How I met my clients: Studio of molten gold
Parking. A new age hassle of the enchanting city life. Our roads and spaces can no longer take our growing need to be mobile, If you’ve ever tried to park in the bustling lanes of Shahpur Jat, a small urban village in the heart of New Delhi you know what an overwhelmingly frustrating and draining exercise it can be.
Utterly irritated from one such battle I found myself climbing up a compact flight of stairs in the narrow lanes of Shahpur Jat. I’m met with the white stairs flushed in light and a tall, sprawling Areca palm, I sometimes find myself marvelling at the unforgiving Delhi summer.
Somewhat sweaty and out of breath I enter a room. Met with a single eye of Masterji, rising above the borders of his spectacles to take a look at the visitor, I am able to gasp out, Chetan!
Out comes this beautiful boy, whose grace and charm fill the room immediately.
I have come to discuss a possible shoot for his label Ulupi and he shows me around his studio that doubles up as his home.
Masterji by now has managed a shy namaste and is back to cutting his patterns, two other karigars as they are called also go about their chores non chalantly. I can’t help but feel the positivity of this place. Beige jute curtains, solid wood book shelf straight out of my grandfather’s living room, its an instant calm to my otherwise fried nerves.
I am ushered into a smaller room, set in the hues of natural wood, I realise its my grace man’s haven. Our spaces are so fluid, they take the shape and energy of who we are as people. As he spoke, I am busy absorbing this space. Natural wood desk with neatly arranged stationery sitting elegantly on it. How each piece was thoughtfully placed and how something as simple as a desk could make for a visual delight. Behind me was a Sahoo painting, a nude man whose face is covered with the book he’s reading.
Corner of my mind was already occupied with a fascination for his clothes, perfectly arranged on a stand. Indian wear in earthy pastel shades with gold and silver borders. Not the shouting in your face gold, the quiet, gleam9ng kinds. It reminded me of my grandmother’s kitchen, where pots and pans of brass and copper shone like treasures in the afternoon sun. Memories are a funny thing, they come stumbling down like loose boulders on a slope and make you travel time right in the middle of a meeting.
As I sat in my wooden chair, the kind we had in boarding school, I was amazed by how this space held me. Such is the power of art, when art flows into your life it shows in what you do and how you move and what you touch, it renders itself into your being.
This man was art himself.
As he stooped over his desk riser and carefully examined his calendar for a free date to lock in the shootI noticed his crooked fingers for the first time. Something that I tease him for even today.
That afternoon in the studio of gold was the beginning of some fabulous images and a life long friendship.