In Indian art, music, and cinema, artists have long associated seasons with emotions — thunderstorms and swirling clouds symbolising confusion or despair, peacocks heralding the arrival of the rain. As the monsoon inches closer to Delhi, the city’s young history buff Eric Chopra — also the founder of the history platform Itihāsology — is gearing up to share his fascination with monsoon art and storytelling in medieval art and fashion history at Delhi’s Baarish Festival this weekend.
Chopra is an art history enthusiast who has been exploring visual history and medieval art, decoding the tales behind historical paintings. He arrived at the theme of the monsoon through his interest in the histories of love, longing and desire in art, specifically through Bharata’s concept of the Abhisarika Nayika from the Natya Shastra. “In paintings that depict the Abhisarika Nayika, the heroine braves the forest in the middle of the night as a thunderstorm brews. She moves forward despite the lightning and the storm,” says Chopra, adding that the heroine follows the call of the rain and the peacocks, which remind her of her lover.
Much like the Nayika, Chopra sees the rain as a liminal space of confusion — of whether to go to your lover or stay home. But he finds this dilemma enjoyable, as it offers a space to pause and breathe amidst our restless lives.
For him, the monsoon also carries a creative ambivalence. “When it’s raining, it’s the perfect opportunity to romanticise the moment and start writing. But it’s also the perfect moment to do nothing — to just make a cup of tea, to talk to your friends or your lover, or to be by yourself.” He adds, “The liminality that rain provides… the way the world pauses for a moment — it invites you to go inward. You become more in tune with the season, and with yourself.”
The beginnings
Chopra began his history journey with his Instagram blog Itihāsology in 2019. He shared stories that don’t find space in the mainstream — from India’s past across themes like gender, art, fashion, queerness, architecture, and emotional histories. Chopra breaks it all down to under 350 words or a concise 45-second reel; he sees Itihāsology as a “corridor of history,” where one stumbles into topics that keep curiosity alive and encourage deeper investigation. “What we aim to do is pique your curiosity. Our 350-word posts are entry points, not comprehensive full chapters of history,” he says.
With a three-layered research — from scouring textual sources like travelogues, diaries, academic work, and visual material (objects, paintings, artefacts, textiles) — Chopra has built his platform like a library. For the serious nerds, Itihāsology has also grown a set of offshoots: a scholar-reviewed digital journal launched during the lockdown that invites contributions from young writers and artists, podcasts on art history, museums, and monuments, as well as regular museum and heritage walks.
Through Itihāsology, Chopra focuses on shifting how history is taught and understood in the country, mainly seeking to challenge the turning of historical figures into one-dimensional characters, stripped of context, childhood, or even how gender shaped them. “Sometimes we forget the past is animated by people” he says, adding that humanising the past and its figures is essential.
Alt history champion
Having found his voice after reading Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai’s Same-Sex Love in India, and exploring monuments like Jamali Kamali, a Sufi mosque and mausoleum complex in Delhi’s Mehrauli, Chopra seeks to challenge the idea that history is solely the domain of upper-class, straight men. by actively including more diverse perspectives and seeking out forgotten narratives. He refutes claims that feminism or queerness are ‘Western imports,’ adding, that “these ideas existed here in different forms”. Thus, Chopra’s framework for engaging with history is shaped through a non-heteronormative gaze, and his public work — like Itihāsology and heritage walks — continues to expand his understanding of queerness in the Indian past. His platform has a community of over 100,000 history enthusiasts. “Our responsibility is to make our language accessible and inclusive and tell people that this is as much your past as it is mine,” says Chopra.
With his talk at the Baarish Festival underway, Chopra is also looking ahead — hoping to grow his platform and take history beyond the walls of museums and monuments. He wants to explore storytelling through art, and interrogate the past through geography. “Largely, what I want to do is expand public engagement beyond Delhi,” he says. “We’re hoping to organise an art and heritage festival at the end of the year — a multi-city one. The idea is to bring more people into history through public programming: creating spaces for debate, conversation, and music in beautiful settings across cities.”