KOCHI:Beauty needs to be preserved for eternity, especially if the beholder presumes it as a rare one. Over the years, people have been clicking pictures of beautiful things to preserve them for the generations to come. However, these two-dimensional pictures on paper do not actually give a personal feel that the object itself provides. How lovely it would be to preserve a beautiful thing in its original state! That was the idea Amrita Giriraj had when she embarked on fossilising flowers, plants and leaves to make home decor and jewellery, under the brand name Alankaara.
“Life is fugacious. The reality of its brief nature hit me when the tsunami that struck the Indian coasts swept away lives, livelihoods and familiar landmarks. And during my bachelor project with the affected fishermen in Kanyakumari, we started an initiative of making pendants and earrings using sea-shells. It was an initiative to help the fishermen. This was the beginning of my path towards entrepreneurship,” says Amrita.
After finishing her project she moved to Chennai, Amrita began working with a few companies. But again natural calamity, this time in the shape of floods, reminded her about the need to preserve things from being lost forever. “Many people lost their businesses. I lost my entire garden. All that was left of it was some leaves, flowers and plants strewn on the ground. I collected those that hadn’t been destroyed and preserved them using bio-resin,” she says.
These flowers, leaves and plants ended up as trendy earrings and pendants.“The flowers, leaves and other plant parts of interest are pressed between two pieces of wood. The entire ensemble is kept in the sun to dry out. The result is a perfect paper-thin specimen that has retained all its colour. This is then mounted in bio-resin that is a mixture of rubber latex and pine resin. The end result is a perfect glassy finish with the flower looking lifelike. The bio-resin with the flower is then made into earrings and pendants using brass frames,” says Amrita.
Amrita procures the bio-resin from Kozhikode and was recently in town after a visit to Munnar. “I launched a Munnar collection with the plants and flowers that I collected from the hills. I was surprised to see a large number of flowers and plants that showed a marked similarity to those found in England and Ireland besides other foreign countries. This form of fossilising plants using bio-resins began in Ireland first. The style is not that common in India,” she says.
She collected Alyssum - it is a star-shaped yellow flower, cherry blossom, forget-me-not, bluebells, underwater wisteria, maidenhair fern, dandelions, carrot flower, hydrangea and daisy from Munnar.
Besides, making earrings and pendants, Amrita is also into home decor.
“We make memory boxes and other decor items as per demand. It takes a lot of time. So the output is low. I can make around 30 pendants in two days and have five employees,” she adds. The cost of each item varies according to size. In the case of earings, the prices range from Rs 300 to Rs 500.“For necklaces, it is Rs 750 to Rs 1,500 and in the case of home decor, it is Rs 2,000,” says Amrita. Her product can be ordered from her website www.alankaara.com.