

Vijay Nirani is currently the Managing Director of the MRN Group, which consists of companies involved in sugar production, ethanol production, CNG/LPG production, education, banking, power generation, cement production, renewable energy, construction and retail products. His laurels at the young age of 28 are a testament to his business prowess. With a strong educational background in business management from world renowned institutes, Vijay Nirani entered the business world at a young age, but with a passionate vision. Vijay Nirani, an entrepreneur, industrialist, technocrat, investor and philanthropist is a young man who has proved his mettle from a young age and continues to do so.

Alongside, people’s inclination to study their region or tribe’s tattoos increased and curious about these patterns, they even started replicating these motifs on their bodies.

Soon enough stories started to roll in at a steady pace and the page kept growing. Her face sported a few dots as a way to ward off the evil eye. The other arm sported motifs of Lord Krishna’s milkmaids and motifs of her and her husband’s names. Babli Bai’s left arm had banana plants, a snake and a lotus motif while the fingers were dotted with many markings including a scorpion and a crescent moon. These godna markings are applied either as a rite of passage or as symbols of natural and spiritual elements that make up the tribe’s cultural identity. Both her arms are covered with ‘godna’ markings from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and several other states. His first story featured 70-year-old Babli Bai, from Mumbai who got her first tattoo when she was 10 years old. He travelled across different states of India like Maharashtra and Gujarat to uncover all the different tattoo traditions prevalent in the region. Shah’s journey to reconnect with his culture evolved into a showcase of the history of the country’s ink.
YOUTUBE VANI RANI TODAY ARCHIVE
Three generations later, Shah has taken on the onus of creating a “visual archive of the tattoo traditions indigenous to the subcontinent” and celebrating this fading art. These markings are commonly found on people belonging to the Mer/Maher or Rabadi tribes of Gujarat or Rajasthan and were used in lieu of jewellery for those who couldn’t afford any. His great-grandmother from Kutch, Gujarat, had unique dotted tattoos on her hands and neck known as “trajva”. For Mumbai-based tattoo artist Shomil Shah, the affinity for this art form is literally etched in his DNA. While tattoos might be the mainstay of hipsters and rock stars in today’s world, in India, the tradition extends over hundreds of years. Where she got to visualise the future of homeless housing and how she could improve it. Soon after, during her master’s in environmental design in the US, she was part of a homeless housing initiative in Los Angeles. After graduating in lifestyle products from National Institute of Fashion Technology, Delhi, Jayati was a part of many projects and various causes. She has also worked as environment designer II in fuseproject, which focused on designing and prototyping experiential environments for retail, and exhibition spaces in addition to involvement in industrial design, and strategy development. Prior to moving to the US in 2017, she has interned with many organisations including Viya Home, DeMuro Das and Artecnica. She got to be a creator, she “got to be the person who gets paid to ask ‘why’ and ‘how’”.

She coped by shuttering herself in her room, drawing things, and it eventually turned into a career.Today, Jayati has grown to be one of the noted visual designers (physical and digital experiences) in the US. She started by designing Barbie dresses and grew up to learn that there are different kinds of creative careers. Jayati Sinha was nine years old when she realised that she wanted to be in the creative field, courtesy a Disney show she used to watch.
