A passion for figures

Now where have you seen this one before? Frankly, lots of places. But the Buddha above is not the cheap variety, made of marble or wood or terracotta, which is what you’ll find in hotels and homes everywhere.

This standing Buddha, surrounded by a series of smaller seated figures interestingly shaped like bells, is made from light green aventurine, a kind of precious stone. It’s from a store called Ma Passion at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

“Ma Passion began as a hobby,” says Dinesh Poddar, its managing director.

Poddar and his wife were collectors of gemstone sculptures when they realised the rich potential that this art form, which had its heyday in the Mughal era. The Poddars work with around 25-30 families of these traditional artisans near Jaipur, priding themselves on reviving and nurturing a “priceless historical tradition of art that flourished 5,000 years ago”.

Ma Passion specialises in a variety of gemstones and precious and semi-precious stones — rubies, emeralds, rose quartz, aventurine, jade, lapis-lazuli, jasper, labradorite, turquoise, crystal. Each of the pieces are unique since they are handworked.

Back to the traditions

This is not art or designer stuff and there’s nothing contemporary about it. In fact, at Ma Passion there’s a deliberate harking back to the traditional, with themes drawing inspiration from mythology, animals, birds, legends, spiritualism and astrology.

Poddar does take the help of designers but he says he also relies on a library of books and the traditional knowledge of the kaarigars, only giving them directions from time to time.

Clearly, there is a huge market for artifacts like these, a market that doesn’t mind shelling out the thousands that these cost. The most expensive, says Poddar, was a ruby Ganesha, small at 2.5 kg, that he sold for Rs 15 lakh.

Poddar exports to the US and also takes part in exhibitions around the world. Later this year, there’ll be a second shop in Mumbai, followed by one in the national capital.