I was a Nehru Trust Fellow in the summer of 2015 to research, understand and evaluate the Access Features at the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. I also worked on a project for the Learning, Volunteers and Audiences Department (LVA) project of the British Museum. This project required me to evaluate the Eye... Continue Reading →
Dear Arushi Wish you a very very Happy Birthday 🙂 many happy returns of the day. This post is about a young boy called Robi who didn't like going to school. He was born on 7th May 1861 at his father, Debendranath Tagore's house, in Jorasanko, Kolkata. He was born more than 100 years from... Continue Reading →
Part 3: British Chunar The most interesting building we saw in the Chunar fort campus was the house of Warren Hastings, the 1st British Governor General of Bengal. He was in India just after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, when the Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud Daulah had to give away all his powers to... Continue Reading →
Part 2: Medieval Chunar Chunar fort is built on a promontory on the eastern bank of the river Ganga but is so strategically placed across it that the mighty river actually strikes against the fort and turns back towards north. This gives the name to Ganga as Uttarvahini - meaning turning around! This fort has... Continue Reading →
One cool November morning we decided to visit Chunar. Our driver Mishraji, took us on my parent’s second and my maiden visit to Chunar. Any Indian history, art, design, architecture and archaeology student or enthusiast would have heard of Chunar – the birthplace of sandstone that made the buff coloured majestic Asokan pillars with his... Continue Reading →
On the 16th of September, I set out with a group of young friends to catch the ‘exciting’ new exhibition called Tate Sensorium at the Tate Britain. It was more the company of such interesting and nice people rather than the exhibition that made me agree to their plan. And, the fact that I have... Continue Reading →
In the last blog, we had started on the journey of the discovery of the creations of the illustrious ruler Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III. We saw him turn into a full fledged king, soon he will prove he is a ruler above excellence, a beloved of his citizens whom he never considered his subjects. Sayajirao was... Continue Reading →
Dear Aditya, Shashwat and Anushka Let me tell you the story of the place where your parents grew up, studied, met and fell in love. It is a city where you owe your origins to, any guesses for it? Yes, it is Baroda as the British called it and Vadodara as it is now known.... Continue Reading →
Many friends have asked about the name of my blog and tiny firm 'VarnikaDesigns'. The name is borrowed from 'Varnikabhangam' from the Six Limbs of Indian Painting. The Six Limbs of Indian Painting is a set of cannons and guidelines that were assembled around the 6th century to guide artists for creating paintings. If you... Continue Reading →
VarnikaDesigns 