Adman Arun Amberkar makes sure that the next time you trek to Shivaji's strapping forts, you have more to take home than the visual imagery of a dilapidated relic

While some prefer to coax commercial outlets to sport Marathi signboards, and others get down-and-dirty and drive away taxiwallahs who don't fit into the archetypal Marathi manoos mould, 64 year-old Arun Amberkar's pursuit in spreading Maharashtrian culture is stylishly non-violent. The jovial, bearded adman has transferred sketches of Maharashtra's significant forts, the way we saw them in our history textbooks, onto roomy, cotton tees.



It began when this senior creative consultant with a branding company was travelling on a jetty in Malvan, braving the salty afternoon breeze in December 2006. "Most of us have grown up reading about Shivaji's fascinating exploits. Every time I visited Malvan, my hometown, I was struck by the grandeur of the Sindhudurg Fort. But it pained me to see that hardly anyone visited it and the fort was in a decrepit condition."