Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay established the Crafts Council of India (CCI) in 1964. She also laid the foundation for Sangeet Natak Akademi and National School of Drama. A freedom fighter, social reformer and feminist, champion for India's women and her Handloom and Handicraft communities, this lady from Mangalore was awarded the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibushan - the... Continue Reading →
Landour is the land of Ruskin Bond. He's my love of the same infinite and unfathomable intensity as Gulzar - am not giving up either one is English love and the other is Hindi+Urdu love 🙂 If this sounds bizarre at all then that's how it is! Everything about Landour and Mussoorie is quite surreal...... Continue Reading →
Hi, I'm Chitku 🙂 we've met before. This is my brother Kaachbo. We have been brought into this world by Priyanka Tolia. She is an Exhibition Designer from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, and had studied History (Honours) from Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) before that. Priyanka often heard from the elders in... Continue Reading →
Meet Chitku - my lovely fairy She's made by caring hands of Uttarakhandi women, with grass from the Himalayan range from northern India. She was part of a batch about to fly off to the European climes. I just loved her, felt she wanted me to keep her with me. I asked her if she... Continue Reading →
Usha Prajapati Varia, the founder of Samoolam, emailed me about an upcoming event in the city. Since she is busy working in London could I attend it? Why not? Of course, anything Usha suggests is always unique - and so it was! I read up about Jiyo from their website, it says there: JIYO !... Continue Reading →
March is here, everyone will get busy with their financial work in India as this month ends the financial year here. It’s a stressful time when you realise that most of your investments have gone wrong and the essential papers are missing! For a de-stressful time, visit the local museum in your city to marvel... Continue Reading →
Dear Manju Your instant creative responses to this photograph taken at Pondicherry on 31st December, 2018 offered me the luxury of choice... Instead of forcing my choice on the readers, yesterday, on social media, there was an opinion poll. Everyone scrambled to find the poet/ess in themselves. The answer - equal responses to both :)... Continue Reading →
Breaking news from Nature: Spring has arrived! If you've not been aware, Spring slowly peeped in through the especially cold Winter of 2019 in a riot of colours... Well, Spring has always been around, about to jump on Winter and whisk her away 🙂 like those streaks of mischievousness in most of us which we... Continue Reading →
#projectinterpret started 2019 with a tour of the nearly 2000 year old Kanheri Caves in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali East, Mumbai. Easy to reach, through winding lush green path, spotting deers enroute, this cave cluster needs to be climbed by foot once a vehicle takes you to its base. Not for the... Continue Reading →
It has been a very exciting 2018 for VarnikaDesigns 🙂 The biggest was an attempt to reach out to more and more people through launch of its venture #projectinterpret - a multi sensory, cultural, interactive and inclusive space With #projectinterpret we travelled, excavated stories, explored multiple perspectives and interpreted them through experiential tours to heritage... Continue Reading →
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