Over six years spent travelling around India, Louis Rousselet learned photography and captured some of the most beautiful scenes of the Subcontinent, from the Himalayas to the Nilgiris and from coast to coast
Read more ...Object of the week: Jagannath’s Puri temple inspired this art form
Odisha’s Pattachitra paintings are rooted in the culture of the seaside town of Puri and, more specifically, in its legendary Jagannath temple
Read more ...Pristine views of the Ganga – World Environment Day 2023
The Ganga is one of the largest contributors to plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. But this wasn’t always the case
Read more ...Indian maps, myths & travel legends
In conversation with professional geographer Dr Manosi Lahiri about the ways in which travellers have helped to draw the map of India
Read more ...India, G20 & the repatriation of cultural artefacts
Object of the week: Notes from a solo woman traveller in India
Fanny Parkes’s richly illustrated journals give us a sense of the freedom that the author experienced as a woman traveller in 19th-century India
Read more ...Destination India, a reading list
‘Searching For Ashoka’ by Nayanjot Lahiri
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
Read more ...Object of the week: Pilgrims to Nathdwara take these paintings home
Pichwai paintings were born in the temple town of Nathdwara in Rajasthan and centre the 8-year-old deity, Shrinathji
Read more ...Object of the week: A rare photo of Dal Lake in the 1800s
Summer Holidays: The origin of India’s hill-stations
From the Himalayas to the Nilgiris, the mountain slopes of India are home to hill-stations. Built by the British, these were sanctuaries designed to get them through sickness and long summers
Read more ...Mughal Sarais, where caravans & cultures mingled
Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Kabuliwala’ to get a contemporary remake
In Kalamkari Country
Art historian Rajarshi Sengupta takes us on a tour of south India’s celebrated Kalamkari textile tradition
India’s African History – The Siddis of the Deccan
‘The Tempestuous Life & Times of Rajaraja and the Cholas’ by Kamini Dandapani
‘The Deccan: Medieval India’s Forgotten Superpower’ by Anirudh Kanisetti
Warlords to Kings – History of the Maratha supremacy
The Maratha identity, which took shape in the 8th century and continued to wield power even under British rule, is one of the most understudied aspects of Deccan history. Travel with us to meet its most influential architects
Read more ...Life on the Deccan Plateau – From dinosaurs to diamonds
Like its culture, the geology of the Deccan too is incredibly diverse and supports a dazzling variety of life
Read more ...