Spotlight

Sarmaya Spotlight is a magazine-style digital property that explores various themes in the universe of Indian history, art and culture through objects in our collection. Each issue of Spotlight includes interviews, articles, videos, 101 guides, virtual tours and social media campaigns. Browse our archive of over 30 Spotlights below.

May 2023

Open Roads

For our 36th edition of Sarmaya Spotlight, we bring you the most picturesque destinations, thrilling travel stories and colourful souvenirs from across the Subcontinent

January 2023

A Deccan Odyssey

Synonymous with the plateau that covers most of southern India, the Deccan is also an important historical region with a complex, multicultural past. For the 35th issue of Spotlight, we journey across its fabled lands.

November 2022

Echoes of the Land

In November 2022, Sarmaya collaborated with Ojas Art to present our first exhibition in Delhi. In the 34th edition of our digital magazine, Spotlight, we examine some environmental, cultural and artistic themes from the show.

September 2022

Reign of the Goddess

As the festive season draws near, we get to know some of the great goddesses of our culture in the 33rd issue of Sarmaya Spotlight

June 2022

Sea of Stories

In the 32nd issue of Spotlight, we explore how the basic human instinct to stay close to water has shaped Indian culture, art and history

February 2022

This Just In

Why do we collect what we do? The inexorable pull of nostalgia. The simple human need to draw closer to beauty. The undeniable thrill of acquisition. All these influence the act of collecting. At our archive, each potential addition to the collection is judged by one other criteria: Can this object expand our understanding of the Indian subcontinent and its inexhaustible vault of stories?

October 2021

Madras Talkies

In 1639, a British trading company got permission from the local rulers to set up a factory on a thin strip of the Coromandel coast. Measuring about three square miles and lashed by the fury of the Bay of Bengal, Madraspatnam gave no early signs of the historic metropolis it would soon morph into

August 2021

Shifting Selves

Something beautiful and bizarre starts to happens when you place disparate works of art and history next to each other. Like a creeper putting out tendrils to investigate higher ground, these objects begin to reach out and whisper to each other. Connections crackles across mediums, styles and eras. Universal themes shine through like iridescent threads.… Read more »

June 2021

Age of the Empires

The thrill of serendipity, the awakening of the imagination, the inevitability of being devoured heart and soul by a world you didn’t even know existed until this moment. In a way, being a student of history is like being an astronomer. Especially if the subject of study is an ancient or forgotten kingdom. Click to… Read more »

January 2021

People of India

“A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.” As the chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair in the early 1900s, Edward Steichen knew what he was talking about. Portraiture is the result of a dynamic collaboration between photographer and model, both of whom colour the final frame with… Read more »