Some unique dolls during my visit to judge Gombehabba

In my previous post I have already shared about judging the Gombehabba competition . I visited 10 houses to judge the competition. In each house , the arrangement of dolls was amazing. In some houses the themes were very attractive, and in some the creativity was dominating and in some houses I could see wonderful collection of dolls, which were bought from different parts of the world. Sharing about some of the unique dolls I saw.
Let me start with the Buddha doll meditating in a garden:

Buddha in a garden

In another house, a plastic doll was decorated as Kittoora Rani Chennamma:

A doll made as Kittur Rani Chennamma

Here is a model of Mysuru Palace. Here you can see the creativity of the lady who arranged this. Most of the dolls are handmade:

Model of Mysuru city

This is the most beautiful doll I saw this year. A lady dancing. You can see the charm on her face and the dancing posture looks awesome. It looks real.

Dancing lady doll

Here you can see the route between Bangalore and Mysuru. The important places on the route were depicted using dolls:

Route from Bengaluru to Mysuru

The below one is doll of sleeping Shiva and Parvati is near his head. This is the replica of idol at  Kondeshwara temple Suruta palli, near Tirupati.( You can read more about this temple here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palli_Kondeswarar_Temple,_Surutapalli)

The below one is about the current issue between Karnataka and Tamilnadu. You guessed it right, dolls depicting Kaveri issue. The supreme court judges are relpaced by Ganesha here, and also   CMs of both the states in the court :). I laughed a lot looking at this doll arrangement :)

Another one is a beautiful Lakshmi doll. This doll is from Pune and its Gowri(Parvati) doll. The lady's creativity has changed this doll to look like Goddess Lakshmi. Isn't it adorable?

 In many houses this custom is celebrated from past 100 years. So I could see some very old dolls. The below one is a doll , which more than 100 years old. You can see the difference in the color:

And this is collection of utensil sets. Most of us had these kind of sets during our childhood. Nowadays these are replaced by plastic ones:

Visiting all these houses to view and judge the arrangement was a wonderful experience.This tradition makes us kids. All of us enjoyed like kids, in the world of dolls.I was feeling, for those dolls we must have looked like giants :-)

Many sarees are designed, have worked on some hand embroidered projects. Soon share those with you.

 Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Judging Gombehabba

Gombe habba is a cute tradition which is celebrated in some parts of South India. I have already written about this tradition in my previous posts. This year there was no sign , that any would invite me. I was little disappointed. But a surprise was waiting for me. A Kannada News daily Vijaya Karnataka conducts competition about gombe habba. I was invited to judge the competition. every year I used to visit one or two houses to see Gombe habba. Because of Vijaya Karnataka , I visited 10 houses to see gombe habba
Here are some glimpses of the Gombe habba , we visited , published in news paper:

The day we visited 10 houses. In each house the arrangements of dolls was wonderful. I could see everywhere dolls, depicting different themes. The themes included stories from mythology to current issues like Kaveri water dispute between Karnataka and TamilNadu, recent surgical attack etc. I have captured photos of dolls, which I found very interesting. I will share about those in coming post.

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Gombe Habba- Dolls everywhre

I have already shared about Gombe habba I visited in the following posts :

Gombe Habba with different themes  

and 

Gombe habba with different themes- Festivals 

The collection of the dolls were so much that, I had to continue with this post also. I could see everywhere dolls there. A felt like I was in the Doll city;let me take you a tour in the doll city

In this doll city there is a park, a zoo, school etc. Here you can have the closer view of the doll city:

Here are the houses and apartments. Anyhow the real estate price is very high, if you want ,book an apartment now itself. :-) Otherwise all the dolls are already in the queue to book apartments :-)

 Here is the zoo. Some animals are inside the cages and , Oh! Elephants are also there...

Tired and hungry because of roaming?There is a restaurant  You can order whatever you want :-)

 And now a walk in vegetable market,

And there is a sale also, you can buy anything from dress, shoes, bags and many more:

Now to refresh and cherish your childhood days visit this doll marriage:

 Very cute couple! Have you wished the couple? OK, Now,  let us go to a village now :

So you have roamed in doll city as well as village. Now meet the  creators of this doll city, from left to right cute Aditi , her mom Vidya and her grand mother Lakshmi.

