Top Notch | Tejal Mathur: 'I look for permanence every time I build'

NO ONE could have been to Mumbai’s older Pali Village Cafe, opened 12 years ago, and not come totally charmed by its decor. The restaurant in its former avatar was one of the most beautiful spaces in Mumbai, only to be rivaled by its sister space, Pali Bhavan, right across the road. This, in a city brimming over with fine dining spaces and chic little delis. Slowly and sure-footedly, interior designer Tejal Mathur has become as renowned as the fabulous spaces she designs.

“I always have an imaginary narrative going on in my head,” Mathur, 50, tells me. “Why is this place here and who am I making it for? I like to translate the natural behavior of the human being who owns the space into the space. Pali Village Cafe came from two young people who didn’t have much money and were putting together a restaurant.” So the walls were patina, and the plates looked handpicked. It’s almost as if one could imagine the owners decorating it themselves wearing overalls.

Mathur’s new space, opening once more in the chic Mumbai suburb of Bandra, is also an homage to the woman who runs it. Nava owner Anushka Pathak is 25, a right-arm amputee, and a Tedx speaker. “She really is the brightest bean doing something so different in our foodscape. And Chef Akash makes amazing desserts inspired by artworks like Van Gogh’s Starry Nights and Michelangelo’s sculptures,’ Mathur says. Mathur has given them a well-deserved open kitchen so the guests can partake of the magic. “One of the walls has art dedicated to Banksy. We’ve culled out a balcony and added some modern furniture too, the floor is black and the walls are white so it’s very French vintage,” the interior designer says.
Mathur fell into interior design just the way one falls into love. “When I was in college, I did commerce by default. But I painted a lot and I know that I saw the world in patterns, form and balance, symmetry. I was always sensitive to visual imagery,” she says.

Her spaces are somehow instantly recognisable, in most cases. Each space is unique but tied together by some terrific leitmotifs, like intense or textured walls for example. Or her penchant for darker moody hues. “I look at interiors very architecturally. The structure turns me on. The space is just the cave and needs to stand on its own,” she explains “Decor is important but I was always into respecting the skin and bones of a room. The walls, ceiling floor have to be very significant first, and then the other elements come in.”

Some of Mathur’s most significant spaces are all the Nutcrackers in Mumbai, The British Brewing Company at the Palladium, and Plural in Fort. She has done some truly luxurious homes across India. But more famously that of singer Sona Mohapatra and husband Ram Sampath, singer Pratichee and model Shonali Malhotra Soni. The Mhapatra-Sampath home was recently covered by a rash of design magazines. “It looks so carelessly put together,” Mathur smiles. “But that’s by design, Sona wanted to use elements of their ancestral home.”
Pratichee’s home is dark and sexy, like a boudoir, with plum and gold tints. Shonali, Mathur says, is a repeat client, with intense and edgy charcoal tones, marbles and terrazzo.

Mathur loves the idea of post-modern Indian elements in her design. She says it is possible to breathe life into vernacular elements of older structures and adapt them in a modern way. “It’s the way we lived. With wooden doors and window shutters. We lived as a community and ate on the floor. For example, Mumbai is not all colonial and gothic structures, it’s also about so many middle-class dwellings. Even our village homes are so scientific and organic.”
The designer has travelled across India sourcing for specialty craftsmen their products, from Jaipur, Jodhpur and Moadabad to the resplendent Karaikudi in the south. She is also keen on making “environmentally relevant” spaces that pay heed to the way humans live in their natural surroundings. “I look for permanence and timelessness every time I build something. And I think sourcing ethically should be a matter of regulation,” she avers.

Namrata Zakaria is a seasoned writer and editor, and a chronicler of social and cultural trends. Her first book, on late fashion designer Wendell Rodricks’ Moda Goa museum, is due to be published shortly. Zakaria is especially known for her insider’s take on fashion, luxury and social entrepreneurship in India. Her writing is appreciated for shaping opinions, busting myths, making reputations and sometimes breaking the odd career. Zakaria is also involved in putting together philanthropic efforts in the field of economic and environmental sustainability.

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