Ethnic elegance (page 3)

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Besides the creative use of screens, fabrics too are imaginatively employed. A richly-hued silk sari camouflages the Visitors' room blinds. Since the puja room was only partially covered and tradition dictates that this kind of prayer-room be fully screened, a 60-year-old KanjeeUaram silk sari was fortified with lining and then fixed as full-length curtains.

Agorgeous, old Kalamkari handpainted silk-sari finds equally creative use in the first bedroom-its body converted into a tapestry that hangs behind the bed while the elaborately painted pallu is stitched into two pillowcovers. A superb centerpiece to the room curtains is formed by stitching on to it, handpainted cloth Pichwai paintings an idea of Vimala's interior-designer friend Ashwini Tandon.

The home is a tribute as much to the couple's aesthetic sense as to India's rich and varied handicraft traditions. It abounds with elegant art objects some antiques, others few- decades-old. And all placed tastefully in specially created small niches or on sidetables and consoles. There are exquisite Mysore and Tanjore paintings, Hyderabadi lacquerware with Nirmal painting,Channapatna lacquerware, rosewood sofa-sets, brass urlis and planters, wooden sculptures (one is a section from an old temple-chariot wheel), small figurines, silk and woollen tapestries, etc. A lot of the furniture is rosewood-the couple's favourite because it "is warm and has a deep, rich tone".

A touch of modern art is the painting by Vimala's cousin and famed artist S.G. Vasudev in the visitors' room. Another contribution of Vasudev is an amazingly creative glass painting in the form of four revolving shutters which separate the visitor's room from the living room.

The End.

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