As I have written in the first post about  Gombe Habba with different themes,  this doll arrangement was done by three generation. Everywhere in this arrangement you can observe the creativity of the artists.I really appreciate and love, the traditions of celebrating festivals.How the tradition is passed on to the next generation! Most of the arrangements are made by Eco-friendly  materials. And very small details are also taken care while arranging.Hats of to the three lovely, artistic ladies!

Hope you like all my posts about Gombe habba. Hope to visit some more interesting doll arrangements during next Dasara. Recently visited many interesting places, so will share about that in coming posts. 

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Gombe habba with different themes- Festivals

Hope all of you had lovely Deepavali celebration. Even I :-). Before Deepavali travelled to 4-5 destinations of my interests. Eager to share about my travel experiences with you all. But before that , sharing about Gombe habba with different themes, which I had already written the first part here Gombe Habba with different themes .
In this post sharing about the festive theme created there:
This is complete glimpse all the Hindu festivals, you can see starting from Naga Panchami (which is the first festival of festive season to Deepavali )

 

The series start from right, the first festival Naga  Panchami.

Next festival is Krishna Janmashtami , here it is . All the practices and rituals followed in Krishna Janmashtami is shown here, even the Prasad. 

 

Next , Vara Mahalakshmi Vrutha and Swarna Gowri Vratha which are celebrated in South India, by married women:

 Then comes the everyone's favourite festival Ganesh Chaturthi :

 The the Dasara season. All the practices of Dasara celebration are shown with cute dolls.
Devi Pooja:

World famous Mysore Dasara procession:

Then end of festive season, with Makara Sankranti ,

 

In each arrangement , very small detail like Rangoli etc are depicted perfectly by the artists.I know you are eager to know about the artists who made these arrangements. Definitely I will introduce them to you in my next post .

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Gombe Habba with different themes

During each Dasara I write about Gombe habba. Every year I have been lucky enough to get invitation and enjoy  Gombe habba. Its celebrated during Dasara in some parts of South India. This is celebrated by arranging dolls in the house by women. Each year its different experience and memorable. This year during Dasara I did not get any invitation. So was little disappointed. Thanks to one of my friends, she took me to her friend's house on the last day of Dasara.
I was stunned to see the arrangements of the dolls.It was doll arrangements with different themes, Eco friendly and arranged by 3 generation :-), grand mother, mother and grand daughter. :-) I cannot cover all in single post.
When I entered the house the living room was full with dolls arranged.I was excited to see the dolls and  gave full-time work to my camera.
Let me start with the dolls arranged on different steps, here it is:

The first row from down has dolls of little boys and infants, arranged in a cute way.

 

  Aren't the dolls very cute? And there are dolls of infants in different position, that too arranged in the cradle. Here is the close look. Ah! I haven't seen any doll cuter than this! What do you say?
 The creativity can be seen in the cradles made of paper.

Next row is dolls depicting story of birth of Shanmukha or Murugan :

Next row is  dolls depicting Dashavatara, (10 incarnation of Lord Vishnu) :

 And Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the next row:

 And the top most row with Pattada Gombe.

These are just one section of the dolls arrangement. Actually the whole house was filled with lots and lots of dolls, arranged in different themes, which I will share in the next post.

Until then, 

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana

Gombe Habba Part 2- The Gombe habba I visited- continued

Already I have written two posts about Gombe habba. In last post I have written about the Gombe habba I visited this year. This is the continuation of the last post as I could not share all the images in the last post.
I had shared only about the the dolls arranged surrounding the central arrangements of dolls. Here is the centrally arranged dolls in steps:

 The closer view,you can see many dolls of different Gods and Goddesses, in different sizes.

Both the sides dolls arranged very artistically :

The below doll of Shri Chamundeshwari is very beautiful. This is nearly 35 years old and still has that charm.

Even I liked this idol of Sharada, isn't the smile on the face mesmerising?

There were many more dolls , I could capture photos of some . Here are those:
Parvati worshipping, Lord Shiva:

Cute Krishna dancing on the Kalinga:

Dolls depicting marriage ceremony of Shri Venkareshwara:

And the Rangoli in front of the dolls was also very artistic.

The complete arrangement was done very meticulously. Everywhere I could recognize the interest and  passion.
Oh! Forgot, the below is the one which attracted me. The traditional bell, with my favorite Krishna on it :-)

In the next post will share about the street of dolls I visited,

Until then,

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana