Palash: the Flame of the Forest flower

'Palash' has many names in many languages. It's a very popular, loved and revered flower which sets forests on fire during late February and March in India. It is also known as the 'flame of the forest' or 'parrot tree' in English, 'tesu' 'dhak' and 'parasu' in some Indian languages. It mainly blossoms in the...

Museum Memories from Kolhapur or ‘Kalapur’

This is a memory from Anita Yewale from the Town Hall Museum, Kolhapur. All text and photo credits rest with the author. Photographs have been taken at the Museum by her with permission from the Director, Town Hall Museum, DAM, Government of Maharashtra: her contribution to the ongoing 'Museum Memories Project'   Two little hidden...

Art History Memes and more :)

One of Mumbai’s important gallery+museum, the Piramal Museum of Art, closed doors during lockdown, no one knows if it will ever open. Over the last 4 years it had become a very happy and welcoming space where I could confidently walk around with my students knowing they’ll be loved and respected. Most museums and galleries...

Museum Memories #23 by Nidhip Mehta

5 Museum Memories of Storm King Art Center (New York, USA) By Prof. Nidhip Mehta Architect and Former Dean, Pearl Academy School of Design My favourite museum to visit in the entire world isn’t even technically a museum at all. It’s 500 acres of rolling hills, woodlands, and green fields that holds one of the...

Jodhpur: soaring high!

Jodhpur: beating the blues... contd... As mentioned in the previous post, Jodhpur is famous for its textiles, arts and crafts. Even today, its woodcarvers create some of the most popular contemporary furniture that are found online - just Google for 'Jodhpur furniture' and check the results! You have to walk around the old city to...

The V S Gaitonde exhibition review

A humble offering in the form of a review of the paintings by the celebrated artist V S Gaitonde by the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation at the CSMVS, for the ArtFAct monthly newsletter. This December they complete a year 🙂 The text of the review is given below: The Sea There is a pleasure in...

Their stories, for us…this Children’s Day :)

"The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country." Jawaharlal Nehru, 1st Prime Minister of India In the scorching summer month of May, the NGO Hamaara Sapna had organised a summer camp for which I was a facilitator for both their...

Nobel Prize for Economics & the Santiniketan connection

"This urge to reduce the poor to a set of clichés has been with us for as long as there has been poverty. The poor appear, in social theory, as much as much in literature, by turns lazy or enterprising, noble or thievish, angry or passive, helpless or self-sufficient," Mr Banerjee and Ms Duflo wrote...

Amar Kutir: revolutionaries, Batik & local culinary delight!

Amar Kutir Society for Rural Development near Santiniketan, West Bengal, is a registered cooperative society since 1978. Susen Mukhopadhyay started it in 1923 as a safe haven for the young revolutionaries fighting for Indian’s freedom. He was greatly concerned for the daily livelihood of these young people who had left home and were mostly hiding...

Decoding Durga Pujo

Dedicated to the girls of the 1992 Batch of Maharani Gayatri Devi Girl's Public School, Jaipur Dear Friends You have strongly motivated me to write a post on Durga, her reverance, her attributes, the 'pandals',  her relevance to Bengal and the Bengali community. I will take a valiant attempt in keeping with the spirit of...