The glassy 44th-floor residence of architect Samira Rathod, in a high-rise located in the heart of South Mumbai, is open on three sides—with large balconies facing the Arabian Sea, the eastern dockyard, and the iconic Haji Ali mausoleum ensconced on an islet. “I wake up at five, so I have enough time to sit on the veranda and enjoy the morning light and breeze,” says Rathod. The unfolding dawn becomes her sacred hour, a time to sit back and think of the mundane and the profound. On some mornings, she lounges on the couch on her veranda honing ideas for her various projects at Samira Rathod Design Atelier. Some days, she wakes up and ponders over how to add a new twist to an old object at home. Rathod is a fierce advocate of recycling; her home has an abundance of things that have gained new contours, textures, and consequent longevity through the many years that they have been in her possession—thanks to makeovers executed in her own design studio.
There are side tables made from cane baskets; Bhutanese shawls used as screens in her bedroom; and old dining tables turned into new work desks affixed with a fresh set of legs. “A lot of these objects were collected over a long period of time, so in a sense they are things that I have grown up with. I have never been able to part with the old when the new came in,” says Rathod. “The idea of discarding is contrary to the idea of collecting, and to me these objects are all about collecting memories. I can’t imagine being in a home without them.”
Her love for art and craft has less to do with the illustrious profile of an object, and more to do with how it makes her feel. She refuses to collect art for the sake of it: “I need to feel an intuitive connection towards each piece. I rarely buy anything that is not natural or not made of natural materials. I am sensitive to how anything feels to the touch and even how it smells. There is also that reverence for the hand and the heart and the mind and the soul of the unknown craftsman who has made it.” Though she is quick to deny that she is a sentimentalist, her choices—down to the smallest clay bowl on her dining table—are rooted in strong emotional resonances.
Too often, she finds herself staring at a piece of art kept lovingly on a wall or shelf of her home and wonders what must have driven its maker to make it. Rathod’s aesthetic is not scripted by pattern or commonality, except that everything comes together to create a space of warmth and intimacy. The dining table is made from a magnificent piece of Italian marble, some chairs are designer replicas from Chor Bazaar, and some others are flea-market finds from Paris. Besides old antique kilims, there are Persian carpets designed by her studio that were woven in Varanasi and Nepal. A regular at Art Basel and Venice Biennale, Rathod sets aside a generous slot in her itinerary for visits to art galleries and museums whenever she travels abroad. Though she owns a sizeable collection of art, there are some that are her “conversation pieces.” “I have artworks by my childhood friends that I bought for ₹15,000, about 25 years ago. People would have wondered why I would pick up something like that. But to me it doesn’t matter what people think. I enjoy seeing these artworks every day, and I love being in rooms with all that art around me. It’s a sense of connection—I talk to them and they talk back to me. It’s like a quiet conversation that is taking place in the background while I am doing other things.”
Even her “other things” mostly refer to her artistic preoccupations, as is obvious from her bookshelves, which bear the weight of diverse voices from the fields of fashion, photography, cinema, philosophy, poetry, and literature. “It reminds me of what Umberto Eco said: ‘If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the ‘medicine closet’ and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment.’” Rathod’s choice of reading material is distinctive in the way it reflects her singularity—much like the materials (debris, geogrid textile) she used to create the pavilion at the Kochi Muziris Biennale, or the floating artscapes of furniture and architecture she exhibited at Chemould Prescott Road two years ago.
Her fascination for filmmaking, ceramics, gardening, and cooking is just an extension of her abiding love for pursuits that are rich with the potential to create. “I am the kind of person that likes to strive for perfection to the best that I can, and enjoy it while I do. But I’m a bad singer. It’s strange that I relate to music so deeply, but I cannot sing or dance to a song. One thing on my bucket list is to learn singing so I can sing Frank Sinatra’s ‘Fly Me To The Moon’. I just want to get it right for myself.” Judging by the determination and passion with which she follows her dreams, she might just sing it someday, just before the sun comes up. “I didn’t come from a culturally endowed background. I have nurtured my love for art, and I have created a world around it.” Her words are reason enough to believe that art transforms us only for the better, if we let it lead our heart.
Styling by Drisha Jain.
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