Liquid crystals are a class of soft materials formed by mesoscopic anisotropic molecules between their solid and isotropic liquid state. These molecules self-organise into various liquid crystalline phases which are characterised by long range orientational order but lack long range positional order in three dimensions. Various physical properties which are easily tuneable by external fields emerge from these self-assembled structures which are not present in the individual molecules. The properties of these materials have already been exploited in various display devices and have many other potential applications. I will discuss various studies carried in our laboratory on these liquid crystalline materials and their physical properties.