VarnikaDesigns has started ‘Jugnu’ - A monthly book club to read, reflect, and share knowledge. Books, books and more books for finding the Jugnu - the glow - in you 🙂
JUGNU: the book club by VarnikaDesigns – let’s find the glow in our lives
Designing Narratives: How ‘The Museum Memories Project’ Inspired Kareena Vaswani
Kareena Vaswani shares her insights on how ‘The Museum Memories Project’ has profoundly influenced her belief in the power of design as a tool for cultural preservation and storytelling.
Why MuMe Matters: Embracing Cultural Heritage
Why MuMe Matters: Embracing Cultural Heritage Usha Varia, Founder, Samoolam, shares with Poulomi, her strategies of empowering the youth of Gaya, Bihar, through cultural heritage by engaging them in what they like to do, from digital marketing to making reels.
Insights from LLDC’s Vibrant Winter Festival 2025
VarnikaDesigns collaborated with LLDC to present to the world their amazing Festival. The blog has videos of interviews with individual artisans. We conceptualised, planned and moderated an interactive discussion between upholders of generations old craft communities from Orissa and Kutch and their custodians - long video link in blog.
Reflecting on Museums: Do They Still Matter in Today’s World?
Wishing everyone a happy, safe, peaceful and healthy 2025. VarnikaDesigns will be 15 this year! We will be reflecting, introspecting, discussing, debating - keeping following us. Thank you 🙂
Reviving Dahod’s Tradition: Crafts, Culture, and Livelihood
This article was written by me in 2001 as the lead for the craft documentation team of 5 students. It closely observes the crucial role of craft regeneration in the creation of livelihood, leading to empowerment of women and education, health and hygiene for children and the whole community of Bhils there.
Water! We will always need you but we treat you bad :(
One morning in March, 2024, India woke up to a headline that shocked us beyond belief * India's pride, Bengaluru, had no water!!! Born and brought up in Rajasthan and having spent most of my life there and in Gujarat, both desert states of India, water scarcity was something we were aware of being integral to our lives.
International Museum Expo, New Delhi, 18 – 20 May, 2023
I was honoured to be invited by the Ministry of Culture as a speaker on International Museum Day to talk about the oral history documentation project called ‘The Museum Memories Project’ – it was found at the beginning of the Covid global lockdown that to bring the world closer through sharing of personal memories from museums visited by anyone in any corner of the globe. It is a free digital archive and resource platform of histories, heritage, cultures of all people, making them accessible and inclusive to everyone 🙂
‘Impresario:A Heritage Foundry’ Interview with Stephen Barker, author and military historian
On Impresario: A Heritage Foundry we present an interview with Stephen Barker. A heritage advisor and museum consultant for museums in England, Stephen has been researching on the role of Indians as part of the British army during the World Wars. He closely examines their lives and activities on the battlefield and after. ‘The Museum Memories Project’ catches up with him on his latest book called 'Lion of the Skies: Hardit Singh Malik, the Royal Air Force and the First World War’ (it is called 'The Flying Sikh' outside India).
Netaji and India’s non violent struggle!
23rd January is the birth day of Subhas Chandra Bose, revered in India as Netaji ('Neta' means leader and 'Ji' is a title of respect). He was born in 1897 to Prabhabati Devi and Sri Janakinath Bose at Cuttak, in Orissa. He spent the first 16 years of his life there and loved Orissa and she loved her back, I will tell how. He studied in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and got selected for the Indian Civil Services (ICS) now known as Indian Administrative Services (IAS). He was inspired by Swami Vivekananda's speeches during his Cuttak years and decided to fight for India's freedom, in a different manner. Below are some lesser know facts related to him.
VarnikaDesigns 