Stained Glass Lamp Shade

 

If there is any Lamp Shade that is more beautiful than a Tiffany Lamp shade…its the original Tiffany lamp shade. And that could be worth thousands of dollars in present times- the highest heard was around $2.8 mn.

The love of lamp shades designed by Tiffany Studios started in 1890’s by none other than Louis Comfort Tiffany. Many imitations of the same happened in many years owing to its success and kept the legacy of Tiffany Lamps intact. The lamps became so popular that the Lamp shades made of stained glass got a generic name of “Tiffany Lamps”

Tiffany Lamps are essentially made of stained glass. A mould needs to be created on which small glasses are pasted on the mould. The glass pieces need to be pasted and soldered piece by piece with copper foil and soldering of glass pieces. The end result is a priceless and handcrafted piece of art.

Usually a Tiffany Lamp takes anywhere from 15 to 60 days to make based on the number of glasses and the design of the lamp shade. Each and every glass needs to be soldered to each other and this is the most time consuming work in the entire process. Add to it that glass soldering and edge soldering may need different temperatures. Few degrees of higher temperature might crack the glass pieces and one might need to restart the entire process once again.

The lamp shades that we have acquired for www.humaresapne.com are made up of imported American glass. We are proud to get this collection for our esteemed customers of more than 20 Lamp Shades to start with. Keep buying and get in love with the art of stained glass.

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What is poetry all about?

There was a major discussion at my book club today about if suffering and struggles lead to amazing poetries. It was all against me as I have an opinion that for the poetry to have that heart-tearing emotional element, it has to be a burst of emotions penned down instantaneously, without giving it much thought or deviations. Such can be done only if one is in reeling in throes of passion or agony or sense of loss or is simply overwhelmed. The moment thoughts are put in or editing is given too much importance, we have one line of extreme heart wrenching emotion and the second which instead of taking us to the next level, simply falls flat. Its either too-thought of emotion or an emotion one is desperately trying to feel, or is conditioning one to! I found that in some poetries of Pablo Neruda, when one poem makes you take off magically with unrestrained and untamed emotion while another one makes you simply feel, ‘duh’! Whereas, when one reads Edgar Poe or Charles Bukowski, its just a pang of emotion wearing beautiful words. In Bukowski’s , its sometimes too unrestrained and extreme, but then isn’t that what poetry is all about?

To answer myself, at the risk of being called a narcissist, Yes! Yes! Yes!

Fort kesrouli, Alwar

The moon above….stars below…I am somewhere in between!

A day spent in the exalted past

The world is a book and people who don’t travel, read only a page – Anonymous.

 

The trip to Hill Fort Kesrouli, Alwar was just supposed to be a weekend getaway, little I knew that it would prove to be such a rejuvenating experience. So what was it that made this trip so memorable? Fascination? Intrigue? Brush with the history? The rajasthaani khidmat? Or simply a heady cocktail of it all? I’ll drink to that!

 

As we headed in the kacha-raasta from the Gurgaon highway, we saw the fort ahead of us towering on a little hilltop. And I couldn’t help but wonder, how many battles had been fought from this very fort? How much of bloodshed had the walls seen? How many hands had this very architecture passed from to be standing here, still in all its grandeur? We were greeted with hand folded smiling faces wearing flash of coloured kurtas – Blue, pink and Yellow. Later on we found out that the color segregation was to differentiate the room-service, catering and supervisory levels. We walked up the fort with high walls on both the sides and narrow rocky path which had a flight of 5-6 steps after every 10 meters. It was for the convenience of animals which used to carry the essential requirements in the yesteryears. The path opened to a large lawn which was more of a courtyard with rooms around it. The architecture had been untouched as much as possible and so there were arched hallways and pillars and high ceilings. We did the formalities and learnt a little about the fort’s history.

 

This seven-turreted hillfort was 14th century masterpiece and now a heritage hotel under the Neemrana Resorts flagship. It was constructed six centuries ago by yaduvanshi rajputs, has been conquered by Mughals and jats and finally came back into the hands of rajputs in 1775. The fort knew a golden period under Ranawat Thakur Bhawani Singh (1882–1934). After being fascinated by the historic details, we retired to our rooms to get fresh. The rooms were simple and very conveniently furnished. The rickety chairs were a delight and so was much of the furniture which was repaired, restored and varnished but still had the earthy old world charm to it! My room even had a small munshi-table and I was instantly reminded of the 60s Bollywood movie, where the evil zamindaars had a sly munshi with shifty eyes and a golden topi! The ceiling had two very strong fat iron rings which I reckoned was for the shaahi fans for the queens being rocked by the slave girls or for the begum saheebaas fanned by the kaneez. There was one attached small room in the round part of the fort, almost a small circular room which had strategically placed jharokaas for the breeze. But the size of jharokaas made me smile, it wud be 8″ by 6″ and very closely placed for the cross ventilation, and for the Raanis and the Beghums to catch on the activity around the fort and to get a breathtaking view of the princely city of Alwar.

