Till the recent TV series on her, Ahilyabai Holkar was a name confined to history textbooks in school. This remarkable 18th-century woman built many traveller’s inns, temples, ghats and wells. But there is a lot more to her. In her territories of Malwa and Nemar, even 220 years after her death, she is still considered to be a ‘mother’. At our Online Talk #MotherOfMalwa, Dr Sugandha Johar tells the story of Ahilyabai’s journey from a young widow to an able administrator respected by her contemporaries and revered by her subjects. Along the way, we will also learn about some of her remarkable constructions.

Talk link will be shared a couple of hours before the event

About the speaker

Dr Sugandha Johar had a flourishing career in taxation, banking and finance, before she did her Ph D in archaeology. After migrating to Australia, she returned to finance to be a licenced personal finance consultant. Later, while travelling the world with her husband, she worked as a web journalist with Al Jazeera and also ran her own organisation taking workshops on interpersonal skills.