Hansika Jethnani - A Poet, Visual Artist and Somatic Healing Space Holder

I am a dreamer, a lover, a seeker: dreaming of a more equitable, safe, soft and happier world for everyone here. Loving all that come my way with openness and willingness to create the world I dream of, and seeking always, learning, growing, discovering new ways of being that will lead us to this world one day. 

I’m a poet, visual artist and somatic healing space holder. Painting, poetry and photography have long been my artistic expressions & means of inquiry… and have been the tools through which I grew up understanding myself. I was born and raised in Indonesia, moved to China as a teenager and spent some of my teen years and early twenties in the United Kingdom. I moved to India just over 5 years ago and currently live in Goa, where I feel the most at home I have ever felt in life. 

As a young kid I wanted to be a writer, artist or fashion designer. I was always inclined towards creativity. As I grew slightly older and entered my teens, I became really interested in social work & really wanted to help people. I remember thinking maybe I wanted to work at the United Nations one day.

I have been painting and writing since I was 8. Poetry gave me a voice when I feel like I didn’t have one. Painting and drawing helped me express myself and understand my inner world (though at that time I didn’t have the awareness that I was doing this). Art always felt comforting, I enjoyed it and I think it gave me the outlet I needed because I grew up in quite a chaotic and dysfunctional home. Art & poetry became my solace. Moving around so much growing up also meant that movement and travel was all I knew — my parents were also diaspora raised and didn’t grow up in India, so being curious and open to travel, movement and different cultures is something that I just naturally inherited. As I grew up and experienced living on my own, and traveling on my own, I realised the immense beauty there was in every journey I took. Every journey outwards also led me on a journey inwards, and I became very fond of movement, travel and wanderlust. 

At a womens retreat recently, I led a visualisation meditation and expressive arts session where we reconnected with our inner child. The space that ensued allowed people to reconnect with parts of themselves they had  perhaps forgotten, and in that there was immense catharsis and healing. The slowness of expressive arts and reflective qualities of the practice also really allow for suppressed emotions to come to the surface, letting people journey through a space of acceptance and healing in a gentle and soothing manner. 

Breathwork is a practice that really allows you to reconnect with yourself in a deep and profound way. Reiki is also a beautiful practice that brings immense calmness and balance to oneself. They both have immense health and spiritual benefits. They have impacted my overall well-being immensely. Breathwork had helped me acknowledge and release many suppressed and repressed emotions that my body had been holding on to, I have made so much peace with my past, my parents, my childhood traumas and really come to a space organically of acceptance, love and compassion for myself and others. From a health perspective, breathwork also reduces anxiety, depression, improves sleep, digestion, and increases our lung capacity amongst many other health benefits. I have seen similar experiences for those I have held space for, where breathwork and reiki has helped them come into more peace and acceptance of themselves, by acknowledging and letting go of past traumas, they have found more peace within themselves and their surroundings. I believe this in itself is such an important and underrated feeling. In this new age, fast paced world, the gift of slowing down, and finding peace and joy is perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves and others. I think our emotional health and physical health is also so connected. So if we take care of our spiritual and emotional health, we are automatically taking care of our physical being and reducing the chances of any long term illness and disease, there by improving our overall well-being significantly. 

Everything I create is an extension of me and very much connected to my heart. Every creation comes from a deep space within. A lot of my paintings are abstract creations that come from a deep meditative state while I am creating. Most of the bottle art I create is done via finger painting, which is the same medium I like to use for painting generally lately. I enjoy creating abstract patterns that leave a lot of room for wander and wonder.

Our story began with the question “why don’t we see Maang Tikkas more often?”  My cofounder realised while watching a Bollywood song on TV how beautiful and underrated Maang Tikkas were as a type of jewellery in Indian wear, and wondered what a skull as a Maang tikka would look like. He posed that question to me a few weeks later and one thing led to another and we realised we wanted to create a brand that birthed Indian jewellery in a fun, unique and quirky way. 

I think at the core they’re all interconnected, because they’re all really about coming home to ourselves, in a way that is authentic, raw and honest. Whether it’s my own artworks, or holding space for others through breathwork and art sessions… at the core of my being, and my practice, is the essence that we are unravelling pieces of ourselves that we have collected over the years, as we grew up, and with time, that society perhaps placed on us, that our upbringing perhaps places on us, that our families perhaps placed on us, and slowly… letting them fall, letting them peel, so we can come home to our real, authentic, genuine selves, no masks or “should have been” or “have to be like” but instead really questioning our desires and accepting them for what they are wholeheartedly with no judgement. I do this for myself, and I help others do this as they rediscover themselves. Creativity is my means of inquiry, and I believe also how I find harmony, because I need to be as creative as I am while painting, when I’m also holding space for a client whose been through sexual assault. 

I want to live so wholeheartedly that my heart is surprised by its own capacity to expand. I aspire to be really unafraid of living from my heart, truly and deeply in every sense of the word. I want to create more artworks that really come from even deeper spaces of my heart. I want to create spaces of healing for others that really allow themselves to connect with their heart, in deep and meaningful ways. I think we are all meant to live from our heart, but this world has hardened us. I aspire to create a more heart-full world. 

I think my style fluctuates between bold and elegant. I like wearing bold, loud colours, and stark jewellery sometimes. I like wearing simpler, subtle yet statement pieces of clothing and jewellery other times. My style is dynamic and fluid, and always honest. I really wear from my heart, wearing what I am feeling. 

I love the modern, contemporary ethos that is so evident yet rooted in our beautiful history and culture. The designs, both of the jewellery and sarees really speak to the contemporary Indian women of today - independent, fearless, driven while honouring the richness of our heritage. 

Be yourself, discover yourself, love yourself. Life is too short to not speak from your heart, and too short to not live from your heart too!