JOIN USIt is not called the big fat Indian wedding for nothing. It is a colourful, crazy and chaotic event that remains etched in the pages of memory for ever, for all concerned.
One of the events in the ritual is the ‘mehendi’ ceremony that captures quite a fair share of the limelight, especially after Bollywood became one of its vocal supporters. No wedding movie is complete without a glitzy ‘mehendi’ ceremony and young brides have decided to take a leaf out of it’s books.
“The trend of having a lavish ‘mehendi’ ceremony has caught on, even among South Indians, though this originated in the Northern plains of the country,” says Zaiba Nayeem, Mast Mehendi Studio. “Now brides are more excited about the ‘sangeet’ and the ‘mehendi’ than the actual wedding,” she says, laughing.
Zaiba, who has been in the industry for 15 years now, says that this art is not just restricted to festivals. “Festivals and occasions like ‘Karwa Chauth’ sees many ladies in the city queueing up outside my shop or stall to get their hands decked up. There are a lot of regulars among them too,” she says.
Sapna Jain of Pushpa Mehendi Arts agrees with this statement. “I have must have decked up more than a 1000 women by now; more than 90% of who were from the Southern part of the country. Not only is this a wedding staple now, but people are also willing to spend and splurge. Depending on the size and complexity of the design, I charge between 3000 and 20,000 and both ends of the spectrum have equal number of takers,” she adds. ‘Mehendi’, as an art form has myriad styles and varieties, the most common of which are the traditional Indian designs and the Arabic designs that have taken the world by storm.
“Nowadays intricate styles and the ‘Kolkata’ based designs are trending,” says Sapna. “The kolkata one is a bangle themed design with patterns drawn on both sides of the hand. Intricate styles mostly have figure work. Among these, wedding sequences are popular. We draw images of the entire wedding ceremony — right from ‘baraat’ to the ‘doli’ taking off — on the bride’s hands.”
Talking about the amount of work that goes into making these painstaking designs, Sapna elaborates, “There was once a bride who sat for almost five hours while two of us drew her wedding sequence. She even got a ‘Radha-Krishna’ on the back of her hands. She wanted something unique and was willing to strain for it.”
Wedding sequences are indeed a popular theme among ‘Mehendi’ designs, agrees Zaiba. “It is a very Indian thing which is what ultimately most people end up choosing. It takes a lot of work and the bride takes breaks in between, both for a rest and to pose for photos,” she says.
Holding his own in a woman-dominated world is Naresh, who has the distinction of being the first male ‘mehendi’ artiste in Karnataka and the fastest one in Bengaluru. “I started it as a hobby initially but then it became my profession,” he says. Talking about the changes in the field, he says, “The designs have evolved a lot. Nowadays I am trying my hand at the portrait design, where the faces of the bride and the groom are drawn in henna. They have to look realistic enough so it is a painstaking process,” he elaborates.
Mehendi is just like makeup, according to Zaiba, who explains that designs are chosen according to the bride’s skin tone and the shape of her hands, as everything will not suit everyone. “If the fingers are short or too long, we change our designs accordingly. Also, ‘mehendi’ gets its colour from body heat. If the bride’s body temperature is less, I give her a cup of coffee or drop of pineapple juice to warm her up. In case she is too excited or nervous and can’t sit still, I give her a Reiki session to calm her down so that we can put the designs properly.”
And it is not just women who can pull of henna-dyed hands in style. Men are game for it too — think Ranbir Kapoor’s mehendi swag in a song that broke the internet recently. Says Naresh, “Though it is an integral part of Marwari tradition, more and more young men are open to the idea of putting a small, very small mind you, design on their hands to express their love for their partners.”
The lines are blurring but the lure of the henna remains the same.