guess folks at home are way more excited than me to know that they will get there living  and storage space back and all my junk will be out of sight.

Setting up Shop - Products

The last couple of months and the past few weeks especially have seen me do a more than average share of new designs and samples. My focus was to have my shop opened and well stocked by the Navratri in early October. The Navratri came and went by and it has been three weeks since then and I am still not done, but am pretty close.

It is a challenge to do everything you have to do to get started selling online, and I have to admit that I do struggle at a few things. I had not planned on doing any gadget cases a few months ago but when I see the market for them I have certainly had to have a second look and do a few designs. Designing the case was the easy part, but doing the loop or the closing mechanism was where I had no clear direction.

A few different designs I cut out

I drew  lot and cut out about 10 different combinations in paper and a few in leather to see what works and what does not. I finally picked up two from the batch and made a complete finished sample with them. Somehow I was not fully happy with the loop as I thought that they were adding a lot of bulk to a clean simple design; so I made a case with a simple snap button that keeps the look very clean and minimalist.

One case with three different closing styles

Setting Up Shop - Pictures

Opening my online shop has now taken way longer than even what I could have imagined in my dreams. It has been a very slow ride with a lot of learning in the process, every thing has to be thought out and executed with care. In my case I have been doing a lot of things a few times over to get them right.

A couple of days ago I started photographing some of the products that I have made in the past month or so, and getting the pictures just right has been a big challenge and I will still call it a work in progress. Although I have taken three rounds already, every time I shoot some pictures I see them and realize what mistakes I have done and what can I do to make them better.

Take two

For my very first attempt I just used a bed cover as the back drop and the background in the pictures ended up being very grainy. I tried a couple of different sheets but it was far from anything even average. Eventually I bought a special fabric curtain that photographers use from a wholesale photo goods shop in Chandni Chowk. It is a fairly big piece of fabric without any seams to join it and is fairly light, I believe it is some sort of a synthetic material.

Take Three

I used the curtain over the bed cover so that the background comes as a solid white, but I used it during the day and the colors on some of the pictures came out to be brighter than they actually are. I learnt that the the day time sun is not ideal light to get true colours, so I did the whole exercise again at about 7 am to catch the early morning light. The colours came out to be much better, but looking at my pictures I know I have a lot to learn and a long way to go.

Festive season in India

The month of September/October corresponding to the month of ‘Ashwin” according to Hindu Calendar holds significant importance in Indian culture as almost all major festivals are observed in this period. Hindus observe a 10 day ceremony of fast, rituals, celebrations, fiests to honor the mother Goddess and triumph of Lord Rama over Demon Ravana, this 10 day period is known as Navratri.

This celebration starts with prayers, fasting, dancing and ends with the festival of  Dussehra. Navratri and Dussehra is celebrated throughout the country at the same time, with varying rituals, but with great enthusiasm and energy as it marks the end of scorching summer and the start of winter season.
The tenth day after Navratri is called Dussehra it is also called Vijaydashami, on which a number of fairs are organized throughout India,  which culminate with burning effigies of Ravana. The day marks the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana.


Ravana with his 10 heads

A lot of local traditions and crafts have been a part of the culture for centuries. The biggest fascination for kids are the effigies of Ravana and his siblings, the burning of the effigies symbolizing the victory of good over evil.

Ravana and his siblings take a truck ride in Delhi

Setting Up Shop

My online shop has been in the works for months now, I did not want to just start it without having all the pieces in place first - but it has taken me way longer to have things in place and organised. If I had not broken my wrist earlier in the year then things would have been way different, but I had to take up tasks that I had not planned for initially.

Anyhow, all that is past now and I have been able to complete my Etsy shop though I do not have anything available in it right now. Working on all the aspects of it, specially the policies took a while to complete. I am almost done with everything and it seems alright for now, any kinks I will have to sort out as I move forward.

I did take the help of a few resources while I wrote down the details; some specific ones are Handmadeology, Life, Craftiness and Everything Else and there was another blog from an Etsy seller which had very detailed and relevant information. I do not have the link or search for it right now, but this lady makes amazing suede moccasins and is a full time photographer, I will keep on searching and post a link to her blog.