The craze of traditional Lippan art from villages of Kutch has entered the metro cities with artist  and entrepreneur Payal Bansal facilitating the growing need. Taking inspiration from the centuries old art form, Bansal gives it her own spin to accommodate it into the modern architecture of living spaces.

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Interested in art since school, Bansal found her calling during the pandemic  but it wasn’t until last Diwali when she started selling her art work, and soon what started out as a local business crossed state borders. “People who saw and purchased my work encouraged me to promote it on Instagram,” says Bansal, who today has 16,000 followers.

Payal Bansal

But the  start wasn’t easy. “Women in  my community aren’t encouraged to own a business. It was my husband who supported me,” she says, adding that she wants to set an example for her daughter. “She would often ask me why her well-educated aunts do not pursue anything professionally,” adds Bansal who can’t wait to start a workshop in her home town Shripur.   
@lippan_art_studio_payalbansal, Instagram

For indie cinema lovers

A still from A Dog and His Man

Started by Arindam Chandra and Rim-a Sen, EventScape.live features hand-picked award-winning films, shows, documentaries and plays. Some of the titles on the video-on-demand platform are Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar’s documentary Azmaish starring Kalki Koechlin and feature film Khamosh Pani starring Kirron Kher; Siddharth Tripathy’s praise-winning feature A Dog and His Man;  and Shivaram Mony’s Thimiram, which presents how society normalises male chauvinism.

Arindam Chandra

What makes this platform interesting is that it features works of indie content creators, exclusively for a niche audience who cherishes such projects. “We wanted to give independent creators a platform to host their content and get loved by their community, especially corporates, and create a financially viable ecosystem,” shares Chandra.
eventscape.live

Essential oils in your soap

With the skincare market swamped with hundreds of new environmentally-conscious brands, it can sometimes be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, and find a personal favourite. It’s surprising then that Earthhium, a handmade, skincare brand, won us over so quickly. Let’s talk about the whipped cream soap—for starters, we didn’t know soap could feel so soft to touch. This one doesn’t lather, but does the job of cleansing. The body butter is exceptional.

A dash of cream can grease your skin and make it feel hydrated. This works as good as oil. Try using it on your toes. There’s also the vanilla mermaid body scrub, which has a really sweet smell; it’s not too harsh on the skin and leaves it feeling soft. The makers say that the products contain essential oils. In case of allergies they suggest reading the product label carefully, but these labels are really too tiny, and that’s a flaw too hard to not take note of.
www.earthhium.com

The choppy waters

In 2013, Commander Abhilash Tomy, a retired Indian naval officer, embarked on a non-stop circumnavigation of the world under sail, making him the first Indian to take on an expedition of this order solo. Writer Joeanna Rebello Fernandes penned his 151-days long voyage in her book (R399; Penguin Random House) titled Journey to the Edge of the Earth.

Abhilash Tomy

The book is packed with fascinating facts and folklores that Tomy encountered during this journey through and choppy waters while navigating 23,100 nautical miles. Trust Fernandes to fire up your imagination as she takes you towards life sans technology, the way it was during the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Available at all leading book stores