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| Photographs by Rashbehari Das |
PROFILE
Prakash Mehrotra, 34, claims that he’s hugely inspired by a Gothic, dark, brooding mood. So, not surprising then that Basil — his furniture and home accessories store on Alipore Avenue — is designed like a dark warehouse in a ghetto rather than a lifestyle store. Apart from this, Mehrotra looks pretty much a regular guy — soberly dressed in denims and a dark shirt with an unobtrusive basil leaf embroidered on the lapel.
His teak and sheesham sleeper wood furniture, most of which has a distressed finish, speaks of his fine design sensibilities.
Basil opened its doors in April 2009. Instead of advertising its presence, Mehrotra settled for word-of-mouth publicity and social networking sites like Facebook. That stood him in good stead and Basil has received healthy footfalls through its sleeper wood front doors. Visitors have included celebrities like Rituparno Ghosh, Moon Moon Sen and Aparna Sen, as well as young Bengali couples looking to do up their first homes.
Mehrotra’s family is in the business of building vehicle bodies and Mehrotra is involved with it, though Basil is where his heart lies.
“My hobby turned into a profession for me,” says Mehrotra. Apart from occasional art lessons that he took as a child, he has no formal training in designing. “When doing up my family’s new bungalow a few years ago, I discovered a passion for something totally alien,” he says.
He started with mirrors and small wood carvings but soon found himself designing bigger pieces like coffee tables, garden benches, dining tables and so on. He began retailing from the space he owned in Alipore and in the process of doing up the store, he discovered his passion for designing interior spaces. Now he does interior designing upon request for clients as well.
Mehrotra is not only a designer, but Basil’s chief buyer as well. Along with his wife, he sources furniture and accessories from Bhutan, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam and close to home, Rajasthan. But he prefers an approach more befitting a curator. He travels to the interiors and villages away from the cities to avoid picking up run-of-the-mill, mass-produced pieces, while keeping an eye out for something that stays true to a country’s heritage.
Trends
“I experiment with a lot of sleeper wood, dark frames, a stripped down and distressed look on furniture. I like to preserve signs of wear-and-tear and age on a piece of wood,” he says. The glass, metal and plastic look, is clearly not for him.
“A home is a very private space and the decor should reflect a sense of privacy. Instead of designing a living room in shiny chrome and leather that’s perfect for public spaces, I like to give it a more personalised look,” he says.
Quiz him on what his clientele likes and he says: “Sleeper wood furniture, muted lights, a lot of dark wood, muted accessories that don’t scream for attention but are well-crafted enough to hold the gaze, are some of the things that people are opting for now. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that most of the experiments are coming from young Bengalis setting up their own homes.”
PROducts
The products that fill the space at Basil are not its complete repertoire. There’s more (usually the larger pieces like beds and bookshelves) in the warehouse too. But the store is quite a treasure trove that can please the most fastidious of buyers.
There are garden benches made of sleeper wood, some with wrought iron details. Usually a single-seater would cost around Rs 7,000 and a double-seater some Rs 14,000. Prices go up with size.
Coffee tables come in the range of Rs 8,000 and Rs 16,000, and an eye-catcher is a Rajasthani table fashioned out of a storage box, stripped by age of its colours.
The shelves cost from Rs 16,000 to Rs 70,000 depending on size again, while bars range between Rs 7,000 (for smaller wine racks) and Rs 65,000. Bar stools are tagged between Rs 5,000 and Rs 9,000.
Mirrors, usually framed in dark wood, cost between Rs 6,000 and Rs 25,000. And there are unusual knick-knacks like metal watering cans shaped like lobsters and elephants (priced at Rs 2,500); as well as wood and metal frogs that can be placed on the floor or hung on the walls (priced similarly). But the best bit is surely the cast iron barbecue device (shaped like the witch’s pot from Hansel and Gretel), priced at Rs 27,000.