A little bit of Kerala in Mumbai

A surefire way to lose friends is to hire them as decorators for your home. Or so goes a popular inside joke in the interior design industry. Designer Richa Bahl and her close friend Sumi Rajesh were aware of this little truism when the latter hired Richa to do up their new apartment in Mumbai’s Khar suburb. 

“We were clear that only Richa could do justice to our home, she knew us so well and I loved her sense of colour and proportion,” recalls Sumi. 

The result was a spacious, tastefully designed three bedroom apartment, flanked by large windows on all four sides, catching the sunrise from the kitchen and the sunset from the bedroom and commanding sweeping views of the sea from the living room. 

It wasn’t always like this. Sumi recalls the state of the apartment when they were moving in. “It was a shell. The house had windows on all four sides when we bought it, that was part of the reason why we decided on buying the place. Only one side of the house looks into another building.”

Richa had to pair Sumi and Rajesh's traditional Malayalee influences with their artistic sensibility and their inspirations from regular globetrotting trips. "I wanted to give them the best of both.

The bedroom is Sumi’s personal space. “It is cozy and I love lazing by the window, reading in the afternoons. I love the plants on the balcony. Rajesh likes chilling in the media room, playing his guitar, and listening to music. There is a lot of breeze at most times and we love to leave all the windows open. A living area is a good place for the family to spend time during the weekends together,” says Sumi.

The couple and their two children travel extensively whenever school holiday schedules permit and souvenirs picked up from these travels find their way inevitably into nooks and corners. “The mantle, the bar, and the niches are filled with things we have collected over the years,” laughs Sumi.