Imam Ajmal Khan of the Jama Masjid here says: “Ramzan is the only month in the Muslim calendar which is specially mentioned in the Holy Koran. It is during this month that devout Muslims fast and pray, for a month to Allah so that their trespasses be forgiven.” It is Roza or fast time during Ramzan from dawn to dusk and from sunrise to sunset. The devout do not eat or drink anything during this time. At the crack of dawn it is time for ‘sehari’ and evenings it is time for ‘Iftar.’

Chandigarh has a Muslim population of over a lakh and the main concentration is in Sectors 26, 45 and Manimajra town but there are families scattered all over the city. Arif Mohammad, a tailor in Manimajra, says: “The Jumma Bazaar at the Masjid offers all the ‘sehri’ and ‘iftar’ treats which I bring for the family. Other days I say my namaz in the Masjid at Manimajra but of Fridays I always go to Sector 20.” Construction of the Sector 20 mosque, which is one of the high spots of the city’s architecture, started in 1967 and was completed in 1973. The Muslim population of the city has gradually grown with artisans and entrepreneurs moving from Uttar Pradesh to settle here.

Rangoli, derived from the word “rangavali” has different avtars in different region. Its “rangoli” in the North, “kolam” in the South and “alpana” in the East. But the essence remains the same throughout, except for the medium that is used to create those colourful motifs and patterns on the floor.

Neeru Ohri of Sector-42 is busy giving the finishing touches to her 5 feet X 5 feet big rangoli in her drawing room. But unlike the traditional colours she has opted for oil paint. “After so much of hard work, I want to my rangoli to stay for a while,” she says.

“While in rangoli we use dry colours, gulal or fresh flowers, for alpana, rice flour and ground pulses are used,” says Viren Tanwar, city based artist.

Kolam in the South is done with rice flower, which is first made into a paste and then bordered red earth called “geru”. To add colour a liberal amount of “haldi” and “kumkum” are also used.

“But this particular type is only for festive occasions. We also have this tradition of making kolam everyday for the “puja ghar”. For this we use rice powder on a wet ground,” says Radha Balakrishnan, a Panchkula based on artist.

For Radha, the tradition of making rangolis or alpanas or kolams provides an outlet for women to explore their creative selves. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Bengal to Gujarat we have this tradition of making rangolis. It imparts a very special feeling to the occasion,” she says.

Alpana, rangoli or kolam, they mostly come in geometric pattern with simple lines. South has this tradition of making kolams with dotted lines. The technic is simple - take a piece of cloth or cotton and fill in colours in the pattern you have created.

In the North, while rangoli takes a floral pattern, in the South it mostly comes with eight corners, depicting the eight dishas (direction).

Any particular pattern for this festive season? “It will depend on my mood,” says Radha. But she will definitely put one or two diyas in her rangoli to denote the festival of lights.

So, get down on your knees and let your creative juices flow and create that spectacular rangoli for this Diwali.

Here are a few tips

For musicians Chris Hale and Miranda Stone, India is homecoming; Chris having spent the better part of his life here (his Hindi, untouched by an accent) and for Miranda the attraction beginning way before she met Chris. “I began wearing saris much before I came here,” she says.

In the city for a performance of Yeshu Bhakti music-bhajans in Hindi revering Christ-the two eclectic musicians bring together their sheer love of poetry and compositions. “It is not about the self here. It is about supporting and backing the passion of the partner and coming together for the sake of being together,” explains Miranda. While Chris plays the sitar and sings, Miranda accompanies him on the guitar. The two met at a music festival in 2002 in New York and after a whirlwind courtship of being ‘just friends’ the two married in Varanasi in February 2004, in a fairy tale wedding complete with pheras and mehndi and the red bridal sari! “Our marriage is such a strong picture of our relationship with God,” says Miranda who believes she has found her soul-mate. Ditto for Chris, who quietly cuts the ubiquitous papaya sprinkling lemon for Miranda to dig into all the while insisting she is the interesting one of the two!

Born in New York, Chris lived in Nepal from the age of one where his parents practiced medicine. Moving on to the Woodstock School in Moussourie till Class XII, Chris took to learning the Sitar, the turning point being hearing Pandit Ravi Shankar at the Doon School. Currently a student of Partho Chatterjee, (a foremost disciple of Nikhil Banerjee), Chris has been playing for all these years since the bug first bit him-no surprise that the influence came from his mother, a concert pianist herself!

Although he plays for a band in America-Aradhna-his performances with his wife are something that binds them in a whorl of melody.

Having lived her life in Canada, Miranda grew up working on 26 acres of land and fields as her father, a horticulturalist, had a rose nursery. “Art, music, painting, fabric art—right from spinning to weaving to dyeing—I grew up at home with a huge rich culture of artistic heritage.” She herself started learning the piano at the age of five when at the age of 16 she saw some boys playing the guitar at school.

“I thought wow! This is an instrument that you can transport with you.” She took to the guitar like fish to water. “You have to choose a spiritual persuasion from the heart and that makes all the difference,” believes Miranda. Going through Art College in Toronto after her schooling, she applied the “adrenaline and passion” of the guitar and her poetry in to song making her a “folk singer in wolf’s clothing” with a tremendous fan following for her genre of music.

In the city for the programme Match ke mujrim, for Star, which had to be hurriedly refocused because there were no mujrims! The audience was the students on the PU campus at Gandhi Bhavan, who went berserk after the cricket team’s win as Shazia talked to them after the match. “Each of them wanted the name of their department mentioned. Syed Kirmani and Bishan Singh Bedi who were on the live show could barely get a word in, says she.

