Henna by Heather: The Boston area henna artist to the author of the book The Henna Artist

Meeting Alka Joshi

What an honor and true pleasure it was to meet, connect with, and become the first henna artist to do henna for Alka Joshi in celebration of her forthcoming book! As always, the February 2020 Spring Fling henna conference brought me much growth and connection. I am eternally grateful to my longest-standing henna mentor and now colleague, Neeta Sharma, for organizing it.

The then-unknown local San Francisco Bay area author would soon become world-famous for her forthcoming book The Henna Artist.

How lucky am I that I got to meet and do henna for Alka Joshi, the author of The Henna Artist, when she came to the Spring Fling Henna Conference???

I was lucky enough to cross paths with her after her author talk, and suggested that it would be a shame for her to leave her first ever Henna Artist conference henna-less! She agreed. For her design, she wanted something simple and small just on the inside of her wrist, so I did a little mandala for her. Having heard just the excerpt that I did, I knew that having the henna be deeply, richly, personally symbolic for the wearer was important to Alka, so I gave careful consideration to what would best serve her in this moment, given all she had shared with us about her journey in writing the book.

About Alka’s henna mandala: Lakshmi’s blessing for her book

At the design’s heart was the symbol for the goddess Lakshmi. Lakshmi is both the name of the protagonist of the book and the goddess of wealth, good fortune, and beauty. What could be a better blessing for the success of this particular book, really??
In the center of the mandala is a lotus with a book sitting in/on it. It sits there in the same way that a god, goddess, or bodhisattva would. This was to signify that the book The Henna Artist is important, prominent, and designed to inspire and guide its readers.

The frame for this blessing both from and for Lakshmi is an eight-pointed mandala. The eight-pointed mandala is a lesser-known chakra lotus mandala, known as Hrit. It is connected to your soul’s deepest desires – which seemed fitting for both Alka in her hopes for this book and its success, as well as her alternate-universe mother-inspired Lakshmi character’s own hopes for her life.

I also put lotuses going in all four compass directions. Lotuses grow up pure and new and glorious after making their way through muck . This seemed especially important for this alternative timeline story for her mother. Despite coming from a place of hurt and trouble, the fictional protagonist Lakshmi’s life certainly did bloom beautifully by the end.
To those who have read the book – no, I did NOT even know this when I drew the design! The book hadn’t even come out yet!! It was true magic when I got to the end of the book and saw what an important place flowers would come to have in Lakshmi’s life at the end of the book, let alone in the sequels that would come out years later in the Jaipur Trilogy, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur and The Perfumist of Paris.

Also, I added a little heart, because a) I am cheesy and b) the book is her exercise of showing love for her mother.

Given the wild success the book has seen, I do feel pretty good about how well this attempt to share divine blessings using henna as a vehicle seems to have worked out.

Sharing Alka’s Design

I intend to draw up a version of the mandala and post it here, so that you can see it. In the meantime, if you look on her right hand (to the left of this photo), you’ll see it there.

In the photo is also my friend Mrunal, who did figs for her. I was trying to keep my design simple, as I didn’t want to impose too much on Alka’s time. Meanwhile, Mrunal went to town and and created these gorgeously detailed figs with traditional Indian henna patterning. This meant we got to talk to Alka for quite a long time – much longer than I had initially thought or hoped for! Thanks for that, Mrunal 🙂

After we finished Alka’s henna, we also convinced her to stay at the conference for dinner. Next came dancing at the Bollywood Dance Party! This tradition began many years ago at The Henna Gathering, now carried on at the Spring Fling Henna Conference.

Mrunal’s Henna

After dancing, Mrunal and I still had a bit of life left in us, so we headed up to her room to recreate the exact fig-based henna described in the book. The design in the book was on soles of the feet, so doing this was an interesting challenge. Although I think a lot of the talk of how sexy henna is thought to have been was a bit overplayed in the book (and, I fear/imagine, will be even moreso in the upcoming Netflix TV series starring Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto), there was no doubt that intention for this design was to be extra sexy. Or death cult-y. Or both. You decide.

I kid… But the idea here is that the figs are super sensual and juicy…and can only be fertilized by having a wasp come inside them. And then…the wasp dies – that’s how it works. Oops, was this really attracting a lover or giving a warning!?!? I will have to re-read with this in mind now that I understand how all of the relationships between all of the characters ultimately play out.

ANYWAY, here are the bottoms of Mrunal’s feet, with sexy death cult figs and the requisite wasps:

It’s important that these are Turkish fig leaves, as knowing the Turkish rather than just the local Indian fig leaves shows how cosmopolitan and worldly Lakshmi, the eponymous Henna Artist, is.

I am always happy to do henna for weddings, festivals, and other large celebrations, and work with a great team of artists who serve Boston throughout all of New England. Using the contact link at the top of this page is the best way to reach me.

If you’d like to try henna yourself, you can get all-natural henna paste made with my recipe at ArtisticAdornment.com. There you can also get Mohana brand henna powder, the best I have found in the world in my 27+ years as a henna artist, and the highest quality cajeput essential oil to mix your own henna.