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Yamini Sardesai

Nakshatra filesWrites the nakshatra files from under the open sky. Every station is first a real patch of sky you can find on a clear night, then a name, then a bundle of stories, and only then a set of chart meanings.
A hand-coloured nineteenth-century star chart on pale cream paper showing a reclining ram with heavy fleece and curled g nakshatra-files Ashwini: the first spark Sheratan and Mesarthim sit two fingers apart in the head of the Ram. That is Ashwini, and in June it costs you the last dark hour before dawn. Yamini Sardesai · 16 June 2026 A small dark schist relief carving of four seated figures in a row, each haloed and crowned. The central figure, Yama, h nakshatra-files Bharani: the bearer A letter to whoever read the word death beside Bharani and closed the page. Three faint stars in the Ram, and a word that means to carry. Yamini Sardesai · 30 June 2026 A colour photograph of the Pleiades: six or seven brilliant blue-white stars with four-pointed diffraction spikes, arran nakshatra-files Krittika: the blade and the flame Count the Pleiades before dawn and see how many you get. Then the six who nursed a god, the seventh who stayed, and what a sharp edge is actually for. Yamini Sardesai · 11 July 2026 A wide-field photograph of a dark star field. A large, bright orange star with a broad glowing halo sits in the upper le nakshatra-files Rohini, and the moon who would not keep the rota An orange point comes up in the east a few hours before the sun. That is Aldebaran, and this is the story of the moon who would not leave her. Yamini Sardesai · 24 July 2026 An Indian miniature painting in gum tempera and gold. A woman in an orange skirt under a sheer brown sari patterned with nakshatra-files Mrigashira: the head that keeps turning Three faint stars make the head of Orion, and they come up ahead of the rest of him. Also, why the word for road began as the word for a deer's track. Yamini Sardesai · 25 July 2026 Four small square panels in a row on a black ground, each a telescope image of the same star shown as a resolved disc ra nakshatra-files Ardra, and a star that is dying while we watch Betelgeuse is the orange shoulder of Orion. It changes brightness while you look at it, and it will end in an explosion nobody can put a date on. Yamini Sardesai · 27 July 2026 A hand-coloured nineteenth-century star chart on pale cream paper showing two young men standing side by side, one holdi nakshatra-files Punarvasu: the two who come back Gemini spends part of every year behind the sun. Where those two stars go, what they actually are, and the mornings they come back to the east. Yamini Sardesai · 28 July 2026 A square colour photograph of an open star cluster on a black sky. A loose, wide scattering of white and blue-white star nakshatra-files Pushya: the nourisher Two stars in Cancer are called the donkeys, and the grey patch they feed from is a thousand suns. A visit to the station the tradition calls kindest. Yamini Sardesai · 29 July 2026 A fragmentary sandstone sculpture of a standing male figure, broken away above the shoulders, below the knees and at the nakshatra-files Ashlesha: the coil Five faint stars make the head of the water snake. A line traced from the tongue backwards, and the word for an embrace that is also a way of holding on. Yamini Sardesai · 1 August 2026 A wide colour photograph of a dense star field on a near-black sky. A bright blue-white star sits low at the right of ce nakshatra-files Magha: the throne, and the dead who sat on it Regulus is bright because a dead companion handed it the material. The tenth station of the moon, its curve of stars, and the ancestors who preside. Yamini Sardesai · 4 August 2026 A wide nineteenth-century Bengali woodcut print. A dark-skinned Vishnu lies stretched on his side along the coils of the nakshatra-files Purva Phalguni: the hammock Two stars in the back of the Lion are the front legs of a bed. The word behind the name also means feeble and worthless. Rest, taken seriously. Yamini Sardesai · 8 August 2026 An engraved star chart on pale paper. A lion is drawn in fine outline across most of the sheet, with a crab drawn to one nakshatra-files Uttara Phalguni: the second bed Denebola sits at the lion's tail. The twelfth station of the moon's road, written as an agreement, because it is about what is agreed to rather than felt. Yamini Sardesai · 11 August 2026 A hand-coloured nineteenth-century star chart on cream paper. A black crow with spread claws stands on the long coiled b nakshatra-files Hasta: five stars make a hand Four almost equally bright stars make a clean box in Corvus, and the thirteenth station is called the hand. Five made things, one for each star. Yamini Sardesai · 15 August 2026 A small Indian turban ornament photographed against a graded grey ground. A wide fan-shaped base of openwork silver is s nakshatra-files Chitra: the jewel that is two stars The dictionaries give the fourteenth station one star. The star is Spica, and Spica is two, four days apart in orbit and never once seen split. Yamini Sardesai · 18 August 2026 A wide colour photograph of a dense star field on a near-black sky. One star is far brighter than everything else in the nakshatra-files Swati: the one that stands apart Arcturus is a degree from where the Greeks wrote it down. A track: one evening in the west, two thousand years of drift, and a path out through the galaxy. Yamini Sardesai · 22 August 2026 A photograph of a large eighteenth-century atlas lying open, its marbled boards and stitched pages visible at the left. nakshatra-files Vishakha: the forked branch The two stars of the sixteenth station are officially named the southern claw and the northern claw. The animal they belonged to lost them long ago. Yamini Sardesai · 25 August 2026 A large engraved star chart on pale paper, printed in fine black line. A scorpion is drawn across the left of the sheet nakshatra-files Anuradha: the star of company The four stars of the seventeenth station came out of one cloud and are still travelling together. Friendship, and the god who arranges people. Yamini Sardesai · 29 August 2026 An Indian miniature painting in gum tempera on paper, wider than it is tall. At the centre a grey-blue figure with four nakshatra-files Jyeshtha: the eldest, and the rival of Mars Antares is wide enough that light needs most of an hour to cross it. The eighteenth station of the moon's road, and a name that is only a comparison. Yamini Sardesai · 1 September 2026 A hand-coloured engraved star card in portrait format, headed SCORPIO and numbered plate 23. A pale green and yellow sco nakshatra-files Mula: the root, aimed at the centre of the galaxy The nineteenth station holds the scorpion's sting, and about 27,000 light years behind it, the centre of the galaxy. Nobody who named the station could see it. Yamini Sardesai · 8 September 2026 A hand-coloured nineteenth-century star chart on pale paper, wider than tall, titled Sagittarius and Corona Australis. A nakshatra-files Purva Ashadha: the water that does not lose The twentieth station calls itself unconquered, then hands the boast to water. Two stars in the archer's bow, in the brightest stretch of the Milky Way. Yamini Sardesai · 22 September 2026