Culture

  • Maggi recipes to keep you going during the lockdown

    From satisfying your mid night cravings to being your ticket into the kitchen, Maggi is something that plays a major role in life of every millenial. More so in the times of lockdown and isolation, bachelors and singles who cannot…

  • Recipes to begin your journey into cooking

    Locked down, alone and don’t know how to cook? Here are a few recipes to help you get started with cooking. There is a lot of population of young people in India who are staying alone, away from their native…

  • A glimpse into art and the depiction of the LGBTQIA+ community

    Here’s a glimpse into some positive steps that were taken or are being taken towards understanding the LGBTQIA+ community in the field of arts & culture. If we trace mainstream art through the years, we are bound to find heteronormativity…

  • BOUND brings together writers for a 5-day retreat in Divar Island, Goa

    BOUND is one-of-its-kind organisations that organised its fourth writer’s retreat in Goa this August. We chatted with the founder, Tara Khandelwal, who has been bringing mentorship opportunities for emerging writers in India. To be a good writer isn’t easy, to…

  • The Indian Connection in San Francisco

    It was the eve of the Indian Independence Day and I was on this season’s first visit to San Francisco. And unwittingly I discovered these two icons of the Indian mythology and the Indian freedom struggle at the first and…

  • The best local dishes of Makar Sankranti from around India

    Dreaming of enjoying delicacies during the kite-flying festival? Did you know that different parts of India have their own unique regional specialities? Find out what the best of these are. January 14th is celebrated across various parts of India as…

  • 7 comics that will transport you back to your childhood

    With the recent popularity of superhero movies, let’s go back to the days when we didn’t need a movie full of VFX to feed our imaginations when our dearest friends were our comic books. Remember the days before gadgets when we used to read comics? Not only did most of our…

  • The Current Turmoil in India’s Cracker Industry

    Know how the 7000 crore cracker industry in India came to be so significant and what the effect of the Delhi ban on the people at Sivakasi is. People celebrate Diwali across the globe in myriad forms. While some believe…

  • How Yoga Became Popular: Know the Masters of Yoga from Modern Era

    With the third International Yoga Day – on June 21st– being round the corner, Creative Yatra discusses how modern day Yogis have popularised Yoga over the years. Know how the science came into existence and how different Yogis preached their unique…

  • Bahubali’s letter to the Indian Film Industry

    मेरे प्रिय भारतीय फिल्म जगत के मित्रो,   मै आ गया हु ! मुझसे डरे नहीं, मै तो आपकी सुरक्षा केलिए ही आया हु ! कई लोग बोल रहे थे के सिनेमा पैसे कमाने का माध्यम है – शायद हो…

  • Meet Amrut Tabiyar : a security guard at GNLU who paints

    In Amrut Tabiyar’s story, we discover the vastness and influence of Art in lives of people. It is an inspiring story of letting joy of creation unseat the harsh realities of life. Amrut Tabiyar is a Security Guard at GNLU…

  • Chaki Ben Chaki Ben, Where Have You Been?

    20th March 2017 is World Sparrow Day, a day that brings to light how ethically appalling the near-extinction of these joyous creatures is. To know how we can make things positive for sparrows and the environment, Creative Yatra correspondent, Himanshu…

  • The Life and Art of Piraji Sagara

    The art of celebrated Modernist Artist and founder member of Kanoria Centre for Arts, Piraji Sagara, is relived at Art 17 this March. Know about his life and creative journey through the words of his friends and family BV Doshi,…

  • Tarak Mehta (1929-2017) had an eye for observation

    Among the humorists in Gujarat who wrote/write for newspapers and magazines, Tarak Mehta (1929-2017) stood out with the visual and narrative qualities of his writing. He developed an eye for observation as he grew up and lived in the middleclass…

  • Jallikattu – Things to Know Before You Take a Stand

    Confused about what the recent furor in Tamil Nadu is about? Here, we break it down for you. The first time I read about Jallilkattu, I thought of it as an Indian version of Spanish bullfighting, with matadors and red…

  • The Super Foods of Uttarayan

    ‘Kaaippoccheee‘ a word that conquers terraces of India on January 14th each year. The modern India is now much nonpartisan in terms of festivity, thus Uttarayan/Makarsankranti finds celebrators across diverse corners of the nation, but why do we celebrate it? The only…

  • The Museum on Wheels: The Design Museum in Dharavi

    The Design Museum Dharavi (DMD as it is better known) defines itself as an innovative intellectual institute that commemorates the creative possibilities in Dharavi, an aboriginal locality situated in the spirits of Mumbai, India. In February 2016, it was inaugurated, a 3…

  • The Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum in Delhi is now open !

