mandala

As many of you know, I have a fondness for henna. When I moved to San Antonio I spent a while searching out a henna artist and stumbled upon Pramod Goshai and his shop, Mandala. Pramod does beautiful, traditional design but has always allowed me my own taste and used his artistic gift to tattoo my Aspen tree. Well, it was probably a year ago since I visited his shop - it became too far away for casual henna stops once I moved up north. Regardless, I still receive emails from Pramod about events that his shop is having. Tonight, I got my friend Tina to attend an "Aangan". According to Pramod, Aangan means "courtyard/frontyard" and his email said the idea behind organizing an Aangan was "to celebrate diversity, to know each other and most importantly to celebrate ourselves, rejoice have fun in our hectic lives and to taste something new." Indeed, it was all of that. Mandala has beautiful artwork on display, the smells of the Indian and Nepali food were delicious and of course Pramod's henna was awesome. I was so surprised to walk in and have him look at me and say... "You're Erin... Erin Long, right? Would you like another Aspen tree?" Ha ha! Of COURSE I would. I got my Aspen and Tina (whose leg is in the picture above) got a butterfly. So fun. There were interesting people to meet at Mandala and Tina and I pledged to each other that we would come back. We are definitely looking forward to the next event!