CRAFTED IN KOLHAPUR

FROM HANDCRAFTED CHAPPALS AND GOLD SAAJ TO FIERY CURRIES AND HOMESPUN KINDNESS—KOLHAPUR IS A CITY WHERE LEGACY IS STITCHED, MOULDED, AND SIMMERED INTO EVERYDAY LIFE

- Veidehi Gite

IT WAS AN August dusk when my flight touched down in Kolhapur, the Deccan sky aflame as the sun sank behind the Mahalaxmi Temple spires, etching the Maratha land in lengthening shadows.

The modest airport felt like a quiet prologue to the city's grand narrative waiting beyond.

Kolhapur does not conceal its soul in dust-laden museums or behind fortress walls—it shares it freely. A city of traders, priests, artisans, farmers, students and warriors, Kolhapur stands with a certain assuredness, the kind that comes from centuries of building, shaping and forging things with one's hands. So if you want to know Kolhapur, you don't start with its landmarks. You start with its crafts.

Since Kolhapur's legacy is best understood not in theory, but in practice—I follow the scent of tanned leather and the steady thrum of handtools of artisans to witness its heritage at work. Shubham Arun Satpude, a fourth-generation custodian of Inga Leathers, marks my first rendezvous in his small, immaculate shop, faintly redolent of tannin and sun-dried hides. Rolls of buffalo leather lean against the walls, each with a slightly different grain, each destined to become a Kolhapuri chappal (sandal). “My great-grandfather, Daulat Rao Satpude, started this business in 1902 in Sadoli, 15 km from here. We've been in Kolhapur since 1960, carrying forward his legacy,” he tells me, running his hand over a nearly finished sandal. “These chappals receive their distinctive reddish-brown colour and incredible durability from the vegetable tanning process that uses babool bark and myrobalan nut. It takes up to three weeks to prepare the leather before a single cut can be made,” adds Shubham.