She’s the evangelist of ‘India Sublime,’ the organic desi language of style. Interior architect-designer Raseel Gujral Ansal retraces a life in design, past, present and future for Supriya Nair
Coco Chanel would have approved. One must be two things, the grande dame said: classy and fabulous. Raseel Gujral Ansal, designer, interior architecture expert, aesthete, the toast of Delhi’s smart set and one of India’s best dressed women, fulfills both conditions. So does her airy, gorgeous house tucked away in a quiet corner of Delhi. “Space is not about taste,” she explains, both in her capacity as design maven and as the chatelaine of a house that speaks eloquently in tones of subliminal flamboyance. Stepping into the cool of her gorgeous home off the dry, dusty streets of Delhi can be as soothing as a splash of cool water on a summer’s afternoon. As far as feeling goes, it doesn’t get better.
 Family ties
“I love Delhi’s familiarity,” she smiles. “I was born and brought up here – it’s home. But I like that I can live outside of it and still be part of it. I find a balance by living on its edge – I’ve lived away from the hub for 18 years now. And I’m happy with this semi-sanctuary.” Delhi may miss the charms of a large body of water and temperate weather, but there’s a lot to be said for home, she continues, “especially since it means my family is accessible to me.”
Understandably, the family is a big part of her identity. It may have bequeathed her one of India’s most famous last names, but the social inheritance is subordinate, in her case, to the artistic one. The inspirations of Casa Paradox, her interior design firm, go back a long, long way, she explains. “I’ve grown up seeing, breathing and absorbing design without realising I was doing so. My father (artist Satish Gujral), during my childhood, went from working on canvas to murals to metal sculpture, to architecture, and back to canvas, while my mother went from batik to ceramics to interior design. The whole house had an aura of creativity, and most creative people are obsessively self-centred, which means they can only talk about what’s going on in their heads. So that’s all we ever talked about in the house. I remember a childhood where I was constantly returning from school only to go straight to an exhibition, help my mother set up a display, go watch my father paint a mural (I was 12 when he painted the High Court mural) – I don’t think we ever took a family vacation!”
Designing for beginners
As a result, the young Raseel might have taken one of a number of paths – photographer, actor, architect. But life had other plans in store, and after a tumultuous series of events in her personal life, she ended up at the Gujrals’ architectural studio, training for what was to become a famous career in interior design. Her projects may be justly famous, but her big creative signpost, as always, is her house – whichever one she happens to inhabit at any point in time. “I’m infected with change, so this must be my seventh or eighth house. I normally find a white space when I move in. Like a canvas, it allows me to think, and then to reassimilate all the things that already exist into my life, in a new format.” She gestures to the generous, tranquil space around us. “All the things in this house have simply found a new way to co-exist: they’ve always been with me. And as I’m in the furniture business, I’m largely into non-furniture. Not another statement sofa!” She laughs. “Not another table! All of this is completely ‘non-designed.’ The collectibles are my only sense of permanence. The art, the carpets, the memorabilia, the books. I find it unfortunate that most people who are into interior design are not collectors. You need to create character for them. But for myself, I need to divest a space of character so that all the things I possess can breathe.”
 Dressing up, dressing down
Spontaneity finds a more tempered expression when she picks out what to wear. “I style myself loosely around trends. One doesn’t want to be eccentric. But I’m not a fashionista nor am I a fashion victim. I enjoy fashion. I love saris, especially in the evening. My idea of a gown – which I can’t wear – is a sari. They’re just not cool for me, gowns. They work for certain people. But I have a lot of affinity for Indian textiles. I love the Indian design vocabulary. It gives me joy.” Brands? “Very few. If I buy a brand, I’ll make sure you can’t see it. Let’s leave that in-your-face stuff to whoever it works for: I feel like a fake when I carry it.”
That toned-down sensibility reflects in her own décor tastes as well. “I OD on the visible labels when I’m working. For myself, I like something more permanent and very personal. I’m a beauty junkie when it comes to Indian things. But I’m so busy work-wise, I get very little time to actually indulge myself.” Her eyes twinkle. “It may be fortunate that we keep the coffers away from my greedy hands.”
‘India Sublime’
Working in the applied arts inevitably means finding a compromise between artistic compulsions and an audience’s demand. Caught between the tides of edgy and antique, it can be easy to go astray, but design moves forward because there is someone willing to step forward and start shaping a new medium, a new language. “There’s space for tremendous growth, particularly in the direction of an amalgam of the Indian sensibility and Western contemporary thought. We’re still living in a phase of fancy dress – where we are designing and consuming as characters, not as individuals. And designing a house is a serious commitment – you can’t really chuck it to the back of your closet. My father once said to me, ‘Birds shape their nests according to their bodies. We as people still haven’t figured out our contours.’ Until that comfort zone is hit, our spaces are not going to represent us. Finding our own language, without giving up everything that belongs to India, without going for what is very easy to emulate, without being, as I said, eccentric – this is what makes me happy, and it’s wonderful for me when someone says that they want me to work in my own vocabulary.”
Raseel-spiel
 First design project
“The Dean’s space at NIFT when it first opened in 1986. Of course, I was never paid: the government never got around to doing it, and I was too bashful to ask.”
Indian designers
“Rajesh Pratap Singh, Kotwara (Meera and Muzaffar Ali), Monisha Jaising. I think Namrata Joshipura is very clever with her texturing. And parts of Rohit Bal. The toned-down bits.”
On the importance of Indian art in her home
“When I get the time, I visit antique shops or exhibitions or bookshops. Then, of course, there’s so much of my father’s art which I’m fortunate enough to receive every now and then. It’s not an issue. It’s certainly a priority.”
On Indian design in the future
“We need to move away from the Devdas note and hit the Dev D. note. I’m confident it’s coming around to architecture, since it’s already happened in our food, fashion – and of course, our film.”
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