Story of Distribution of Apta leaves on the festival of Dussehra.
A story in the puranas says that there was once a young man named Kautsa, in Ayodhya who was getting trained under Guru Varatantu. After his education was complete, he wanted to give Guru Dakshina. The guru declined the offer but after repeated insistence from Kautsa, said he wanted 14 crore (140 million) gold coins."
Kautsa approached Ram, the ruler of Ayodhya and asked for the gold coins. Ram promised to help Kautsa and asked him to wait near the Apta tree in his village. Within three days, with the help of Kuber, Lord Ram showered gold coins through the leaves of Apta tree.
Kautsa collected the required number and distributed the rest among the poor. "This happened on Dussehra and to commemorate this event, people collect the leaves of Apta tree and present it to elders as gold," .
Dussehra is 'Vijay Parv' and this token offering is actually about expressing happiness and respect. "The vijay mahurat on Dussehra is considered to be extremely auspicious and one of wish fulfilment. Offering the leaf is symbolic of wishing prosperity and happiness."
Design Insight
I thought why do we distribute happiness, prosperity and good luck on a single day like Dussehra. That is when I decided to design my visiting card in a way where I could give all of these with love and respect to everybody I met on my journey.
It is a small attempt to spread positivity and pray for a well being of the person regardless of their religion, caste or sex but just as another human being.
Design
I took an Apta leaf that was kept inside a book from past 3 years. It had dried up. I dipped a paint brush in ink and colored the leaf completely. As it was wet, I pressed it hard on a paper to get the tracings. When it was perfect, I scanned it and got a copy on my computer. I tried playing around and started making patterns with to get the results. That is when it struck that no.7 was considered a lucky number in Hindu Mythology. After a number of patterns, I came up with 7 petals forming a flower. What could have been better than that?
And there it was, the final design!
