SELF REFLECTIONS

Like a movie playing in the background, graphic design and advertising guru Bhupal Ramnathkar's home in Mumbai is marinated in surprises with tinged glass and hues of pinks that reveal the fine artist's legacy who has thoroughly enjoyed designing his own home

- PRATISHTHA RANA

Stacks of books on design and graphics. Sightings of rare objects and decorations. Colours and some more colours. A glimpse of groundedness. I like to call this home: a sanctum of realisation. A realisation of years and decades of Bhupal Ramnathkar, the seasoned advertising and graphic design doyen, who in fact does not like to bracket himself with any labels. "I'm an artist. Artists can do anything." He says with conviction when we first sit down for a conversation at his new residence in the Lodha World Towers in Mumbai's prime locale Lower Parel.

If the space could be described only on the basis of first impressions, I'd say it is a sense-tingling journey of his life so far. Colours at the core of it. What in fact makes Ramnathkar an artist of his own league is that he designed, curated and pieced this whole puzzle by himself. A feat achieved during the lockdown in moodboarding and assembling ideas to life. "My previous home in Prabhadevi - a stone's throw away from Lower Parel - was also designed entirely by me." Originally a four-bedroom layout, the apartment now harbours three bedrooms, a media room, a living room with a shared dining corner, a kitchen, a breezy deck, en-suite bathrooms and a powder bathroom - composed for his wife, a son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. His inspiration? "I research and glimpse through magazines and Instagram.