Indian businesses and services in Warsaw, Poland

Warsaw's Indian community is small and mostly recent, built around IT and business services, students at the city's universities and medical schools, and families who came with multinational companies. Office districts such as Służewiec, in Mokotów, house branches of many multinational companies, and families live across the city rather than in one area. Indian groceries are scattered accordingly, and newcomers often combine a specialist shop with the international aisles of large supermarkets.

There is an older and well-loved link between the two countries. During the Second World War, the Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, Digvijaysinhji, took in hundreds of Polish children at Balachadi near Jamnagar, and when that camp closed in 1945 they moved to Valivade in Kolhapur. Warsaw remembers him: a square in the Ochota district is named Skwer Dobrego Maharadży, the Square of the Good Maharaja, and the story is often told at Indian cultural events in the city.

Religious life is organised through small communities, with a Hindu temple, Hindu Bhavan, and a gurdwara for the city's Sikh families, and festivals such as Diwali and Holi are marked by associations and cultural events. Practically, Warsaw is easy to navigate: two metro lines, trams and buses cover most of the city, and the business districts are well connected. Anyone settling here will need a PESEL number for most official and medical matters, so it is worth arranging early.