The Ghorpades come from a legacy that cannot be neglected when we speak of the Maratha empire and its prowess. The Ghorpade family who are closely related to the Chatrapati Shivaji’s own Bhosle family get their name from their display of tact using a ghorpad monitor lizard to scale the walls of their enemy’s fort. The Ghorpades were the commander in chief for many of the Bhosle family’s rulers and were the key family to hold down the Maratha empire in the Deccan region. Over the decades one of the Ghorpade branch found themselves settled in Sandur, a small town of Karnataka. Today, even though the family has launched off into business, Kartikeya is very adamant to hold on to one of their most prized legacies i.e. of Maratha cuisine especially the Maratha Deccan cuisine of Karnataka that distinguishes it from the others in the country. Kartikeya born and brought up in an environment where Marathi and Kannada both were staple languages found a lifelong passion for authentic Maratha cuisines when he started to note down recipes from his family chef of decades. Kartikeya found himself spending days on end with this chef learning and recording numerous Maratha dishes emerging from the Ghorpade family. Today an experienced chef and host, Kartikeya finds joy in inviting his friends and family and cooking his most favourite dishes from them. It is Kartikeyas love for feeding people that has also been transferred to his daughter Anuskha. Anushka, a trained pâtissier, is also taking this new found legacy forward in her own ways. Together both of them treasure and share this very vital aspect of legacy from the culinary point of view that often seemed to be overlooked in the grand scheme of Maratha history.

Director: Gaurav Mehra