PROFILE

It’s so unobtrusive that you might miss it. Just off Park Circus, make your way to Terra Indica, a workshop-cum-home décor and accessories store that’s busy restoring old furniture and knocking together new designs. An eclectic collection of furniture, lamps, paintings, textiles and other bitsy stuff like crockery, jewellery, and candles await you here.

Christophe Plais, 33, creative head of Terra Indica, launched this design store in Calcutta back in 2005 along with Apurva Bannerjee to export fine wood products to France and Belgium. While Plais plays the designer and restorer, Bannerjee takes care of the finances and management. And from the outset, Plais worked with Don Bosco Ashalayam, an NGO that works with Calcutta’s street children, providing them access to education and vocational training.

A Frenchman from Brittany in France, Plais completed his International Baccalaureate and moved to Belgium at the age of 18 to study carpentry and wood carving at Institut Saint-Luc in Tournay. After completing the three-year course, he came to Calcutta in 1998 for three months and tied up with NGOs like Don Bosco Ashalayam, Future Hope and Cini Asha that work with street children and taught them the art of restoring wood, carving and carpentry.

His short stint over, Plais went back to Europe, and over the next three years worked with several carpentry firms as a designer. At this time, he also shuttled between Europe and India, trying to figure out the possibilities of starting a business here. In 2001, he decided to take the plunge and moved to Calcutta.

He spent the next four years teaching young boys to restore old furniture and make good quality products in wood. To make ends meet, he would dash back to France for a couple of months, work there and come right back. Even when Terra Indica began to export products in 2005, Plais continued to impart training to the aspiring artisans. Says Plais: “We wanted to run a profit-making company with strong social commitments.”

He also invited other international artisans and Compagnons (members of a well-known French guild of craftsmen) to impart technical knowledge to his students.

Plais sources all non-wood products retailed at Terra Indica from different people. Textiles and cool junk jewellery are supplied by Nayana Ganguly who culls them from all over the country. Julie Das supplies lamps created in Pondicherry. Plais also stocks up on brands like Nana in India, different varieties of tea from the Glenburn Tea Estate and more.

Trends

Plais wants to blend traditional and contemporary design elements in his products. He says: “I want to bring European designs to India and adapt them to Indian tastes.”

According to him, today people prefer to go for straight lines in their furniture which, he feels, can get boring after a point. “A time will come when people will regret throwing away all that charming furniture that belonged to their parents and grandparents. That’s where designers like us come in,” says Plais.

Plais also wants to introduce pale shades of grey and blue on wood, which can lend freshness to any room. According to him, Indians are only partial to the usual brown and red hues of wood.

PROducts

From lamps to restored almirahs, beds, chairs, tables, hat-stands and desks and kitschy cushions, Terra Indica has a huge collection. There’s more by way of jewellery, wraps and stoles and Plais also takes on projects to do customised furniture for homes.

You can take your pick from a wide variety of lamps, with shades in either cloth or plastic in single tones or bright block prints. A small lamp with a metal stand and a red cloth shade will cost Rs 6,900. An eye-catcher is a vibrant disco lamp (Rs 7,800), with a plastic shade in white and green.

There are paintings on recycled wood by Suman Mandal whom Plais has trained in his workshop. Done with acrylic colours, these paintings are colourful and vivacious. Prices begin at Rs 3,000.

A restored hat-stand in teak costs Rs 8,000 while a wooden almirah with a glass door is a cool pick for Rs 3,500. This one even comes with an old fashioned key.

However, our favourite remains a console with a mirror, restored to perfection by Plais and his team. This mahogany console comes with intricately carved legs and costs about Rs 45,000.