    The Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum is now Open to Visitors and we can’t wait to walk in. Stroll down the Majestic Raisina Hill Residence of India’s First Citizen in probably the most entertaining lessons on History. Finally, the second phase at…

  • The Indus Breakfast

    Imagine one fine morning you are leaving for your office and you are absolutely late for it. And with an enhancing cherry on the cake now your car is also almost out of gas, will it start? The same situation…

  • Out of the Box: CY picks India’s most unusual museums

    Shankar’s International Dolls Museum Showing the biggest accumulation of dolls from all through the world, the Shankar’s International Dolls Museum has two segments displaying more than 160 glass cases from New Zealand, India, Africa and Australia. The International Museum was…

  • Rabindranath Tagore: The Other Artist in Indian Modernism

    To many of us Rabindranath Tagore is a Nobel Laureate, poet, playwright, novelist, philosopher and a musician; very few of us know Rabindranath Tagore as the Artist – and one of National and International significance as far as the Pre-modern…

  • Drawing to Remember: On Finding the Gift of Pause

    The elusive illustrator behind “Of Ink and Yellow Memories,” Neelakshi Rathore, talks about drawing as a means to remember, the benefits of keeping a sketchbook, and the inward versus outward worlds of a creative. Sketch of Mcleodganj, 2015 Most people…

  • Fine Arts in Gujarat: A Novice’s surface guide

    Gujarat has had a very peculiar relationship with the arts, one that is based on curiosity, diversity and collective learning. The state altogether, since centuries now has developed its own aesthetic experience spanning visual arts, architecture and literature developing its…

  • The Lesser Known Revolutionaries: Indian Architects you must know of

    Let’s face it. We know little about our architects, who mostly go un-applauded. It is quite alarming considering that India has such a diversely rich architectural tradition, one that has in many ways given to the contemporary architecture. Here’s CY…

  • Flashback: Female Poets and the India of their musings

    Lets take a look at some of the most important pre and post Independence Women Poets from India. Male folks, as it was the norm in most part of the world largely dominated literature in India. History however along with the…

  • Himalayan Stories in Books

    Older than the oldest grandfather, The Himalayan range has always been mystical and homage to serenity. There is something about the mountains that is being able to turn people inwards. Attracting wanderlusts, sages and seekers since decades, its mesmerizing beauty can be deceiving…

  • The Powerful Women in Cinema: Satyajit Ray’s Cinematic Portraits

    Even though they were regional films, Satyajit Ray made powerful cinema. His oeuvre transcends boundaries – geographical, linguistic or otherwise. The women portrayed in his films were detailed and multifaceted in both rural and urban settings.  Let us look back…

  • The Last of the Legends: Farewell, Raza Saab!

    In the year 1950, a 28-year-old man sailed across the Indian Ocean “to see the works of Cezanne” in Paris. As destiny would have it, Paris for him was ‘love at first sight’. He went to the opera, watched the…

  • INDIA’S VERY BEST : CY LISTS MUST VISIT MUSEUMS AROUND INDIA

    Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum (formerly the Victoria and Albert Museum) The oldest museum in Mumbai, established under British colonial rule in 1855, the museum was renamed the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum in 1975 after the Indian…

  • The Tapi Project : a musical paigam

    Long gone are those days, when folk music was just a part of the traditional sects. We are witnessing an increasing number of Indie artists collaborating with Folk musicians and successfully weaving the ethnic sounds with their experimental renditions.  In…

  • ART’s FIRST LADY: BHARTI KHER

    A friend’s mother was mentioning Bharti Kher’s famous Indian elephant, to me. She described it in great detail on our way to a museum, in South Delhi. She elaborated, talking about this piece (that I had only seen in photographs…

  • Campus Theatre: Keeping the flame, Young and Alive!

    It reminds one, of the crucial scene in Hirani’s Three idiots where Farhan essayed by the beautifully restrained Madhavan comes out to his family about his photography aspirations. It is tense. There is a brief pause before all hell breaks…

  • To Mani Da, With Love!

