Now, you can gift hand-painted ganjifa playing cards for Deepavali
The Hindu
Gearing up for a game of cards this Deepavali? Go back to the 16th Century with a luxurious, hand printed ganjifa deck
Artist Banamalli Mohapatra is busy creating decks of cards for Deepavali, with cotton saris, squirrel hair brushes and crushed stone colours. Athrangi ganjifa, with 96 cards hand-painted by Banamalli, puts the spotlight on ganjifa this festive season. One of the world’s oldest playing cards, ganjifa traces its origin back to the 16th Century. Though Persian in origin, over a period of time, the art form embraced the pantheon of Hindu mythology in its expressions.
Each card is made through an intricate and long process using old cotton saris that are painted with squirrel hair brushes in crushed stone colours. In the past, ganjifa cards featured paintings of wrestlers, acrobats, swordsmen, musicians, animals and birds. The iconography, however, has changed today and is now largely centred around devotional themes.
Around 440 MBBS graduates of 2021 are not required to undergo one year of compulsory rural service as per the bond signed by them while joining the medical course through government-quota seats in 2015 as the High Court of Karnataka has said the law, enacted in 2012 for mandatory rural service, remained unenforced for 10 years as it was published in the official gazette only in July 2022.