We Made a Rangoli This Diwali!
This Diwali, we didn’t just pick up a new skill. We learned what it’s like to remain optimistic even in what might seem like a tough situation!
By YD Events • 5 minute readHave you ever tried making a rangoli?
Well, none of us on the Youth Development team has, but this Diwali, we decided to try making a peacock rangoli and putting it on display right in the Grand Shrine Hall — not just to wish our Indian friends a Happy Diwali but also to offer to the Triple Gems!
Read on to find out about our experience!
Why did you decide to make a rangoli this Diwali?
COVID-19 may mean muted celebrations this year — not just on Diwali but also other events and festivals throughout the year — but we figured this is a chance for us to get creative and try new things!
The rangoli is one of the very first things that comes to mind when we think of Diwali. We remember being mesmerised by the colourful designs and the amazing display of art at the entrance of our friends’ houses (and shopping malls, frankly, hahaha), so we were inspired to create one ourselves — even if none of us has ever done it before.
Cool! You guys must have been so excited!
Yes! But frankly, we were also worried about failure. The rangoli designs we found online looked so beautiful and intricate, but most of us on the team are not who you’d describe as artists. We were convinced the lack of artistic talent in the team would be a problem, but we’re not ones to admit defeat easily.
That must have been tough! How did you overcome these feelings?
We actually approached an Indian friend from the monastery for help though unfortunately she wasn’t able to. She gave us a few tips though, and that was our first real exposure to the world of rangoli — apparently people from different cultures use different material to create their art! From then on, our world widened, and we realised we were really learning things we never knew before — that’s cultural appreciation!
Back to your question on how we overcame our fear: Si Xuan, our team lead, had been looking up YouTube videos on rangoli making for beginners from a couple of weeks ago. There were so many different ones such as a lotus and a peacock (which we decided on in the end) and people demonstrated a variety of techniques. We jotted down some material and tools we might need and went to Little India a day before the actual event to make our purchases.
We should actually have gone earlier because some items we thought we needed were sold out by the time we arrived. Thankfully we got our rangoli — the most important item! — but we were missing the squeezable bottles we saw people using in some videos (we had no confidence using just our hands to pour the rangoli on our canvas) and the shakers.
Yuling and Zoey found some piping nozzles, mini sauce bottles and a mini sieve in Daiso that worked great in the end, though, so that was a relief!
Wow, that is fortunate! How did the actual making go, though?
Much better than we expected! We were concerned it would take several hours because we wanted to livestream the event, so Zoey did a quick google and results showed that it usually takes three hours on average. We ended up completing the art within one hour though, maybe because there are four of us.
We were initially worried we would get annoyed by each other and end up arguing on cam, to be honest. As a preventive measure, we agreed to step aside and repent by making prostrations to the 35 Buddhas (we were making the rangoli in the Grand Shrine Hall) before coming back to work on the rangoli if we were to curse or lose our temper at all.
Oh dear, so how many rounds of repentance did the team complete because of this?
Zero, actually, because none of us cursed or lost our temper even once — we surprised ourselves too! In fact, we talked and laughed a lot during the entire process and had so much fun!
That’s impressive! But surely things didn’t run that smoothly, right?
Of course, it was our first time after all! There were times we panicked because the rangoli wouldn’t come out of the sauce bottle, or when it did it wouldn’t go where we wanted it to. Once, Zoey dropped a piping nozzle and kinda messed up a part of the picture but it wasn’t obvious so we let it go (she touched up anyway, hahaha). Also, all of us had long hair and if we weren’t careful, our hair would mess up parts of the rangoli too.
But it was through this project that we really learnt to stay calm and patient, so we could truly enjoy the process of making this peacock rangoli. We learnt not to be nit-picky too, and really put mindfulness into practice (like keeping our hair out of the picture, haha).
We think it’s also safe to say we learnt to have more confidence in ourselves and to remain positive even if we feel like we are in a situation where we're doomed to fail.
It sounds like you guys work great as a team!
We’ve had bad days in the last seven months since we came together as a team, but this session really helped us to see how much we have grown dependent on each other, and recognise the value each of us brought to the team!
Si Xuan, for example, is the big sister. She’s always ready to guide the team along or tell us what to do if we found ourselves lost;
Yuling is always raring to go with the motto to #justdoit even while everyone else remains cautious (you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t start, isn’t it?);
Giselle is the cool, calm and collected one who does things methodically but also provides different perspectives for consideration; and
Zoey is the cautious one who’s more comfortable to begin anything by observing or doing her research, gaining some understanding of the task at hand before proceeding to help where she can or to “touch up” where she sees the need to.
There is definitely room for improvement, but the team is happy and we agree that we complement each other well.
Why did the team decide on the peacock design?
The peacock is auspicious not just among the Indians but also in Buddhism. If you look at the rangoli art, you might notice that the picture is circular in shape — this is also significant in various cultures for their beliefs in the circle of life.
Anything else you’d like to add?
The love and support that staff from other departments at BW Monastery showed us really took us by surprise — they took such great care of the display and dressed it up so it looked so much nicer than we left it!
Si Xuan’s dad also contributed the wooden open-top box where we drew the rangoli — he made it out of scraps he found and brought it to her place — and we are so thankful for that!