    Chapter 1 : The Teacher Some people live for others to believe in themselves. KG Subramanyan or Mani Da, as he was fondly called was one such being. There was never a single high point to his career; his entire…

  • Architecture of the Page: An Urbanist Explores The Space of Comics

    With the invention of the television, photography and the internet, our love of pictures has grown dramatically over the last century. While bibliophiles lament the resultant loss in reading habits today, a medium does exist that bridges this proverbial divide…

  • Video Art in India: A learner’s guide

    ‘I don’t comprehend video art.’ These words have glued with most of us. So what is an artist’s film or video? Drawing, Painting and Sculpture have been our traditional mediums for understanding visual art. And People who are not well…

  • Yoga Day : Uncovering the science of wellbeing

    Yoga can bring transformation! The way we conduct our deeds, thoughts that we develop in mind, habits we infuse, and everything that that defines our existence can be transformed for betterment and wellbeing through Yoga.  Yoga, a 5000 year old…

  • Door in the Wall: How Art is Redefining Therapy

    “Art for art’s sake” is the famous translation of a French slogan that saw art as being an autonomous thing that has no other purpose or aim but to be for itself. Philosopher Alain de Botton argues, in the book…

  • Local Glocal: Emerging Art practices from Gujarat

    The ‘common’ makes for conversation, adaptation, adjustments – a constant barter of thoughts, devices and languages in a space of coexistence – the common is an evolving space. This is not to say that it is devoid of any sense…

  • Modern Caveman’s Guide to Kumbh at Ujjain

    There are theories, but no one knows when exactly this celebration started. Since thousands of decades every 4 years an extravaganza occurs, where men, women and children from varied culture and ethnicity come together to celebrate human history’s biggest social…

  • Ahmedabad’s very own treasure trove- Calico Museum

    All our Grandmothers have that exclusive treasure chest, something where they keep their most prized possessions. A trunk they open only on special occasions, something which holds things most dear and precious to them. The opening of the chest is…

  • The Kumbh Diary : Beginnings

    Once a worldly man, met a saint Both glanced at each other and laughed, And asked the same question, What have you done to yourself ? -Bharat Thakur When celebration goes above cast, creed, language and gender is actually where…

  • Pre-Kumbh Stories

    1 – Hosting the royal procession (Peshwai) of Naga Sadhu’s first dip in Kshipra River at Ramghat, The Greenwich of India. Kumbh is one of the largest congregation of humans on the planet. It takes place at an interval of…

  • Games People Play : The Curious Rise Of The Indian Art Video Game

    Imagine tripping into Lewis Caroll’s ‘Wonderland’ and living it up like Alice in an overwhelming parallel universe. Well, good news is you don’t need to trip down a hole in your backyard but click play on Studio Oleomingus’s game Timruk, a vivid digital game world that…

  • Busking By Night, Corporate by Day.

    What do we need to do to serve our purpose in this life? Relinquish our desires for sustenance? Lose ourselves in the daily clichés of what we know as the rat race? It might not be this grim; because with…

  • Remembering M.F. Husain

    Who knew that a boy from Indore, will paint the History of Indian Art like Colossus. It was 1937 when M.F. Husain (Maqbool Fida Husain) came to Bombay for the first time. Dazzled, by the urban phenomenon. Bombay was possessed by modernism, institutions,…

  • Numaish

    Khwahish. Numaish. Farmaish. Wah. What a volley of beautiful velvety words cascading through someone’s rendering; it almost sounds like poetry. All of them carrying subtle nuances in their meaning, blend into a potpourri of a similar fragrance. Numaish is one…

  • Some memories never fade – Remembering Rituparno

    While surfing through the list of movies from a friend’s hard disk I came across a folder that was named ‘Memories of March’. The name was interesting enough for me to copy the folder. Being the avid watcher of films…

  • Discovering Umashankar Joshi

    It was not like every other day. I woke up late, maid didn’t turn up and car was punctured. Well, it didn’t end there. Later, I got stuck in a traffic jam. While cursing my luck and answering multiple calls…

  • Ismat Chughtai – a brief introduction

    “Only progressive literature can produce self-confidence. It will be disappointing if our writers don’t use their pen for the betterment of the common people, because if writers, journalists and thinkers turn away from present-day circumstances and write merely for personal…