PHANTOM HANDS IS A RARE, ONE-OF-AKIND DESIGN STUDIO BASED IN BENGALURU.

AS FOUNDERS APARNA RAO AND DEEPAK SRINATH OPEN THEIR PERSONAL HOME TO US, WE DISCOVER THAT THEIR DESIGN PHILOSOPHY IS ALSO THEIR WAY OF LIFE—CONSIDERED, MEDITATIVE AND DISTILLED.

- DIVYA MISHRA

It’s a sunny spring afternoon when I arrive at Aparna Rao and Deepak Srinath’s home in Bengaluru. The duplex sits off a quiet thoroughfare in Benson Town, one of the city’s older localities, and Srinath, who happens to have the door open for a delivery, warmly ushers me in. The home is unlike anything I’ve seen in this city, and would feel almost subterranean if it wasn't brimming with mellow sunlight.

The grey concrete walls seem to glow in the afternoon sun, and even the floor—off-white and webbed with fine cracks—feels alive with the day's changes. “It’s the light, really,” Rao says, gesturing towards the wide windows framing foliage and pieces of blue sky. “We were lucky with it.”

Luck might have played a part, but what makes this home remarkable is less its natural assets than what Rao has done with them. When she and Srinath bought this apartment in 2022, it was a bare shell. Most would have hired an interior designer. Rao, instead, turned it into a laboratory. “It was all Aparna’s project,” Srinath points out as he leads me through the house. “I didn’t step in from the day the renovation began till it was complete,” he admits with a smile.