Humble Raja

रानी — Rani — Queen.
A title history often remembers quietly.
But the queens we’ve been researching were anything but quiet — rulers, strategists, patrons of culture, and forces behind empires.
We’ve been slowly illustrating a few of their stories.
Happy International Women’s Day.
📷 credit:
Presenting process work for Queens of India at Cool Concept 9, hosted by

Humble Raja is born from a desire to explore our South Asian cultural identity within a Western context. We bridge the gaps in cultural knowledge through design exploration, blending our passion for illustration with a deep fascination for our heritage.

Our contemporary artifacts are a dive into South Asian history, designed to bring culture to the table through stories, illustrations, and games. We wanted to create something unseen: a tangible and playful way for the past and the present to meet.

We create art meant to be touched, played with, and shared—because culture and history belong outside of museum walls.

Building a community was an unexpected gift. Your belief inspires us to keep diving deeper, asking more questions, and creating more. So, we’re bringing something new to the table, and we’re grateful you’re here to see it unfold.

Cheers,
Reena & Bhavesh


📷 Credit for the first image, taken when we spoke at Cool Concept 9 hosted by :

A deep dive on hoopoes:

The hoopoe’s rich history in art extends from ancient Egyptian iconography to modern Indian miniature paintings, and continues to be a meaningful subject for modern and contemporary artists.
Its unique appearance and symbolic associations with wisdom, kingship, and survival contribute to its enduring presence in various artistic traditions across the globe.
Our carrom board design adds to this deep appreciation of the hoopoe and its powerful link to history and culture.
image credits:
1. Humble Raja Board for Carrom City Club (isolated Hoopoes)
2. Indian Miniature Painting of a Hoopoe - Silk Road Gallery
3. "The Concourse of the Birds", Folio 11r from a Mantiq al-Tayr (Language of the Birds) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. Hoopoe on a Citrus Tree Branch - Cleveland Museum of Art
5. Recto [Album leaf.] A hoopoe and urdu inscription. Painted in gouache on paper. According to register, folio 39. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
These images are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

We're documenting all of the places our Canada Post Diwali stamps go. If you've recieved mail with one of these stamps, add your photo to the collection here!

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