Once upon a time, there was a little corrugated shed in the middle of a field, a carpenter's workshop with a little office off to the side which doubled up conveniently as a storeroom. Through the open sides of the shed, the loo wind gusted all summer long. Outside, a lone carpenter worked on the designer furniture of the company whose proprietor could already see its name up in bold lights one day. “When we started this little company back then, I could see the name, ‘La Sorogeeka Limited’ up there,” laughs designer-turned-decorator-turned-CEO Anjali Goel. La Sorogeeka, her interiors firm, is blazing trails through design consciousness these days, bright enough to please even her. It’s just like the movies.

After all, 25 years along that dusty field lane, it helps that she is recalling this in the middle of what appears to be a movie set – a fabulous construction of understated elegance that grew out of the little shed. This is La Sorogeeka’s three-acre office and showroom in NOIDA, a starling gem of modern art amidst the arid landscape of the India-to-come. Like a Morricone tune in a Sergio Leone film, it suggests the oasis in an arid landscape – at least partly because getting to this place is a bit of an adventure. “We have an establishment at Okhla in the heart of Delhi, but we don’t have the luxury of space there. I wanted something I could make like a resort. It’s not just the furniture we sell, after all. It’s a concept, a plot.”

For people who go to Milano, Dubai or Shanghai to fix up their dream homes, it certainly isn't too much of a stretch to drive down to NOIDA to spend a day picking out elements of a home, says Goel. So what if those locations are famous for well-established reasons? “If you want something that’s out of a dream, we come in. Every individual has different dreams, and since we’re a versatile company, we fulfil all of them.”

It is the confidence of someone who has not only bridged the distance from shed to edgy stone-and-glass cocoon, but one who has done so in a creaky Maruti 800, draped conservatively in the saris demanded of her conservative Marwari culture. All of that has changed with the times, as the svelte, designer-casuals-clad Goel, now reigning over the La Sorogeeka fantasy-land, proves. “I was very fashionable before I got married,” she says, and then pauses mischievously. “I was fashionable when I wore saris too, but well. I love anything that’s beautiful, so whether it’s Cartier or street shopping in Thailand, I’ll go with what pleases me.” A good philosophy to have and one that is clearly good for someone involved in the business of making dreams come true. What better way to do it than start with your own? That’s not to say there isn’t a distinctive touch to everything that comes off the dream-assembly line at La Sorogeeka. Over their collections, the impression of a delicate contemporaneity integrates itself very strongly with a classical strength and solidity. Goel’s unseen hand? “I'm never too far from my design team, so my hands are in every design.” A remarkable thing coming from someone who has as many projects going at any given time and takes pride in confirming each one's originality. But that is clearly the training of decades spent designing – first fashion in New York, then soft furnishings out of the little shed, and finally, this rave-up in NOIDA. “I really can’t have a single favourite project – but this one has been satisfaction for my soul. It took every fibre of my being. I stood here for four months from nine in the morning to midnight to get this done. As far as a designer’s satisfaction is concerned, this is it.”

Of course, there’s a ‘but wait!’ here. To Goel, the vistas are always receding, always broadening. In a country that is remembering once again the sensibility that equates luxury with design, rather than just with material, there can be no resting on laurels. “I don’t want to cater simply to the elite,” she insists. Originality, luxury and all? “I want luxury to be brought to everyone. When a housewife in a little flat realises she can create a space in which every piece belongs where it should be – that’s when we’re getting there. I’m looking forward to it.” In the gleam of that name in lights, in that city of the future, it’s more convincing than ever.

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