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Vogue India •

Inside songstress Rhea Raj's Los Angeles studio

Much like its owner, the floor lamp in Rhea Raj’s studio has many moods. On days when she feels exuberant, it glows green; when she’s calm, it softens to yellow. But more often than not, it burns in fiery pinks and purples—“because it’s the energy I need when composing something sensual or feminine,” says the singer-songwriter, who was born in Connecticut to Indian parents. That same kaleidoscopic spirit coloured her debut at Lollapalooza Chicago in August this year, where she surprised fans with a performance of her song ‘Haute Couture’ alongside Aliyah’s Interlude, wearing a bejewelled butterfly-shaped corset and a molten ellipsis bindi that caught the spotlight with every move.
Vogue India •

Sudha Murty: “I don’t go to restaurants. Why drive, park and waste time in traffic when you can eat at home?”

There’s no pomp when Sudha Murty enters the room. In fact, no one really notices. The videographers are busy priming their cameras, her staff is whirring around the sidelines and I am admiring a painting depicting the Mahabharata—made by a Kolkata-based collective of the Bengal School, she tells me later. “Which magazine?” she asks, smiling, as I hurriedly turn, take notice and mutter an answer. “Ah yes, please sit.” So I do. In videos and pictures, Murty seems larger somehow, a powerhouse of a...
Vogue •

Surat-based designer Priyanka Shah is building furniture that looks like it walked out of a storybook

When she isn’t in her studio thinking about what to make, Priyanka Shah likes to send her imagination to faraway lands, past wispy clouds and azure waters. When she is in her studio, those dreams take on tangible form—wooden half-tunnels for storing pencils and pens, prayer wheels à la Tibetan monasteries and French-style carousels inspired by gaushalas, castles and Rajasthani folktales. The Surat-based product designer, who graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York, has one rule: never dream the same dream again. Which means no two of her creations are the same.
Vogue •

Sudha Reddy on being a billionaire with couture and a conscience

Every so often, businesswoman and philanthropist Sudha Reddy’s Instagram inbox buzzes with an unexpected message: someone requesting a Rolex or a Rolls-Royce. “It’s one of the biggest misconceptions associated with me,” says the Hyderabad-based business baroness, not a little irked, referring to her forcibly bestowed ‘billionaire philanthropist’ label. “This misjudgment of both my wealth and my philanthropic mission can be frustrating.” To be fair, Reddy has always been a bit of an enigma. Last year, she appeared at the Met Gala wearing a 180-carat diamond necklace and an exquisite ivory silk gown by Tarun Tahiliani realised by a team of 80 artisans over 4,500 man-hours. And in May this year, Reddy, who was recently named Global Ambassador for the Miss World Organisation, opened the doors to her palatial Hyderabad residence for the Miss World 2025 Beauty With a Purpose Gala.
Vogue •

Sobhita Dhulipala and Naga Chaitanya Akkineni’s priorities have changed since they got married

Before Sobhita Dhulipala and Naga Chaitanya Akkineni exchanged vows in December last year, they hadn’t discussed how they would achieve work-life balance. After all, they were embarking on a new chapter together, one that they both hoped would be filled with love, adventure, travel and joy. The rest was all confetti. Turns out, that conversation wasn’t necessary. Balancing their schedules has never been a problem for the couple, as Dhulipala explains when we speak over Zoom—he’s at home in Hyder...
Vogue •

Priya Mani’s food encyclopedia may have originated in Denmark but it has the warmth of a desi kitchen

When Mani and her husband, Vinay Venkatraman, her batchmate from the National Institute of Design and the co-founder of the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, moved to the Danish capital in 2007, she took to recreating the dishes of her childhood, first as hearty meals for guests, and afterwards, as soul food for her own children. One day, inspired by the book The Illustrated Foods of India by KT Achaya, she started documenting them. “Like many other parents living in a diasporic commun...
Vogue •

Rujuta Diwekar’s new book is all about intuitive eating with ghar ka khana at its core

When Rujuta Diwekar hands over the gift tucked under her arm, she doesn’t make a show of it. Instead, she quietly unties the bag in her lap and opens it for Sudha Murty. When Murty dips her hand into the bag, it surfaces with a heap of hand-pounded rice which, as I later learn, grows only in rainwater and forest streams and was cultivated on Diwekar’s ancestral farm near Palghar, Maharashtra. Then, in true ghar ka khana spirit, Murty—an educator, author, and philanthropist—offers Diwekar a glass...
Vogue •

[Digital Cover] Sobhita Dhulipala and Naga Chaitanya Akkineni’s home life is not what you’d expect

