Last Wednesday, we of the Malaysian Culture Group had a great morning out (as we often do). This time Harinie Wijeweera  invited us to meet at the Temple of Fine Arts, Jalan Berhala at Brickfields.

Usha Ramakrishnan, Secretary of Fine Arts, introduced us to the Indian Festival of Deepavali, and its significance. Also known as the Festival of Lights, Deepavali signifies the victory of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance and hope over despair.

Jaya Sree who is the Assistant Secretary continued the talk, which prepared us for the events that were to follow: 

We split into two groups as there were at least 34 attending. 

The first group watched as Mr Segar gave us a demonstration of Garland Tying. Not all of us knew that Indian women put flowers in their hair each day: it is very much part of their beauty routine. Mr Segar, who has a florist shop called Segar Florist in Sentul has a book of photographs of the many floral arrangements he is able to produce. 

The most artistic (or maybe the bravest) of our group tried to make their own garlands. They used strands of wool to tie jasmine buds which, when they open, have a glorious perfume lending more attraction to the women’s hair.

The second group watched as the Artist Latha demonstrated how to do Henna Drawing on the hand. The Henna is dark and I thought how nice it would be to draw the patterns on the back of the hand with chocolate, because when you wanted to do another pattern you could lick the first one off (This wasn’t an option that Latha mentioned). 

We loved seeing the volunteers’ hands becoming beautiful with patterns and only wished there were time for us all to be inscribed. One woman whispered to me that it was a great way to get your husband to do the washing up as obviously, one couldn’t do it oneself as it would ruin the pattern.