I am quite certain that I inherited my penchant for decorating from my dad. Quite a few of my weekends were spent acting as his ‘creative assistant' as he pored over paint swatches emblazoned with colours as intrepid as watermelon, mushroom, flame and ebony. Quite a few of these shades ended up on the walls of our home. Visitors poked fun at the untamed hues. The kinder ones nodded sadly. My father remained resolute and continued spending his weekends painting and decorating, and I grew up with the smell of paint and turpentine in the air. History, as we know, has a habit of repeating itself and years down the line, I found myself indulging in the same pastime; painting walls regularly and loving the immediacy of change that a fresh new colour brought. I was never bored, so busy was I changing vignettes, tacking, painting and scribbling. If moving house was not such an expensive proposition here, I would do it way more often than the six times I have already.
My role as a contributor to InsideOut magazine came at a time when Dubai's interiors scene was in overdrive. International style makers were heading here to claim their share of a rapidly expanding pie. I became privy to the works of design heavyweights such as Karim Rashid, Rem Koolhaas and Marcel Wanders, and heard architecture's wild child Zaha Hadid speak with passion. Around me, names such as Fendi, Cavalli and Starck were falling as hard as summer rain. I saw a 24,000 square-foot home occupied by one man and that too only for his weekends. I encountered a gold Bisazza tiled dressing room belonging to a five-year-old girl. I realised it was okay to have a 3,000 square-foot garage for your vintage Ferrari and associated memorabilia, and that infinity pools could be constructed on the 35th floor.
Above the sea of designer offerings, the ones that stood out were the personality loaded spaces. The journey has been idyllic. Besides the distinct privilege of being given carte blanche to enter the best homes in Dubai, I have met the most wonderful people along the way, many of whom have become friends.
Assignments with the magazine only made my decorating addiction worse. From overly decorated spaces to more quirky, inventive homes, stimulation was everywhere. Our home underwent many avatars. A trip to a Moroccan-style home inspired me to turn the house into some sort of colour-drenched fantasy. Yet another tour of a polo player's residence with a preference for mid-century modernism resulted in the purchase of an Eames chair. A visit to a clean-lined dwelling goaded me to clear the house of all clutter.
The snag with the ever-changing decorating scenario presented itself in the form of my family. They had started raising objections. At first, their protests were mild but soon these started to acquire more sinister undertones. Threats were issued by my husband and daughter, and I found myself tiptoeing around the house in the dead of night, moving things around as quietly as possible. My mother, when she visited, despaired of me and termed the compulsion a medical condition.
Change they say is the only constant. But in my case, it did finally meet its demise. The last three years have seen my decorating ethos more or less in status quo. Not a fan of interiors that lock themselves into a specific era or decorating genre, the house is essentially uncluttered with some micro collections of well-loved objects. I do not like over-precious interiors; furniture and objects, however expensive, are to be used, not to be watched over. Eclecticism is an over-used word but I do like a decor that has range.
Masters of minimalism, Christian Liaigre and John Pawson's spartan spaces are my unconditional favourites, but as I got older, I wanted my home to become a personal album of my life.
When I had the living room floor encased in rich wood, I decided to trade in my white linen sofas for a dark brown set covered in sumptuous Edelman suede. The coffee table, as large as a single bed, was bought from a rather bemused carpet store owner in Satwa, where it was being used to transport rugs. The living room is largely contemporary and works around a black-and-white triptych of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, painted one evening over endless cups of coffee with Iranian cartoonist and friend Hadi Farahani. A back-lit piece of film reel featuring Audrey Hepburn, a present from my sister, is a personal favourite. Throughout the home, nothing matches and each object has been chosen, not for its provenance, but for the mood it creates. A home should be as much about function as it is about emotion.
At the entrance, political posters from South India lend colour. Every morning the corner stores in Chennai announce the daily news by pasting the front pages on the walls around their little stores. This is construed as major defacement and punishable by law, but it cuts a potent picture. I was bent on acquiring a few of these on a recent trip and got lucky as they happened to be tearing the day's papers down to make way for the next day's headlines.
The dining room is unabashedly quixotic. An Indian dining table with benches, a giant papier mâché figure that has been with me for the last ten years and an installation of neem tree sticks gifted to me by artist Nelda Gilliam, which I lined up on a weathered piece of old wood, all melded together in wonderful whimsy. The master bedroom plays host to two oil paintings by artist and friend Seemita Roy. The guest bedroom is mostly black and white with flashes of colour. You can lie here and stare at a majestic Indian ‘ber' tree and listen to the birds chattering in the garden.
Being part of the creative field means you have to allow yourself to float and dream a little. Sitting on the large balcony in more clement weather with the family in tow, our pet Pekinese lolling in his favourite armchair is the highlight of my day. They say you have to be very fortunate to get paid to do what you love and I did get lucky. One would have thought that the many years spent writing about homes would dull the decorating fervour. I guess nature and nurture melded in my case and even to this day, every time a door opens to reveal yet another beautiful home, I feel my pulse quicken just as it always did.
