Bonding over designs

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Set amid a busy industrial street in Sewri is a nondescript door. Step inside, and you enter a place that might be an Arabian Nights-meets-contemporary luxury fan’s dream. Sumptuous fabrics, low chandeliers, tasteful curios and plush furniture line the way within, where Shobhna and Kanchi Mehta (petite and elegantly dressed, both) wait.

The studio — Kanchi Designs — might be the Mehta family’s (Shobhna, her husband and children Kunal and Kanchi) workplace. But it is also a “home away from home”, says Shobhna.
The Mehta family has been in the textile business for over 150 years. Shobhna — an alumnus of the JJ school — has been in the interior décor realm for nearly 40 years now. For both Kunal and Kanchi, that lineage meant a certain familiarity with the business, growing up. “I grew up watching her,” says Kanchi, indicating her mother, as we sit down at a dining table. “When she’d be doing her things at home or with her designing, I’d be watching.”
Shobhna looks fondly at her daughter and adds, “Yes, when all the other little children would say ‘I want to be a doctor’, she’d say ‘I want to become like my mom’.” “Little did I know!” Kanchi interjects.
There’s a warm give-and-take that peppers Shobhna and Kanchi’s conversation as we tour the studio. “I look into the production and design, Kunal looks into all the other things, my husband looks into the finances,” Shobhna explains. Kanchi laughs and adds, “Yes, dad signs all the cheques and asks us, ‘What are you all doing?!’ I handle branding and communication.”
Kanchi and Shobhna may not be interested in the business side of things, but the men in the family do forward creative opinions on occasion. “Because of all his experience in the field, my husband does have things to say about the fabrics,” says Shobhna. “Though being slightly conservative in his tastes, he’ll say things like ‘ye shocking pink kaise chalega?’”
Discussions about work frequently spill over onto the home front. “But it’s fun, never tedious,” says Shobhna. Kanchi, on the other hand, admits that she does sometimes feel the need to detach from it all. Her work as an art curator (she is the founder of Chameleon Art Projects, a not-for-profit that organises art shows and residencies) helps her strike a balance.
Kanchi says that working together has brought a different dimension to the Mehtas’ relationships. “When you see everyone doing their best, working towards one goal, you develop a lot of respect for that person. We’ve grown to understand each other in a very different way, not just as mother and daughter,” she says.
Shobhna agrees. “I feel after a certain age, when your son gets married and becomes a father, distances grow. There’s not much to talk about — kha liya, doodh pi liya, that’s it. But with our work, we have so much to talk about. Even with my husband, I have so much to talk about and fight about!” Shobhna says. “At our age, so many of my friends don’t have anything to talk about with their husbands… We can fight at least — even if it’s over whether a shade of pink or green should be used!”