Thirty-three-year-old Shazia has very good memories of the city because for this student of St. Bede’s, the city was a frequent stopover during the journey to the college in Shimla after the vacations. Shazia’s journey from a girl from a conservative Muslim family of Kanpur to a profession in the electronic media with a high visibility quotient was not easy. She had to persist and doggedly keep doing what she wanted to because no woman in her entire clan had ever worked. In fact, her mother still wears a burqa.

It was her father, the founder-editor of the oldest and largest-selling Urdu daily from Kanpur, Siyasat Jadid, who was her role model and Shazia always wanted to be a journalist. After schooling from St. Mary’s in Kanpur and Nainital and college from St. Bede’s, Shimla, it was mass communication from Jamia Millia Islamia and finally a diploma in broadcast journalism from University of Wales, Cardiff.

The youngest in a family of four brothers and two sisters, she was expected to marry comfortably and settle down or at best (since she was academically bright) become an IAS officer. But as she puts it, “When you have so many problems with the system, how can you become a part of it? Freedom is not economic alone, it is the freedom to make a choice and do what you want to from your heart.”

Five years hence Shazia sees herself in politics. Covering politics was very stimulating for her, especially elections in Bihar and Maharashtra. She travelled through the length and breadth of the states to get the views of people especially at the grassroots for the programme Maratha Express. She is also into programming, writing and production.

Shazia does not believe that “it is not a natural progression for an idealist to become a cynic. In fact, you can retain your idealism.” And she did not view marriage as a passport to a better life and even to happiness.

Icons who she looks up to, Kalpana Chawla and Kiran Bedi because, “They won respect for being action-oriented and decisive.”

Shazia is upbeat about the changes being wrought by the electronic media, it is changing the way the young are looking at themselves. The resonance of this changed perception echoes even in the bylanes of Chamnganj, Kanpur, when Rabia, who has never stepped out, tells her “Shazia baaji, please find out about Frankfinn, I want to become an airhostess,” At least, girls are thinking and dreaming.

Women with beautiful bodies no longer believe in bare minimum minis. For, the hottest trend this season is sizzling skirts with a sassy makeover.” The best thing about long skirts is their supergirlie appeal. I generally team them with a cashmere sweater and a scarf for a dressy look. Chirps Kudrat Aggarwal, a resident of Panchkula. “Oh, I simply can’t resist the traditional ones, sporting ghungroos, mirrors, embroidery and sequins,” adds her cute lil sis Karishma.

Then there’s this Chandigarh based Sanawarian Tisha, back home on a Diwali vacation, who smiles, “What fascinates me the most about long flairy skirts is their versatility. If I want a feminine look, I can pair them with a fitted top. My very thin friends, on the contrary, can add volume to their lean bodies by going in for a very frilly skirts.

And mind you, it’s not just these girlie gals who are dabbling in these delightful skirts. The tomboys are all for them too! Among them is the aspiring designer Shubhra who says, “For that rugged, yet stylistic look, I love to team a long skirt with my boots.”

Chirps Nidhi Bajaj, a Fashion Designer running her own boutique, “If you’d ask me what young girls are going in for this Diwali, it’s these long skirts with lots of flairs. The add ons could be Kohl-rimmed eyes, minimal mascara, lots of colourful bangles and payals.” And what are the hues in which these skirts are selling?

“Bright colours to turn the mood sprightly, informs Nidhi, adding, “While most of my clients want the brightest of colours like hot pink, red, golden and turquoise for their festival skirts, some are also going in for the off-beat shades like Beige and Tan Brown. The fabrics are also in line with the festive spirit-Cotton silk, Georgettes and Brocades.” And when fabrics are so rich, can exquisite work be far behind?

Smiles Sakshi, an upcoming designer from Mohali, “Skirts nowadays are becoming very royal and rich, with embellishments like metal beads, sequins, swarovskys and Sitaras on them!” The belt area having maximum work and the flairs sporting minimal work is the rage these days.” muses Nidhi.

The beauty companies world over try to buy you with all the fake promises of luminous satin skin because we all aspire to the natural wholesome perfection. Beauty companies now have woken up to the fact that in an aware world where people are feeding themselves with organic food, they are not going to risk their skin with chemicals. The consumption of natural skin care products is on the rise. The products are designed to help skin to become strong and healthy and not to change the structure and consistency. However, when you assault the body with a lot of unfamiliar chemicals that it’s not evolved to deal with , this activates the body’s defenses. If the skins immunity is being toyed around with too many unfamiliar chemicals, it may ultimately turn out to age more quickly then if you weren’t using any anti ageing cream

So what is organic skin care? Any product that has been made by produce which has not been subjected to chemicals based pesticides and fertilisers. In the West, still there has been no law or rules set up to label the product as organic or from plough to pot. According to Organic Trade Association (OTA) the products must contain over 95% organic produce to win the label of organic integrity. The use of organic essential oils is on the rise in the west in a big way. Realistically in today’s world-market where you have to abide by so many rules and regulations it is next to impossible to produce a 100% organic skin care range. For longer shelf life and stability, a small percentage of preservative is required. Many big skin care companies now opt for ‘nature generated anti-fungal preservatives. Even though enough care is taken to make the product, bacteria and mould carried in the air and on contact with the product can ruin it.

Most leading skin care companies are using genetically engineered ingredients and bio- engineering techniques in the skin care ranges. The ingredients which have been mostly engineered are soya and maze derivatives, used very widely by the cosmetic industries. In other cases such as manufacture of hyaluronic acid, the ‘engineering ‘involves using a bacteria whose DNA has been ‘tweaked ‘ actually to create molecules. The bacteria is then de-activated- and the resulting ingredient put into skin cream. In fact, genetic engineering might prove very useful to mankind if the companies are scrupulous and don’t rush the products to the shelves without gathering much evidence.