50 YEARS OF MAHENDRA DOSHI

As a child I remember accompanying my parents on their collecting trips. Going to museums, art galleries and furniture warehouses is what we did on Sunday mornings in the 1980s in Bombay. There were no malls and my parents felt guilty leaving us home. We were welcomed into these treasure troves of art and design with equal élan by their humble owners, who were always there on the shop floor. Holiday or not. And that is how one spring morning, I met the doyen of period furniture, Mahendra Doshi. We would spend hours with him in his dusty cavern-like basement, nestled against the Arabian Sea with a view of the entire Queen's Necklace. I remember seeing stars in my father's eyes. He did that when he saw things he liked. My parents may or may not have picked up a piece, but I always took back a story. For amidst those dusty alleys of piled up "junk" and heaps of old furniture lay stories of history, homes and heritage. Stories we were regaled with by the gentle giant. He was simply Mahendra bhai to my parents and Mahendra uncle to me.

- Gaurav Bhatia

The story of Mahendra Doshi began in 1937 in Rajkot, Gujarat. Born in his grandfather's colonial bungalow amidst exquisite 19th-century antiques and objets d'art, this was Mahendra's subliminal orientation. In the 1960s, the family migrated to Bombay and a young Mahendra reluctantly joined his father's construction business as an apprentice. On a site once, he saw a beautiful French-style Lady Petit bungalow in Breach Candy being demolished. He rushed in to spot beautiful Baccarat chandeliers, a large billiard table with ivory balls, and a mini-theatre with fabulous Chinese embroidery work curtains being ripped apart and sold to junk dealers. Mahendra was heartbroken. But he had tasted blood.

One thing led to another and soon he began seeking out old dealers in Chor Bazaar, Bombay's "thieves market" famous for old scrap, to source rejected furniture for his new flat. He then hired a small team, led by Karsanbhai, a carpenter, who later became his righthand man, to repair and polish the sourced pieces.