A queen for a day

On March 8, 2018, the world celebrated International Women’s Day with different programmes and activities with many newspapers highlighting the myriad contributions of women to society and putting on spotlight some of the most remarkable women who succeeded in their own separate fields.

In Muscat, a group of women created a cultural event that tapped into their creativity and thereby unleashing their inner queens.

Organised by a closed Facebook group of saree loving women, the challenge was for the members to dress up like a queen of their choice.

The event was called ‘Challenge to Replicate the Look of a Queen’ and it received an overwhelming support from the public with several women sending in their entries.

Members were given a free hand to choose any queen of their choice and replicate the look of any saree wearing royals of India — alive or from history. They were then tasked to post the pictures on ‘Saree in Style’ with the organising committee requiring the photos to have been taken recently and exclusive for the challenge.

“The aim of the challenge was to make each woman member of the group to feel proud of being a woman and to dress up like a queen. We all have a royal in us and we were aiming for these women to bring it out and put into spotlight the rich cultural heritage of India by showcasing the queens of different era all wearing exquisite saree and royal jewelry,” one of the organising committee members said.

“The idea of clicking a photo with a Queen’s look made me so excited I just had to join. I really wanted to do a best one to keep as one of the special photos in my modelling collection,” Hemamalini, a passionate artist, actor and housewife who won the first prize in the contest said. She replicated yesteryear’s king of painting Raja Ravi Varma’s work of Janaki Subammal Bai Saheb, Pudukottai queen, after scouring the internet for hours and hours. She detailed that a week-long hard work and efforts went behind the achievement.

“After deciding the saree and blouse, I chose to wear a rustic blouse to match the painting. Then I started thinking about how to replicate the regalias like the bouquet in her hand, the silver jewelry box, the red silk tablecloth, the background cloth, chairside decoration and other props. Since I am used to doing set design for stage shows here using waste items like water bottles, paper, and cardboard, it took only a little time to creatively decide and make these props for my photo,” she shared.

Later, she covered silver lace on a modern jewelry box on the visible side only for it to look like it was aged while the other side of the box reminded of the ‘mandoos’ of modern times.

Her friend Liril, a photographer friend, clicked several of the looks for hours till he got the shot that he thinks will best the 5,000 other photos submitted for the challenge.

“I believe that my interest, time, creativity, dedication, hard work and effort made it a success. I thank SIS, its admins and members for the opportunity to highlight women and creativity,” Hemamalini said.