Fit for a king: Peetambar mein Ram aayenge
Meet the designer who made the Navami special vastra for Ayodhya’s Ram Lalla
On the occasion of Ram Navami today, Ram Lalla will be donning a special, yellow handwoven khadi-silk vastra (costume) with padma (lotus) motifs for the ceremony at Shri Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
Delhi-based designer Manish Tripathi has been designing the vastra since the temple’s consecration on January 22. The vastra, Tripathi says, has been designed and made with great care and features elaborate embellishing along with the handprinted motifs.
“The lotus motifs are done by hand block-printing while the embellishments have been done with gold and silver wires. It’s an utsav day so it has to be grand,” explains Tripathi.
The designer enlisted 15 artisans who worked for around 20 days to prepare the garment in Ayodhya.“The colour of the vastra is peetambar (yellow) because he is Lord Vishnu’s avatar aur utsav ke din peela vastra dharan kiya jaata hai. Shri Ram is also known as Peetambar, hence the peetambar vastra,” he says.
Talking about the textiles used to make the garment, he adds: “With summer here, we have been using various types of indigenous cotton and malmal, sourced from different parts of country and using crafts from different Indian regions. As suggested by the Shri Ram
Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra temple trust, the endeavour is to do season-based garments and promote Indian handicraft and handwoven and handloom clothes,” he tells us, adding, “We prepared the vastra with Sanganeri prints from Rajasthan, Chanderi and Ujjain’s batik print from Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal’s jamdani and so on.”