Besides sharing a native tongue and a career in film, Sobhita Dhulipala and Naga Chaitanya Akkineni had little in common. He lived in Hyderabad; she was based out of Mumbai. He grew up in Chennai; she was raised in Visakhapatnam. And perhaps most telling of all—he followed her on Instagram, but she didn’t follow him back. “I found out during an Ask Me Anything,” she recalls, referring to Instagram’s question-box feature. “I was sifting through the questions when I saw one that asked, ‘Why aren’t...
Vogue •

‘Never Have I Ever’ actor Sendhil Ramamurthy on why it’s tough being brown and beautiful in Hollywood

This past December, as the festive buzz in Bengaluru softened into a quiet lull, Sendhil Ramamurthy and I took a trip to Chikmagalur. We moseyed through coffee plantations, lolled around bonfires, and gallivanted up and down beautiful forest paths—and yet, we never once saw each other. He was on vacation with his family, and I with mine. And though we stayed at resorts situated within an hour of each other, owned by the same company, on nearly exactly the same dates, meeting the actor of Heroes...
Vogue •

Rayna Vallandingham looks like the girl of your dreams, but she can also make you scream

‘Vallandingham’ has the same ring as several surnames in southern India, and in the minute or so before Rayna Vallandingham appears on the screen, I make a mental note to ask which region it originates from. “It’s Dutch,” she says, moments after flickering to life, the morning sun in London haloing her heart-shaped face. “But don’t worry, I get that a lot.” The fourth-degree taekwondo black belt, as I will soon learn, is forgiving when it comes to questions about her ethnicity. The daughter of a...
Vogue •

Radhika Apte: “My pregnancy wasn’t an accident, but it still came as a shock”

I was curious to know whether, like most women—including myself—Apte ever felt fully prepared to welcome children. “I don’t think you ever come to terms with it,” she said, referring to the notion of parenthood—how one cannot truly understand it without experiencing it. “I think it’s easier when people know whether they want a child or not. In our case, neither of us wanted kids, but there was this one per cent curiosity about what it would be like. Then, when this happened, we wondered whether...
Vogue India •

Radhika Apte: “My pregnancy wasn’t an accident, but it still came as a shock”

I was curious to know whether, like most women—including myself—Apte ever felt fully prepared to welcome children. “I don’t think you ever come to terms with it,” she said, referring to the notion of parenthood—how one cannot truly understand it without experiencing it. “I think it’s easier when people know whether they want a child or not. In our case, neither of us wanted kids, but there was this one per cent curiosity about what it would be like. Then, when this happened, we wondered whether...
Vogue •

[Print] The Art of Living

In November 1955, Libia Lobo Sardesai went missing. There was no letter, no witnesses, no investigation. And yet, nobody worried about her whereabouts. To her credit, Lobo hadn’t given anyone reason to worry. She staged her disappearance carefully, fabricating a transfer to Belgaum, adopting a pseudonym and trudging through jungles in the Western Ghats to evade detection. When she surfaced six years later in December 1961, she had earned a new identity as an activist, a freedom fighter and the voice of Goa—although nobody knew her name yet.
Vogue •

As The Asiatic Society of Mumbai’s first woman president, 83-year-old Vispi Balaporia wants books to live forever

Even though it has been exactly five years and two-and-a-half terms since she assumed the presidency at The Asiatic Society of Mumbai, Vispi Balaporia has nary a clue as to why she is the first woman to do so. She looks around her Breach Candy apartment, almost as if the answer is written on the walls half-haloed by the westerly sun. “I think it just boils down to challenging the status quo,” the 83-year-old eventually says, the evening light gilding her crown of silver curls.It’s not that there...
Vogue •

Bakula Patel almost drowned in the Tapi River. At 80, she is now a medal-winning swimming champion

Most people with a phobia would tie themselves in knots to avoid the trigger that causes it. Bakula Patel isn’t like most people. The 80-year-old swimming champion was once an aquaphobe. As for what prompted her to dip her toes—and the rest of her body—in the water, she reveals it was a bid to rediscover joy and a more authentic version of herself. “I was into sports and athletics from a young age, but I lost my parents early, was married off at thirteen and became a widow when my children were still young. I felt all alone,” she shares over the phone from her Surat home. When her children flew the nest several years later, she didn’t know what to do, she recalls, her voice laced with melancholy. “So I thought I would distract myself with a sport.” She picked swimming, as much to overcome her fear as to numb her heartache. A month later, she nearly drowned.
Vogue •

The sprawling gardens at this Bengaluru resort made me feel like I was in Bridgerton

The summer I turned eight was the summer my dad made a thrilling announcement: we were headed on a holiday to the American East Coast. The dates were set, the tickets booked and the accommodations arranged. We were based in London at the time, but we had family in the US, and my dad, ever the saver, was determined to economise on lodging wherever possible. The itinerary was packed with familiar places and names: Washington D.C. with this aunt, New York City with that uncle, Maryland with a recently resurrected second cousin. The only exception was Buffalo, home to the Niagara Falls, which, by some minor miracle—and to my insurmountable joy—had no relative to host us. Instead, the schedule displayed another name: Marriott—a company my uncle worked for, and one that would, in the years to come, remain emblazoned in my cerebral hard drive.
Vogue •

