My friends Awanish and Divya wanted me to ”do something” on a 30 year old table they had lying in the house. I decided to truly jazz it up.

I happened to be watching TV while mulling over what to do. I realized that most people today would spend time mindlessly watching ‘dhin chak’ items songs but would probably not sit through a serious classical dance performance. And the Item Bomb table was born. It depicts pictures of Bollywood actresses in snazzy item song snapshots in the center while the periphery is made up of a string of traditional dancers. Dancers who have been sidelined, so to speak.

This was done almost two years ago. Dug up the pictures to show you. Not the best picture quality… I have been asked to make table lamps on the same theme!!

If you in Whitefield, Bangalore…then come on over.

Mohit and Reena recently shifted from their Diamond District home in Bangalore to a new place in Delhi. They asked me to make a Khiladi table that would also serve to remind them of the fun times they had here in Bangalore.
I decided to make a table based on the  rough architectural plan of Diamond District (DD). The central core has chess and snakes & ladders. The Main game is based around the walking path at DD.  The penalties and rewards of the game are based on various parties that they attended or hosted and also on the personalities of their friends and neighbours.  There is also a built in ‘?’ mark based game for their four year old daughter.
The flip side to this table has a complete felt base with four pockets to play a modified game of snooker/pool!
The pictures are a representation of  just a small slice of their memories…

The Memory Table

Work in progress...

I recently had the pleasure of spending an entire day at Ramya and Bhupender’s place on the outskirts of Bangalore. As you can imagine, I could not have left without taking a picture of the table and the wardrobe!!

The Khiladi Table

Tanya's Wardrobe in her room

After an exhausting 10 days, many sleepless nights… it’s finally done! I hope Tanya likes it

Tanys's Wardrobe

I am currently painting the front of a cupboard for Tanya’s room. It’s huge at 4′x6′!!

After a lot of thought, many fights with the carpenter and polisher…the work has finally started. Actually, it got delayed by a couple of hours because of me too….I got nervous! Then after a deeeeeep breath, the clouds parted and I got to see a clear picture of how the cupboard will look. I am posting a few pictures for right now. There are three additional drawers that I haven’t started yet.

Mind you, the entire cupboard is being done with a number 4 soft sable brush….so yes…. it’s gonna take a while.

Working to music...

Ramya sent me a picture of how the table looks in her house. I think it looks good!!

Sold

My friends Bhupendra and Ramya asked me to custom-design a ‘khiladi’ table with not just the regular snakes and ladders+chess+carrom, but also a Bangalore based monopoly. It was very interesting to make. Along the way I decided to take help from another good friend, Roopa Pai (of www.bangalorewalks.com fame) who helped me decide what real estate to carry on this table. Needless to say it was good fun, and I decided to add green felt to the underside of the table and make it a surface for playing cards as well. Wah.. what an idea sirji (:-))!!

Here are some pictures of the two chairs I did for my young friends- Tanya and Siddharth. The inspiration behind the two chairs was to make them time stamps of the two children. ‘A moment in time’ that reflects who they were in Dec 2008.

The kids loved them, I am happy too say.

Tanya’s chair depicts her love for dance, carnatic music, hockey, piano, chatting with friends, listening to music and bright happy colours. Tanya is 11.

Siddharth, on the other hand is completely fascinated with dinosaurs, sharks and orca whales. He is also  interested in stringed instruments. Siddharth is 5.

I know I am posting these pictures a little late in the day. But, then as they say – Better late then never. Just some random images from the exhibition at the Cha Bar at Leela Palace Hotel in Bangalore, Nov 2008.