The bride-to-be is seated on a raised platform by a pavement in Gandhipuram, watching two mehendi artists work on her hands and feet. Her wedding is two days away, and she looks on as N Vijay and his colleague create intricate patterns using a cone filled with henna leaves paste. In 30 minutes, her feet and hands are done up in ornate designs, all the way up to her elbows. “They are fast at it, and can recreate any pattern we ask for,” says M Brindha, engrossed in the finished design on her hands. She is thrilled. Vijay moves on to his next customer.
Gandhipuram alone has over 50 such artists from villages in and around Agra, all of them trained in mehendi art. They can be found seated on plastic stools in front of textile showrooms on Cross Cut Road; there are over 10 of them working from inside Lakshmi Complex alone. Vijay, who is from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, trained for six months at an academy in Punjab, and has been working in the city for 12 years now.
