Athulya – Rethinking Assisted Living
Karthik Narayan, a medical doctor trained in geriatrics, started Athulya Senior Care in 2017. He finished a business course in the US, lived there for 10 years, and worked in a hospital’s geriatrics department before returning to Chennai. A noble cause Karthik’s main reason for relocating back to India was to start a professional geriatric […]
Studio A – Where Light Restores a Dying Craft
Aamena Millwala started tinkering around with stained glass as a hobby. Friends and family members’ interests were piqued. She started to customise them, gradually taking orders, and the rest is history. Glassy-eyed beginnings Aamena started Studio A 12 years ago, converting her balcony into a small home studio, once word spread about her work. “Stained […]
The Wedding Experience – Crafting Stories into Celebrations
The spark behind The Wedding Experience Charannya Seetharam is a dentist-turned-wedding planner, making the leap from being in the medical field to planning events out of sheer passion. She had the opportunity to plan an important event before even starting the brand: her own wedding! “I decided to plan my wedding on my own, because […]
Ladi – Handcrafted Jewelry of the Narikuravars
The necklaces and chains are made of colorful beads and laid out neatly on white pieces of cloth. In the shade of a banyan tree or the pavement of a bus stand or on the temple steps, the Narikuravars sell their wares. Often ignored, many a time swatted away in annoyance, and sometimes avoided, this […]
Marutham Village Resorts – Rural Hospitality Closer to the City
Marutham Village Resorts, set amidst lush paddy fields and soothing greenery, lies about 5 kms from Mahabalipuram near Chennai. Created by architect couple Vadivelan and Priya, it attracts families and friends who would like to getaway to a quiet rural lifestyle. Interestingly, what we see as a resort today has evolved from the founders’ dream […]
Elbow Engineers – Of Eco-Bricks, Atmospheric Water and Mosquito Traps
In 2015, as Chennai was drowning in the chaos of one of its worst floods, Kumar Loganathan stood in disbelief – not because of the water, but because of the irony. “There was water everywhere,” he recalls, “and yet people couldn’t drink a single drop.” That visual haunted him for years and eventually became the […]
Queen Bee – The Determined Doll-maker of Queen Bee Crafts
When she was around six years old, Radhika was playing outside and fell, hurting her leg. She limped home and everybody thought it was a regular wound that would cure and go away. Soon, the pain persisted and the parents brought her to the hospital where they found it was a bone fracture, and the […]
The Value in Crafting Memories
Tucked in between the small dense apartments of Pallikaranai is a quaint studio with antique paraphernalia, rare books and glimmering statues of political and historic leaders—of varied sizes between ten inches to seven feet tall. “Sillaii,” Arun Titan enunciates, “No matter which part of the world you come from, the pronunciation is more or less […]
