Pune

Pune sits on the Deccan plateau, 560 metres above sea level, at the confluence of the Mutha and Mula rivers. The Sahyadri range rises to the west. The city was a small trading post when the Peshwas made it their capital in the early 18th century; within a century it had become the intellectual and political heart of the Maratha empire. This history left an urban fabric rich in wadas (courtyard mansions), temples, and market streets.

The Tulsi Baug market area and Mandai are the city's traditional craft zones — copper and brass vendors, pottery from local kumbar communities, textile traders. The old wada buildings in the Kasba Peth area still hold family businesses that have been in the same location for generations.

The Peshwa wadas — multi-storey courtyard mansions — were centres of craft patronage. Woodwork was essential to wada construction: carved doorways, ornate window screens, painted interiors. The carpenter communities who built these structures developed distinctive styles of carving — the Pune carved doorway is one of the city's most recognisable material artifacts.

The Shaniwar Wada, built in 1732, was the Peshwa seat. Though partially destroyed by fire in 1828, its surviving stone gateway displays the level of craft ambition that defined Pune's built environment. The five gates of Shaniwar Wada each had a distinct purpose and design — military gate, elephant gate, servant gate, ceremonial gate.

• Carved wood doorways
• Wada window screens
• Pune brass work
• Temple stone carving
• Kumbar pottery
• Peshwa-era painting

Pune has a tradition of lacquered turned wood objects — bangles, containers, toys, and decorative items produced on a lathe and finished with coloured lac. The craft is practiced by the Khatri and Kanchan communities who have maintained workshop clusters in the Bhavani Peth and Budhwar Peth areas of the old city.

The lac is applied to the wood while it spins on the lathe — the heat of friction melts the lac into the surface, creating a smooth coloured coating. Multiple colours can be built up in stripes or bands. The technique is simple to describe and extraordinarily difficult to master — the thickness of the application, the speed of the lathe, and the temperature of the friction all interact.

• Turned lac bangles
• Lacquered toys
• Lathe-worked containers
• Festival decorative ware
• Coloured wood objects

The Warli tribal communities don't live in Pune — they live in the forests to the north, in Palghar and Thane districts. But Pune is the nearest major city, and since the 1980s, Warli artists have found markets here: galleries, craft fairs, textile designers who incorporate Warli motifs into commercial fabric. This relationship between Pune's urban market and the Warli forest art is a case study in how traditional art adapts without disappearing.

The key difference between authentic Warli painting and its commercial versions is the context. Authentic Warli painting is made for a ritual purpose — a marriage, a festival, a request to the goddess. Commercial Warli is made for a buyer. Both can be executed by the same hand. The distinction is not in the image but in the intention.