At 100, Goan freedom fighter Libia Lobo Sardesai still has plenty of fight left in her

In November 1955, Libia Lobo Sardesai went missing. There was no letter, no witnesses, no investigation. And yet, nobody worried about her whereabouts. To her credit, Lobo hadn’t given anyone reason to worry. She staged her disappearance carefully, fabricating a transfer to Belgaum, adopting a pseudonym and trudging through jungles in the Western Ghats to evade detection. When she surfaced six years later in December 1961, she had earned a new identity as an activist, a freedom fighter and the v...
Vogue •

This new art show in Hyderabad looks like fashion, design and art had a love child

A woolly cocoon encrusted in crystals and stones adorns a wall. A preternatural pillar guards another. In between, stand bronze men with lunar bodies and no heads, still living and breathing. No, this isn’t a scene from a sci-fi movie, though if the selection on display is anything to go by, it’s every bit as theatrical. Welcome to Currents, a salon series and the maiden Hyderabad outpost of New York-born, New Delhi-based art gallery Nature Morte, unveiled in collaboration with Hetero Pharma Gro...
Vogue •

Exclusive: Bharti Kher dedicates her most extensive UK presentation to the female body

Over the course of her 30-year career, the artist became famous for her use of snake-shaped bindis in and as art. Kher’s philosophy is this: Art by any other name is still art; no matter the object from which it is created. Take Ancestor, an 18-foot-tall patinated bronze sculpture from her Intermediaries series. Portraying a mythical mother figure, the installation features 23 small heads, each salvaged from a broken clay figurine (it was displayed at New York’s Central Park between 2022 and 202
Vogue •

Neeta Lulla takes Vogue India inside her couture archive of iconic film costumes

There’s a song in Darr, the 1993 Yash Chopra-produced megahit, where Juhi Chawla peacocks about the pool in a shocking pink swimsuit. The colour, mind you, isn't what’s shocking. “You have to zoom in to find it,” deadpans Neeta Lulla. “I mean, really zoom in.” By “it”, she means her logo, which, at no more than a fingernail large, has taken me twenty attempts and my toddler’s toy microscope to locate. “It was a dare,” continues the 4-time National Award-winning couturier and costume designer, wh
Vogue •

This arts hub in the Rajasthan desert may look AI-generated but it’s very real—and useful

Occupying a built-up area of just 9,000 square feet, the space spirals like a swirling sand dune, a hat-tip to the surrounding desert, offering incremental square footage at each elevation and five times more usable space in all. It includes a 27,000-square-foot open auditorium and inclined rooftop gardens from where panoramas of the desert unfold in every possible direction. “The project exemplifies how thoughtful architecture can create expansive community spaces without a large footprint,” sa
Vogue •

Mother-daughter artist duo Anju and Biraaj Dodiya open up about their distinct journeys with art and each other

It’s the night before Diwali and Anju and Biraaj Dodiya are on opposite sides of the world. They appear side by side on Zoom; Anju muted in Mumbai, Biraaj unmuted in New York. “I’m usually with her when she logs into these meetings,” says Biraaj as her mother tries and fails to unmute herself. Ten minutes later, Anju’s microphone has learned to behave, we’ve all had a hearty laugh and I’ve whispered a word of thanks to the tech gods, although neither mother nor daughter seems fazed by the caprices of technology.
Vogue •

[Print] A Brush With Destiny: Anju & Biraaj Dodiya

It’s the night before Diwali and Anju and Biraaj Dodiya are on opposite sides of the world. They appear side by side on Zoom; Anju muted in Mumbai, Biraaj unmuted in New York. “I’m usually with her when she logs into these meetings,” says Biraaj as her mother tries—and fails—to unmute herself. Ten minutes later, Anju’s microphone has learned to behave, we’ve all had a hearty laugh and I’ve whispered a word of thanks to the tech gods, although at this moment on my screen, neither mother nor daughter seems particularly fazed by the caprices of technology.
Vogue •

This deep and dramatic duplex in Bengaluru subtly nods to its owners’ Assamese heritage

You can take the person out of the place, but you can’t take the place out of the person. Or so the adage goes. In this case, the person was ‘people’, and the place Assam, but the sentiment much the same. “Every great story begins with people deciding to fly the nest and follow their aspirations. Ours was no different,” says graphic designer Pooja Dihingia, one half of Bengaluru-based UI/UX design studio Yellowchalk. When she and her husband, Rajiv Kakati, Yellowchalk’s other half, moved from As
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