Bring character into homes to represent its people

In late May, I was invited to Sitara Himalaya, the 10-room spa by design house Good Earth, 13km from Manali at an altitude of more than 8,000ft, nestled within candy floss clouds, the Himalayas looming like a wizened sentinel.

- MANJU SARA RAJAN

As soon as you enter that threshold, you are consumed by founder Anita Lal's, or AL as she's known, romance with colour, textures and prints. The walls are drenched in blue-green teal, printed fabric sofas sit next to armchairs upholstered with straight lines; if there are blue-white Chinese-inspired vases then there are also flowers sitting inside brass lotas (vessels). Everything is vibrant and there is hardly a colour missing and yet everything is, somehow, in the right place. A short walk down a stone path from the spa, AL's cottage sits in quiet sisterhood with the spa. The insides of her home cottage and the living spaces of the spa all have the same qualities: colourful, hospitable, and luxurious but in a cosy, charming way.

I often think of AL's clarity and ability to create warm inviting designs, both in her private spaces and business, when I sift through images of a vast majority of interior design projects from around the country. It is part of my work as an editor, and it can often be a disheartening exercise. There is a lack of contextual relevance in most of them. All cultural references are sequestered away for the puja room at best, while the rest of a home can seem like it jumped off a Pinterest board on "international decor". If you were to draw a mental picture of what that means then it'd be a house where the living room walls are clad either in some stone or engineered wood, where the furniture looks like pieces AI would generate if you typed "modern contemporary furniture" on ChatGPT. I am being facetious but only slightly because a lot of interior design projects in India right now are beginning to look generic, and soulless. What many remind me of are the exhibition spaces of major brands at Salone del Mobile in Milan. I think of it as the "Salone-fication" of Indian interior design.