HYDERABAD: For the past nine years, 50-year-old micro-artist Chaluvadi Malli Vishnu Vandana has turned her devotion into an intricate art form, inscribing the name of Lord Rama on rice grains and offering them as talambaras to temples on Rama Navami.
This year, Vandana, a resident of Chandanagar in Hyderabad, meticulously wrote the name of Lord Rama on 1.75 lakh rice grains and distributed them to around 60 temples across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Speaking to TNIE, Vandana reveals the labour-intensive process behind her devotion. “It takes me about an hour to inscribe over 100 grains. With the unwavering support of my husband, Narasimharao, I dedicate 10 hours a day to this practice,” she says.
One of her biggest challenges is storage, as the grains attract bugs and worms. To combat this, she ensures that the talambaras are completed 15 days before Rama Navami for timely distribution.
Since embarking on this spiritual journey in 2016, Vandana, originally from Sullurpeta, has inscribed the name of Lord Rama on approximately 10.5 lakh rice grains.
Her offerings to various temples have grown over the years. In 2017, she presented 1,11,111 talambaras to the Kodanda Rama temple in Ontimitta. In 2020 and 2021, the 50-year-old offered 1,01,116 Talambaras each to the Bala Anjaneya temple in Sullurpeta and the Sitaramanjaneya temple in Kondapur. In 2023, she presented 1,01,116 talambaras to the Bhadrachalam temple and 50,116 talambaras to the Ayodhya temple.