 

After catching some swim time and devouring the locan cuisine of laal maans and gate ki sabzi, we retired to the recliners by the poolside and enjoyed the small cultural programme over a couple of beers. The graceful man dancer danced on aao mahre desh and then the couple danced on pallo latke! It was so relaxing, lying there by the poolside, watching the silhouette of the fort against the midnight blue sky and white, oh so white moon. The breeze was soft and caressing and the performers were doing their mundane job with so much wonder and joy that it was difficult not to get caught in their frenzy of excitement! Many performances and many beers later, we got inside and enjoyed a game of carom board (Gosh I didn’t even remember the last time I played it) and dinner and desserts later, we went to the roof of the fort and lied there for a good 40-45 minutes. Just the never ending limitless sky, the chaand and the chandni bathed scenery around!

 

Next day as I was on the drive back, I looked one last time to the glorious past and smiled…”Kesariya baalam, aao hamare desh….”

Marble Meenakari Work of Rajasthan

We found the meenakari work being practiced in small bylanes of Jaipur. The narrow lane of Jaipur is called Khazane wale gali where we found our artisan from whom we purchased our marble ware.

Meenakari work derives its name from the Meenakar tribe of Rajasthan who were kshatriyaas. For the marble Meenakari work, its interesting that the work passes through xx hands before the completion of final work of art completing.  

Marble painting is mainly practised in Rajasthan where marble mining is in abundance. Marble painting work is in existences  since 16^th century and flourished during the Rajputana rule. The art kept flourishing during the mughal period also.

 The Meenakari work is done on smooth surface of marble plate. The work passes from the designer (naquaash or the one who chisels the marble) to the goldsmith who adds gold engravings. This work is done by fine strokes of brush with gold leaves. The work then moves over to Enamel worker who applies the colours and then to the polisher who puts shine and final touch up to the art work.

The original meenakari work on marble was done with pure gold. Except for gold being replaced by colour; most of the other works are still being carried out to bring the Rajput Royalty to people’s home. Usually the work is found on white marble background and colours used are Golden, Red, Green, blue and mirror work is also added to the same to add to the brightness.

Khurja- Centre of Pottery Works

Khurja is a small sleepy town around 80 kms from Delhi. It falls under Bulandshahar district.  

 The old legend goes that when Taimur, the lame raided India; he brought with his army artisans from Turkey and Egypt who were master craftsmen of blue pottery. When Taimur left India, many of these craftsman chose to stay back in India, the Golden bird. These people dispersed from khurja to some other parts of country notably, Jaipur, Multan etc. It is these places where the art of blue pottery flourished.

 Khurja and Pottery work further flourished when during the second world war, State Government set up a small pottery complex to meet the demand of white clay earthen pots for hospitals. In the year 1952, Government also established a Pottery Centre of excellence.

 On the Handicraft Map of India, khurja as a town is prominently placed for works of pottery, terracotta, ceramic works and especially the blue pottery work.  

The Dying Art of Handicraft

 

This is a great map that I downloaded courtesy Maps of India (http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/crafts/india.htm). Amazing to find that there are so many small pockets of excellence that exists within India where over decades of competence and skill sets lie.Its also ironical that many of these art forms survived the decades where only communication was word of mouth but are languishing in today’s time of internet, smartphones and communications era.

Negligence on part of government machinary and exploitation of them by traders has led to many of these art forms having reached ventilator stage. While some of these art forms have thrived and survived owning to smart community based marketing/government assistance, many of them fell prey to the present age of automation.

 

We at Humare Sapne (English translation would be “Our Dreams”) have launched a portal: www.humaresapne.com are making a small effort to revive some of these art forms by bringing them to you-the discerning customers. Though the road is tough, we are trying to contact the direct artisans/community and connecting them to you with the hope that you will appreciate the effort and these products.

 

We are attempting to discover many of these artisans and their art with your help and would love to hear from you about something that you would like to discover yourself. Do let us know of any art form that you are aware of and interested in knowing more about. We will assure you that we will try to bring that once acclaimed art to you.

 

Team Humare Sapne

http://www.humaresapne.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/HumareSapne/416352398432359

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