Goodbye 'maverick genius'

I first met Rohit Bal when he had just got out of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), the newest, trendiest design school that was creating maestros back then.

- By Anshu Khanna, former fashion editor at The Daily Guardian

A fine student of history who went to the Alma Mater of geniuses, St. Stephens College, Rohit had undertaken a short course in design and was at that moment assisting his elder brother in his export business. A designer with a billion stories to tell, he was also getting noticed for his drop-dead good looks and his sense of style.

Rohit and the Bal clan lived in Jor Bagh after being displaced from terror-ridden Kashmir. Landowners and leading businessmen in the valley, left a large empire in Srinagar to rush to Delhi, in search of safety. Three brothers and a truly elegant mother (who continued to inspire Rohit till the end), made a home for themselves on the first floor of a rented bungalow. Whilst the family lived together on the first floor, Gudda occupied a swanky barsati above where his four-poster bed heralded the era of decadent Indian design inspired by the Maharaja era. The leader of the Jorbagh gang, tales of his themed birthday parties were changing the flavour of fun in a stiff upper-lipped Delhi.

It was a time of struggle for the family and he and his elder brother Rajiv, in a quest to set up a fashion export business, visited all the buying houses looking for business. They got their big break from a classic white shirt, Rohit designed and Rajiv got orders in bulk from stores in the US. That one white shirt launched the largest export house and as they say, there was no looking back. White became a leitmotif in Gudda's design story as he created history by hosting an all-white show with legends like Shyamoli Varma, Anna Bredemeyer, Mehr Jesia, and Nayanika Chatterji scorching the ramp.