As parties intensify efforts to woo voters, ‘power art’ takes centre stage in Chennai

Artisans in Chintadripet specialising in lace garlands are going beyond the regular run-of-the-mill specifications. Even customisations through the year will fit certain patterns, monotonously recurring.  Customisations currently being pursued follow a whole new pattern. This is a pattern that repeats once every few years. These artisans are now putting faces to the lace gardens, powerful faces. Based on orders from political parties in Tamil Nadu, they personalise the lace garlands and kritams (crowns) with the faces of leaders of those institutions.

The colours of party flags are woven into the lace garlands.

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For campaign ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, artisans in Chintadripet, a locality in Chennai, make custom lace garlands (malas) featuring political party symbols and leaders.
| Photo Credit:
RAGU R

The lace garlands are qualified as sandalwood lace garlands as scented sandalwood shavings are part of what goes into their making. These wood shavings are also crafted into decorative items that jazz up the garlands. There are also lace garlands that use cardamon to define the character of their strings.

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The kritams (crowns) are made taller by artfully stacking currency notes, which is essentially about the party going the extra mile, a costly mile at that, to honour its leaders and candidates.

The makers of lace garlands are artisans with an expertise that has been passed down the generations; and their shops are found on two streets in Chintadripet, namely Ayya Street and Arunachalam Street.

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These families are also part of Chintadripet, youngsters taking the baton from their seniors and forbears, as is the case with Thulasi Sha with a shop on Ayya Street. 

There are two sets of artisans in these two streets of Chintadripet, one specialising in lace garlands, and other in those wide, elaborately embellished temple umbrellas. The peak season for the sale of temple umbrellas is October or the Tamil month of Puratasi.