Why pretend to be a Princess when you can be the Goddess? Chin up, women!

Umm…wait a moment! Isn’t the Goddess someone who gets to sit on exquisite flowers and mystic animals? Someone who oozes out poise and elegance? Hah! Let’s face the reality.

In India, every woman is ‘considered’ a devi (Goddess). But looking at the condition of Indian women, I doubt that. To truly feel gratitude towards the women a.ka. Goddesses, it is very important to learn about them in depth. Aren’t you curious to know what their life is like before they sit with poise and we kneel infront of them with folding hands? I am.

JWB’s Diwali campaign ‘Lakshmi Off Duty’ will narrate you the lives of 4 Jaipur women showing what they go through the entire day before sitting on the Lotus flower, just like Maa Lakshmi. Along with our Jewelry Partner – , Clothing Partner – Ritu Kumar Couture and Makeup Partner – Sizzling Scissors, we bring to you these women aged between 4 and 70. In this story, we shall seek the life of the youngest avatar of Goddess Lakshmi. Little Maple is our heroine; let’s see how her normal days are like!

‘Wakey, wakey, baby doll”, says mommy. The clock has already struck 7:30 and the Chhota Bheem is airing on the Cartoon Network. Will she miss her favorite show? She has never. Not even after she’s started going to the kindergarten.

She slowly puts out one leg of her pink Snow-White sheets, looks at the open window, then at her mommy who stands besides two ‘strange-beings’ – I & Pallav, the Photographer. Quickly she covers her head, knowing we are people she hasn’t met before.

Daddy drags her out, carrying her to the drawing room in a quest to open her eyes a little more. In that way, we could get our first shot too!

Alas! Goddess isn’t in the mood. Yet.

She picks up her toothbrush, puts it under the water for a minute. No specific reason. We thought she’s fallen asleep in the wash-basin. Thanks to the tooth-paste, we get a glimpse of her side-face. Ah, pretty!

She then casually sits on the sofa, a regular place for tooth-brushing. Lakshmi gets bored of the Lotus, often.

With sparking teeth, she (finally) speaks up, “Mummaa….I need food!” We thought, what a wonderful child with absolutely no food-tantrums. “For the birds”, she adds. Wearing her grandpa’s slippers, she begins trailing towards the green lawn. We follow in the footsteps.

Little Maple wrangles nobody into her fun. She picks up the water pipe, moves towards the saplings she planted with dadi-maa few months back.

Papa gets some water too. He also needs to grow up!

Phew, how long can you wait for the Goddess? The deity of prosperity & happiness can make one wait for whole lifetime. Luckily for us, little Lakshmi took just 1 hr 15 minutes to give us that first ‘smile radiating through the fallen tooth’.

This is followed by few selfies.

Every day, Maple takes out time to sit with grandma in the prayer-room. She whispers in my left ear, “I am praying to find my lost eraser in the school. Abhinav took it and never returned. I am also praying that mumma gives me cake and fries in the lunch-box!!!!”

Apparently, she is about to get served jalebis and kachoris. No milk today, much to her delight.

But before this, the Goddess gotta get sparklingly clean, and smell like flowers. Right now, her clothes only smell of mango ice-cream from last night.

It was about time Maple had to leave for school. She quickly takes her bath, gobbles the kachoris in. No jalebis. And sets out to dry her hair.

“Let me do it, Mapu”, calls the mother.

“No”

“Do you want dadi to do your hair”, asks Dadi-maa.

“No, I will do it. I know how to. I’ve learnt from Katrina on TV.”

And there she goes, holding the drier upfront. The hair blows in a way, giving her the perfect ‘Katrina-moment’. Trust me, she took about 5 minutes doing the exact same thing until her mum comes and snatches the hair-drier.

“Do you want to be late? Papa is waiting for you outside”, yells momma-bear resulting into this moment.

Before you go ‘Awww’, you should see what happened just 5 seconds later!

Modern Lakshmi knows how to tease.

And off she goes to her school for four hours.

Once back, I knew what could help me get her attention. I wanted to be friends with her already!! So I turned on the repeat telecast of Chhota Bheem and voila! While she hogs on the nuts for lunch (health conscious Lakshmi?), she totally forgets about the camera. That means, no more blushing. Au naturale.

It was time we swipe her street-chic look in denims and stripes with that of Goddess Lakshmi’s. Donning her own lehenga-choli, Maple would be draped in a Ritu Kumar couture. Oo-la-la!

Before that, we let the city’s trusted beauty salon ‘Sizzlin’ Scissors’ do the magic. The naughtiness is put on hold for a while, and is groomed with some eye-liner, rouge and lipstick.

No kajal, btw, oh you should have seen the drama. The patience of the ‘Sizzlin’ Scissors’ staff is unmatched; the two girls ‘at work’ have done an amazing job.

More drama prevails once the staff of , Jaipur, starts to drape a bridal dupatta with classy zardozi work around her, making it her saree! We, at JWB, have always admired Ritu Kumar’s dark Indianized tones and golden art-work. This pink-dupatta on Maple was no different.

“Mummaaaaa…….”, screeches Maple. “Chips!”.

For a split second, sweet mother of lord, we lost the count of our breath. The child with no mood-swing cannot have any. Seeing the calm return on her face, we decided to capture the Lakshmi-moment with Uncle Chips. Who doesn’t get hunger-jitters, after all!

No woman’s look is complete without jewelry, and when it’s by Nayaab, nobody says a ‘No’. Even the girl-with-chips almost dropped the pack seeing the flower necklace. has specially selected this art-piece for her.

You can’t deny the fact how beautiful Maple looks in this Nayaab creation. Can you?

“How did daddy’s little girl” end up like this”, quips the daddy. With a big grin and a chip stuck in-between the teeth, she points out at us, telling how her ‘new-friends’ have her all dolled-up….like the Goddess herself.

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