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Mdm Vijaya learnt rangoli from her mother in India at the age of five. As a child, she would create designs along the roadside with friends, often competing to see who could make the biggest one.<\/span><\/p>\n Even then, she dreamt of creating the world’s largest rangoli \u2013 an ambition she carried with her for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2003, she realised that dream in Singapore, creating a 2,756 sq ft rangoli \u2014 roughly the size of three badminton courts \u2014 at Whampoa Community Club, earning a Guinness World Record for the world\u2019s largest rangoli.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Working alone for seven hours, she arranged hundreds of kilograms of coloured powder into an elaborate design, enduring the physical strain of bending continuously under hot filming lights.<\/span><\/p>\n She has also amassed more than 50 entries in the Singapore Book of Records for her creations, such as the largest rangoli made with drinking straws and the biggest art display with bananas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These achievements have drawn attention to an art form she believed deserved greater recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople enter your house with different kinds of emotions, different kinds of feelings. So when they see the design and see the colours, their mood will change immediately because colours give a lot of energy. It activates the chakras of your body. And the house will have a very positive atmosphere,\u201d she said, referring to the Sanskrit concept of energy centres in the body.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd when the gods and goddesses see the design, they bless the house with health, wealth, and prosperity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n While awareness of rangoli has grown, Mdm Vijaya believes keeping the tradition relevant in Singapore would require adapting to\u00a0changing\u00a0local preferences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She noticed that people wanted decorations that could last throughout Deepavali, rather than traditional powder designs that could easily be washed away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So she began creating rangoli on acrylic sheets and boards that could be framed and displayed for longer.<\/span><\/p>\n These adaptations also made the craft more accessible to people sensitive to coloured powders or unable to bend down to work on the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the years, she has experimented with more than 40 materials, including flowers, pistachio shells, bottle caps, fruits and vegetables.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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