Explore Experiences

11 results

Dawn Kolam on a Mylapore Street

Kolam

Wake with Mylapore at 6 AM and learn to draw kolam on a street beside the Kapaleeshwarar temple — from simple dot grids to the looping, single-line sikku kolam.

₹800 per person

Make a Thanjavur Thalaiyatti Bommai (Head-Nodding Doll)

GI tag

Artisan 4.2

Make a Thanjavur Thalaiyatti Bommai (Head-Nodding Doll)

Thanjavur Thalaiyatti Bommai (Dancing Dolls)

Learn the balancing secret behind Thanjavur's famous nodding dolls — a heavy clay base, a papier-mâché body and a loosely set head — then paint one of your own to take home.

₹1800 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.2

Madurai Sungudi Tie-Dye with a Saurashtrian Family

Madurai Sungudi

Learn the patient, dot-by-dot knotting behind Madurai's Sungudi cloth from a Saurashtrian family whose community brought resist-dyeing to the temple city centuries ago.

₹1800 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.6

Kandangi Cotton Weaving at a Chettinad Handloom

Chettinad Kandangi Saree

Visit a handloom household in Kottaiyur near Karaikudi and weave a few rows of Kandangi — the bold-checked, wide-bordered cotton saree of Chettinad.

₹2500 per person

Artisan 4.6

Shape an Aiyanar Puravi with Pudukkottai's Terracotta Potters

Aiyanar Terracotta Horses

In Malaiyur, a Pudukkottai village of Velar potters who make the great clay horses for Aiyanar shrines, learn to roll, join and decorate a small puravi of your own.

₹1600 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.4

Weave a Chettinad Kottan with Kanadukathan's Women Weavers

Chettinad Kottan (Palm-leaf Baskets)

Join a Chettiar women's collective in a Kanadukathan mansion courtyard to weave a kottan — the bright palm-leaf basket once used to carry wedding gifts and sweets between families.

₹1200 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.4

Korvai Silk Weaving with a Kanchipuram Pit-Loom Family

Kanchipuram Silk Weaving

Sit beside a third-generation weaver at his pit loom in Pillaiyarpalayam and learn how a Kanchipuram border is interlocked to the body, thread by thread, using the korvai technique.

₹3500 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.1

Pattamadai Pai: Weaving Silk-Fine Korai Mats

Pattamadai Pai (Korai Grass Mats)

Visit a Labbai weaving household in Pattamadai, on the Thamirabarani, and learn how korai grass is split hair-thin, dyed and woven into mats so fine they fold like cloth.

₹2000 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.5

Thanjavur Painting: Gesso, Gold Foil & Stones

Thanjavur Painting

Build a small Thanjavur panel the traditional way — raised gesso relief, 22-carat gold foil and set stones — in a painter's home studio in the old town.

₹3200 per person

Artisan 4.5

Hand-Pour Your Own Athangudi Tile in Chettinad

Athangudi Tiles

In the village that gave Chettinad's mansions their floors, learn to pour an Athangudi tile on glass — oxide colours, a brass stencil, a sand-and-cement backing and no kiln at all.

₹2200 per person

GI tag

Artisan 4.5

Lost-Wax Bronze Casting with a Swamimalai Sthapathi Family

Swamimalai Bronze Icons

Spend a day in a Swamimalai foundry: model a small figure in beeswax, coat it in Kaveri alluvial clay and see bronze cast the way Chola-era icons were made.

₹4500 per person