Dhruvi Acharya

From her Website :

Dhruvi Acharya's work is informed by her experiences, emotions and observartions of a life divided between New York and Mumbai (Bombay). Influenced artistically by Indian miniature paintings and contemporary comic books, the artist uses personal, pop-culture and ancient metaphors and symbolism to create the allegorical, narrative paintings.

Nidhi Jacob

I'm glad my friend Baliga, told me about Nidhi or fashionrookie as she is better known. Based out of Pune, her blog is one of the most original Desi fashion blogs I've read. Pretty & quirky , this fashionista , was given the"Most creative" award at her grad show . I've seen enough in her blog to know that this lady is a walking fashion statement as she teams her shorts with her churidar and her victorian blouse with a t-shirt. If this is the future of Indian fashion, I'm interested. Bye bye bollywood.

Indophile

Fashion & Design inspired by religion has always been on the fence in terms of acceptance, but I think if it's interpreted well, why not? I dig the cute Ganesh pillows .I guess it would be quite befitting to shop in a Lakshmi tote, seeing as she's the goddess of prosperity. Found them here via fly

Atish

I found Delhi based photography student Atish's beautifully expressive shots on flickr. I have stalked him since and had him accept to my featuring his images here. I especially love the one of the turbaned man, it's so stunning. You can see more of his images here

Farhad Hussain

Every artist picks symbols to evolve for himself a visual language that he uses to communicate with or express himself. Back when I was a wee lass , I was falsely made to believe that flat colours in a painting meant incompetence and amateurism . Of course this never sat well with me, not with my fixation for bright & simple forms. Today I have evidence to prove those myths wrong.

In a deft play of motifs,colours,pattern and skill; Farhad Hussain's cheery living room scenes arean excercise in complexity and far from flat. They are inhabited by leering beings whose smiles bely their wildly inappropriate co-inhabitants that lie about nonchalantly.While his work has been described as "The theatrical entwining of the sinister and safe",to me it's more of that too-much-candy queasy feeling.

Still, I love the paintings, they're replete with the possibility of many interesting back stories.Thats always a good thing.

Ultrabrown

Thank you Manish for the colourful ultrabrown mention !

Waris Ahluwalia

Indian born New Yorker Waris Ahluwalia might seem like an unassuming type to the average uncle, but he's far from it.

He owns his own design house called House of Waris that makes one-of-a-kind jewelry. We are talking handcrafted , diamond encrusted, made in Rome & Jaipur type one-of-a-kind jewelry. His latest collection consisting of knuckle rings , daggers , orbs, mesh and skulls; is very glampunk.

To make things more interesting - you've seen him here, here & here. The icing on the cake however is that Waris has done extensive charity work for AIDS and has made the cute little elephant pin in honour of the endangered animal.This man is obviously more than just a hip Sardar, he's a rockstar.