A MAXIMALIST MAESTRO ADIL AHMAD

Aiwan-e-Ahmad, the designer's ancestral Lucknow home, is a lesson in artful excess, where every chandelier, every candelabra, every brass talisman has a story to tell. As Adil delights in restoring the mansion to its erstwhile glory, HELLO! gets a tour of its striking rooms filled with art and artefacts

-  NIKHIL KHANNA

The library is Adil’s favourite space in the house, filled with his books on art and design, and a profusion of portraits of friends and family, illuminated by a large multi-coloured and tiered Morano-style chandelier.

The invitations arrive months in advance. These are formal invitations on thick cards that can be propped up on a desk or a fireplace. The type is formal and curlicued, and one can read the invite with their eyes closed. The invite is from Adil Ahmad, and he's asked you to a celebration for his mother, Saida Ahmad, whose birthday party in Lucknow everyone is going to. Well, sort of. Some people haven't been asked — not yet anyway — and the heartburn is profound.

There's a perfect programme attached to the invite and the fete — for that's what it is — will be at the Ahmad's family home, Aiwan-e-Ahmad, in Lucknow, within dipping distance of the river Gomti. Guests pack for several outfit changes. Jewels are pulled out of storage and slipped into velvet boxes for travel. Egos are carefully locked up in closets. Hotels have started filling up across Lucknow.

Festivities are de rigueur at Aiwan-e-Ahmad, and following family tradition, Adil is a lavish host. The stories from bashes of yore are legendary — Begum Akhtar, Bismillah Khan, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter and former prime minister Indira Gandhi. Adil has continued the custom in this universe of warmth, generosity, and vigour, intellectual and youthful.