Ever so often we’re approached by older clients in Delhi that need our services  with  interior design. These are clients who leave carefully tended old houses to move into convenient, contemporary apartments.  A visit to these homes  usually offers  fortuitous lessons in interior design and architecture.

In the Nizammudin area of  Delhi  some years ago,  I’d  found a hidden gem behind a rusty gate and an ageing Jamun tree. I was  entering  the home of Mohanjeet Grewal.  Just as fine wrinkles only accentuate the sheen of an octogenarian’s eyes, the crumbling walls of the house only highlighted its artefacts —brass pots and terracotta sculptures on the staircase, glass paintings on the walls and  handwoven silk rugs & tribal kilims on the floor.

The house of Mohanjeet in Delhi, is an apt metaphor for her life. There was a time when she walked the global arena with fashion design. Naturally then, the interior design of her home bears testimony to her elegant and sophisticated taste. The house, ageing gracefully like its owner, is a reminder of her talent, intellect  and depth—rather distant from the oft humdrum nature of  a developer’s style of  architecture & interior design.

Kintsugi—the Japanese art of embracing broken imperfections with gold seems to come alive in the Grewal house. The walls bear patches of decay and yet, the house has meaning & soul. In contrast,  her new apartment, also in Delhi,  constructed by a developer is quite elemental.

Mohanjeet— once globally celebrated, may have become a blur to the world,  but her house and style command respect, even in their  fading glory.

Banner Image: Mohanjeet 

Words: Sugandha Das & Shivani Dogra

Photographs: Shivani Dogra