Babita Basavaraj – Dashavatar Ganjifa

Mysore – one of India’s great ganjifa centers – is famous for its detailed, lifelike paintings and gold leaf work on its cards. Babita Basavaraj’s dashavatar deck delivers on both.

Consider the translucent fins and delicate scales of the fishes swimming around the Matsya (fish avatar) suit pip cards, or the colors playing off the surface of the conch shells decorating the Rama suit, or the gleam of ornate arches setting off the raja cards.

Above: Matsya and Rama pip and Buddha raja cards from Dashavatar deck by Babita Basavaraj (2026).

Above: Map of India with Mysore.

The deck follows the standard dashavatar pattern composition with ten suits, each devoted to an avatar of Vishnu. Each suit contains ten pip and two court cards: the mantri or manthri (minister) lower court card and the raja (king) upper one. The raja cards are distinguished by the arches above the image.

I caught up with Basavaraj on the phone and learned a bit about her evolution into a master ganjifa artist. She started when she was 14 and continued her education under both traditional art faculties and ganjifa gurus. Over time, she became the teacher, training 60 aspiring ganjifa artists and choosing the best two to become her assistants.

Today, her studio follows the centuries-old pattern of artisan workshops, with trainees doing preparatory work such as gluing card layers together and putting down background colors, and Basavaraj coming in to do the delicate strokes that require a master’s brush. Gold foil is converted into paste, applied to the card, then burnished with agate stone, with line work done on top of the gold.

Like many modern ganjifa artists, cards are only a part of what Basavaraj creates; with demand for ganjifa decks down, an artisan must have an array of wares on offer. You can see images of various items decorated with ganjifa art in “Mysore Ganjifa – Raghupathi Bhat Workshop Cards”, which covers the city-backed 2024–2025 ganjifa workshop that Basavaraj helped organize.