Elegant objects, old and new, add character to this New Delhi home

New Friends Colony

This is the story of one of her projects. Four years ago, Shivani was contacted by Anasuya Sanyal and Newley Purnell. They were journalists who moved to Delhi when Newley was appointed foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. (The couple moved from India to Hong Kong earlier this year, so this home no longer exists. Newley has recently been in the news for his report in the WSJ on Facebook’s India operations.) For this design project, Anasuya was Shivani’s collaborator-in-chief. She’d discovered Shivani’s work on a décor blog and wanted her help decorating their new home in the city’s New Friends Colony, New Delhi. Now, New Friends Colony is a typical New Delhi suburb. Full of small restaurants, a busy market, and large bungalows that stand on plots that were once promoted for the views of the Yamuna river. Sadly, there are no views of the river anymore.

Anasuya and Newley had found a home in the annexe of a bungalow; their space was accessed via a garden in the front, leading to a flat with a ground-floor, plus two storeys for the bedrooms. It was charming, if oddly segregated. “Rarely do you have clients who inspire you and are like muses. I find that in many of my older clients, there’s a lot to learn from, Anasuya was one of my younger clients, but I was so impressed by her personal sense of style and I appreciated it so much,” says Shivani. “Anasuya is Bengali by birth and loved the older Calcuttan style. Her favourite designer was Sabyasachi Mukherjee; in fact, she wore a Sabya dress for their wedding.” So, Anasuya’s direction to Shivani was incorporate Calcutta or Bengali-ness into the design of the space.

Done, Just Right

Sometimes interior designer-created homes end up overdone and garishly made-up, victims of spatial Manchusean syndrome, where someone keeps doing plastic surgery to look better, but the opposite happens. But not in this couple’s home. When Shivani began the project, the home was oddly painted and a mix of this and that. The final result of this design project is a beautifully underdone home. The right number of pieces added with the lightest feather-touch to make the space better than it was. The starting point of the décor, following Anasuya’s initial direction, was an Indian-print wallpaper designed by Sabyasachi for Nilaya, the wallpaper collection by Asian Paints; this print was placed in the entryway of the home. “We chose this wallpaper because it was lovely, it was designed by a Bengali, and it set the tone for the space based on the colours in this entryway, a dull blue and the mustard on the floor.” The entryway’s only piece of furniture is a gentle old church pew. 

Décor, Sans Plan

The pieces were bought from here and there around Delhi. Shivani says Anasuya and her scouted for pieces, going from one end of the city, to vintage markets, scrap stores and décor haunts, in her old beat-up Ambassador. It was the perfect vehicle for such an endeavour. The textiles were found in Lajpat Nagar, a no-frills textile haven, furniture came from various spots including the Delhi’s favourite old furniture haunt, Sharma Farms. New purchases were mixed in with pieces the couple have held on to for emotional reasons, like a striped blue-and-white armchair from Ikea. The bedroom is an arresting salmon-pink colour, with an ironwork bed from Original Bedstead, an export brand, and a pair of side-tables from an old farmhouse. “Everything is mismatched, that was the charm because we didn’t want everything to be matched and boring,” says Shivani. “We didn’t create 2D and 3D drawings and plan everything out perfectly. It came together step by step and that is why I really enjoyed it because it felt like doing my own home. The only thing we planned correctly was the wall colours.”

It is rare these days to find a contemporary designer embrace the strong personality of older Indian furniture and objects. It’s not an easy task, and certainly difficult to fit in older pieces, like asking your army-man uncle to come stay with you. The regimen and discipline of older furniture can be on the outs with a young person’s lifestyle. Yet, Dogra manages to marry different time periods, furniture and influences perfectly. In Anasuya’s project, Shivani’s design is light-handed, creating a modern, intelligent, elegant space. The home speaks of both client and designer. “I haven’t consciously sought out a style,” she says. “I do believe, however, that the consistent element through all my projects has been authenticity. I’ve stayed true to the project, the context, the architecture, the client, and the client’s needs. I like well-done things; natural textures, metal, wood, lime plaster, reclaimed teak. My work is a call to elegance, things well done and crafted by hand—quality. Quality means soul,” says Shivani. The authenticity is evident in Anasuya and Newley’s former home. It has a certain reticence; it isn’t trying to achieve any sort of definition or acknowledgement. The space just seems like a great place for a house-proud couple. Easy to describe, but hard to do.