Varsha Samuel runs Girmmit Designs and Apratimpous, where she makes illustrations of Dharwad region’s picturesque beauty.
One of Varsha Samuel's best-selling products is the sustainable wooden desktop calendar. (Supplied)
For Varsha Samuel, Dharwad is a quintessentially beautiful small town like Malgudi (a fictional town of RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days, set in South India). Both her grandparents are from Dharwad, located in the northwestern part of Karnataka. At age 10, in 1978, she, too, moved there from Pune.
“It was a dream come true as I had innumerable beautiful memories of spending summers in this quaint little place,” recalls Samuel, now 54.
Apart from staying at her grandmother’s 100-year-old heritage home and making innumerable sketches and paintings in the backyard, it was the region’s legendary rains that she fell in love with.
“My name itself means rain,” she points out.
“I was born in July – the rainiest month of the year. Turns out, I was born with a love for rain,” she adds.
Varsha Samuel’s Girmmit Designs is born out of her love for Dharwad and its rains. (Supplied)
The Dharwad monsoon simply fuelled that emotion and drew her closer to it. As a child, she longed for the rains in Dharwad all year round.
For Samuel, it meant missing school for days at a stretch, everyone getting together to clear out rainwater from the house, climbing onto the roof to reset broken tiles. “Besides, I would help granny light the fire in shegdis (mud stove), sit in the balcony and look at the ethereal rain through the wooden trelliswork. Occasionally, I would go ut to play in rainwater puddles,” she reminisces.
It was this love for Dharwad that set the ball rolling to start her design studio in 2016. Working out of a section of her house, Varsha runs Girmmit Designs, where she creates eco-friendly gifting options that showcase “the brilliantly diverse and immensely beautiful spirit of Dharwad.”
Her handmade wooden coasters, for instance, feature unique laser-etched botanical designs. Other gifting options she sells across India include cloth buntings, illustrated spice jars, wooden trays, and refrigerator magnets with designs of vegetable flowers.
The venture is mainly inspired by her love for botanicals.
Varsha is also a photographer and loves capturing the diverse flora on her lens. (Supplied)
Samuel practices and promotes urban organic vegetable farming and composting. She also conducts tree trails, nature-based scavenger hunts and other indoor and outdoor skill-based workshops and activities in Dharwad. She is also a photographer and loves capturing the diverse flora on her lens.
“The more I went out on nature walks, the more there was to learn and my passion kept growing,” she says.
“Many a time, I would challenge myself to photograph the same subject in a completely different perspective each time,” says Samuel who has a degree in Applied Arts from Davangere in Karnataka.
A sudden diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, a few years ago, put a pause to Samuel’s photo jaunts and tree trails.
“But I have taken that as a challenge,” she asserts.
“I am now translating that inspiration into my paintings and illustrations. The keen observation that I have been doing over the years and the immense knowledge I have gained is helping me create botanically-accurate illustrations,” she shares.
Her venture Apratimpous features nature and flora in its diverse forms. (Supplied)
And that is how her website, Apratimpous, was born in 2021.
“My daughter and my husband surprised me with the website on my birthday. They chose the name because of my obvious love for Dharwad rains and my Maharashtrian connection,” she tells South First.
‘Apratimpous’ in Marathi means unparalleled rain. It encompasses the combined essence of Marathi and inspiration from the quintessential Dharwad rains.
The website features her memory illustrations that she made while being cooped up at home due to her diagnosis. These drawings are now being printed on the range of gifting options she ships to interested buyers across India.
“Earlier, Girmmit Designs only focused on Dharwad-based designs, but Apratimpous features nature and, more specifically, flora in its diverse forms,” she explains.
“We focus on giving various gifting options that feature original artworks, are high on aesthetics, and 100% eco-friendly in nature, even in terms of packaging,” she informs.
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One of her best-selling products is the sustainable wooden desktop calendar. Made from repurposed teakwood and strong hardboard, it has been carefully put together and polished by hand.
“This teakwood frame can be reused year after year and can also be used to showcase your precious photographs,” she notes.
Each year, the calendar showcases a unique nature-based theme. For the upcoming year 2024, it is ‘Finding Beauty Along the Way.’
“The calendar showcases detailed botanical illustrations of flowering avenue trees of India, painstakingly made by me,” she adds.
But what is it about Dharwad rains that make them so legendary? We insist that she reveal.
“It’s probably the red soil or just something in the air of Dharwad that makes even the petrichor here smell more ethereal, more magical. It rains constantly for days at a stretch. But, it’s neither a heavy, life-crippling downpour, nor is it a mere drizzle. It is a beautiful, full-bodied, sustaining rain. To say it’s magical would be putting it mildly,” she says, poetically.
Come rain, and Dharwad goes beautifully green, Samuel adds.
Other gifting options include cloth buntings, illustrated spice jars, wooden trays, etc. (Supplied)
“This pretty little town takes on myriad shades of the most refreshing green. After the wispy, feathery maidenhair ferns (the monsoon mascot of Dharwad), it is the soft and absolutely sumptuous, velvety moss that turns Dharwad into a green wonderland, and this magical phenomenon is unique to very few regions. Dharwad is one of the fortunate few,” she details.
Samuel has been capturing Dharwad rains mostly on her camera. She even shares the pictures on her social media, which in turn, have inspired a huge section of the Dharwad diaspora to rekindle their love for their town.
“My photographs have also tempted many other non-Dharwad friends and contacts of mine to visit Dharwad for the unique Monsoons experience,” she signs off.
You can buy Apratimpous products here.
Or follow Varsha’s nature trails and her botanical illustrations here.
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