There is a night each year when the oldest living city in the world seems to leave the earth and join the sky. On Kartik Poornima, the full moon of the sacred month of Kartik, Varanasi becomes Dev Deepawali, the … Read More
Author Archives: Madhusudan Narayanan
Where Stories Come Alive
The Koshala Literature Festival, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Duration 4 days, 3 nights (festival days with arrival day flexibility) Dates 27 to 30 November 2026 Destination Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Festival 5th edition of the Koshala Literature Festival, presented by the Perspective … Read More
Himalayan Wellness Festival
Healing in the Land of Gods The Himalayan Wellness Festival, Dehradun, Uttarakhand Duration 3 days, 2 nights Dates 23 to 25 October 2026 Destination Dehradun, Uttarakhand Stay The Punarnava Wellness Resort, Dehradun (residential retreat) Festival hosts PHD Chamber of Commerce … Read More
Wootz Steel: The Indian Metal That Built the Medieval World
The Crusaders called it the most terrifying metal they had ever encountered. When the armies of the First Crusade arrived in the Holy Land in 1099 CE and met the forces of the Islamic world in battle, they discovered that … Read More
The Iron Age Did Not Begin in Turkey. It Began in Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu
The world has a story it tells about iron. Iron, the story goes, was first mastered in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, around 1200 BCE. From there it spread through the ancient world: to Greece, to Persia, to India, … Read More
Varanasi Enamelling: The Ancient Craft That Connected India to the World
There is a colour that changed the history of art on three continents. It is called the Purple of Cassius, named after the 17th century German alchemist Andreas Cassius who first documented its production, though craftspeople in Persia and India … Read More
The Story of Mysore Silk
What is the story of Mysore silk? The story of Mysore silk begins in the 1780s, when Tipu Sultan brought silkworm rearing to his kingdom, and reaches its royal peak in 1912, when Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV opened a silk … Read More
Varahamihira: Ancient Astronomer Who Mapped the Comets & Predicted Earthquakes
Who was Varahamihira?Varahamihira was a 6th-century Indian astronomer, mathematician and polymath who lived and worked in Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh from approximately 505 to 587 CE. He was one of the nine gems of Emperor Vikramaditya’s court and authored … Read More
Pune Ganesh Festival: The Five Pandals That Helped Birth a Nation
In 1893, the British colonial administration was watching Pune carefully. Large public gatherings were viewed with suspicion. Political meetings were monitored. Any organised assembly that could give voice to the growing feeling of nationalism was a threat to the colonial … Read More
Sushruta: The World’s First Plastic Surgeon
Modern medicine credits plastic surgery to 20th-century European surgeons. There is a Varanasi physician who performed it in 600 BCE. His name was Sushruta. He lived and taught on the banks of the Ganges in the city now known as … Read More