Folklorei
Where the money goes in hand-carved furniture, what carvers actually earn nationally, and why the honest price is higher than the market usually admits.
A climate-zone care calendar for hand-carved wood, marble inlay and thikri — what actually causes monsoon damage, and the twenty minutes that prevents it.
Janka figures, shrinkage data and the failure mode of each — teak, sheesham, mango and mahogany compared honestly for Indian homes and climates.
Ornament didn't vanish because taste changed. It vanished because the labour behind it stopped being cheap — and the argument that survives that fact.
Saharanpur carving, Agra inlay, Jaipur thikri, Channapatna lacquer, Bidar bidri — where India's high-end craft is actually made, and how to verify a claim.
Oonjal, uyyala, jhula, hinchko — the Indian swing's regional names, the rituals attached to each, and what your ceiling actually needs to hold one.
Shading, thermal mass, stack ventilation and evaporative cooling — the four mechanisms behind India's vernacular architecture, and what still works today.
Lotus, paisley, yali, kalash, kirtimukha — 25 Indian motifs defined, with regional names, origins and what each one actually means.
Ten quick physical tests to tell hand-carved furniture from CNC work — undercuts, tool marks, grain, recesses — plus the four things that fake them.
Nine ways to tell Mughal motifs from Persian ones — plant form, stem behaviour, symmetry, palette — plus the hard cases where the test fails.