Sangli
— — the turmeric city, ochre in the sun.
Not only on a wall.
“A city on the Krishna River in southern Maharashtra, long known as the turmeric capital of India. The wholesale market handles more of the spice than anywhere else in the country, and the sugarcane belt around it runs to the horizon. The Ganpati temple built by the Patwardhan rulers still anchors the old quarter near the river ghats.
Sangli, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Sangli sits on the right bank of the Krishna River in southern Maharashtra, about 400 kilometres south-east of Mumbai and 140 kilometres south of Pune. It is the administrative seat of Sangli district, with a city population of roughly 500,000. The Patwardhan dynasty ruled Sangli as a princely state from 1782 until accession to the Indian Union in 1948. The city forms a twin urban area with Miraj, the historic centre of Hindustani classical music and traditional instrument-making, immediately to the south-west.
Sangli's Agricultural Produce Market Committee yard handles roughly half of India's wholesale turmeric trade, the largest such market in the country. The harvest arrives between January and April, when the city's lanes turn ochre with stacked sacks and the air carries the rhizome's warm smell. The surrounding Krishna valley is one of Maharashtra's densest sugarcane belts; dozens of cooperative sugar mills crush the cane through the winter season. Together the two crops have shaped the city's commerce since the late nineteenth century.
Sangli is reached by rail on the Pune-Bengaluru line, with frequent trains from Pune and Mumbai stopping at Sangli and Miraj junctions. The Ganpati Panchayatan temple, completed in 1843 by the Patwardhan rulers, sits near the Krishna ghats in the old city. The Irwin Bridge across the river dates to 1929. Winter, from November through February, brings the most comfortable weather, with daytime highs in the high twenties. The monsoon between June and September can swell the Krishna and flood the low-lying riverside lanes.