Vizha: A celebration of design, life, and more
The serendipitous tale of how the Vizha’s team joined forces is one of destiny, friendship, and passion for designing. Once course batchmates, now business partners – Akash Muralidharan, Darshini Narayanan, and Sanjana Susaritha Ravi – embarked on a journey at MIDAS Chennai to make their mark in the field of Architecture. While their paths diverged […]
Plush Breaks the Whispers Around Female Hygiene
Starting a company together was always on the cards for the college bench mates turned entrepreneurs Ketan Munoth and Prince Kapoor. “We started our first venture in online gifting back while we were studying BBA at Loyola College,” he recalls with a chuckle. The friends parted ways after their undergraduate degree—Prince became an investment banker […]
Don’t Mess with Madras
“The first ever toothbrush you used is still on Earth,” Divya states as the small gathering around her stall stares back dumb-struck in the realisation of that statement. “I’ll buy one bamboo toothbrush for me and one as a gift for my friend,” a voice from the group breaks the silence. At that instant, Pradeep […]
What Goes into Pure Unadulterated Cow Milk?
“I look at the market in two segments—Pre-Jallikattu and Post-Jallikattu,” reveals Vetrivel Palani, founder of UzhavarBumi. The founder was a part of the historic protest at Marina Beach in January 2017. “During the protest, several farmers’ issues came up,” he reveals. Vetrivel did not have a background in agriculture or farming. For someone like him, […]
Resin to Remember
“Anewlywed couple sent me flowers from their wedding garlands to add to their memory box recently!” gushes Amrita Giriraj. It’s the stories that inspire the products at Alankaara. The jewellery and lifestyle brand relentlessly explores the concept of preserving fragments of time through resin art. At fifteen, Amrita found herself drifting towards science two—a high […]
Composting Against Climate Change
There was a cow in the middle of the road. This wasn’t just another lounging cow—indifferent to its urban surroundings. It had an air of discomfort. Deepesh Bhaskar motioned to his cab driver to stop so that he could take a closer look. There it was, the cow, dry-heaving helplessly as the traffic navigated around […]
Raptee Reveals Why EV is Still Nascent in India
“There have been two prominent players market for the last decade but the EV market in India is still less than one percent,” the CEO of Raptee Energy, Dinesh Arjun declares, “Why hasn’t the transition happened as yet?” The Chennai-based startup, Raptee is one among the five hundred players in the increasingly growing electric two-wheeler […]
A Sustainable Solution to Reducing Food Waste
India is the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, however, 40 percent of the produce goes to waste during transport. “The problem seemed to stem more from infrastructure rather than behaviour,” Deepak Rajmohan points out as he explains the gap driving the R&D at GreenPod Labs. Flashback to 2009, Deepak was about […]
Chennai’s Kings of Li-ion
Born in Delhi, made in Chennai (as they proudly label themselves)—Hardik and Gautam Narula are the rare passionate engineers who are often found with their sleeves rolled up, pursuing esoteric hobbies such as scavenging obscure mechanical parts or with their heads bent over a pile of old and new hardware pulled apart from diverse electronic […]
Strangers Who Crossed Paths to Make Architecture Inclusive
During the lockdown, nine strangers from around Tamil Nadu with a background in architecture and civil engineering got together to make the industry more approachable to the native population. “It all stemmed from our shared belief that progress is when we think global and act local,” opens Kaushik Shrinivas, the founder of MAAVILAI—previously Agazhi (we’ll […]
Weaving Together a Handloom Ecosystem
Towards the outskirts of Erode, amidst the claps and whirrs of the weaving equipment, one will find C. Sivagurunathan, wearing Khadi head to toe sitting amidst the weavers in the tiny village of Chennimalai—popularly known as the weaving town. The village is home to generations of weavers whose population has seen a sharp decline since […]
Siblings in the Business of Sustainable (and Comfortable) Garments
Arun Kumar and his sister SP Ponmani were cleaning up their childhood home in Madurai one afternoon when they stumbled upon a chest filled with pure cotton clothes from when they were babies. “The material was so soft and still usable even though they were about twenty years old,” says Ponmani with amusement recalling the […]
The Four-Step Strategy towards Upliftment of ‘Nonurban’ Occupations
When the first wave of the Pandemic hit in 2020, Thein landed in Russia for a research project in time for a nationwide lockdown. She found herself stuck in a small room with a small kitchen and only her laptop to help overcome the perpetual silence and the days that seemed to last forever. She […]
A Sustainable Life Powered by Goli Soda
Six-year-old Sruti Harihara Subramanian grew up in Mylapore with a special love for animals and open spaces. During the vacations, she used to visit her grandparents in a small town amidst the folding green landscapes of Kerala. Her only source of entertainment in this sleepy town was to sit on the steps with the local […]
Radhika “Blows” You Away With Glass Art
Most of us tend to see glass as brittle and intimidating, but Radhika Krish, the founder of Goli Soda Glass Studio, is “cracking” that belief—one art piece at a time. “I always thought the “goli soda” bottles from my younger days were intriguing. I remember spending hours trying to get the goli (marble) out of […]
