#HousesOfIndia Story 67 - Pyaare

A quaint villa nestled in the heart of Goa speaks volumes of the labour of love and attention to detail that has gone into restoring it to its former glory. With almost two years of restoration work, the 100-year-old villa adapts to the tranquility of its surroundings with a peach facade that blends with the colour of the soil and use of laterite rock which is the natural rock from the area.

Meet Elizabeth - the proud owner of this gorgeous villa. A well-known designer of Bridal Wear in UK, Elizabeth chose to settle in the beachy town of Goa after much deliberation between Goa and Rajasthan. Tough choice we’d say. 

She lives here with her four dogs - Bruno, Baby, Paws and Nancy. Her son and two daughters visit her every now and then. Elizabeth recollects a heart-wrenching story dating back to the late 1800s, when a Sikh holy man picked up an 18-month old baby struck with leprosy from a dumpster, took care of him and named him ‘Pyaare’. It’s what led her to name her abode ‘Pyaare’. She has taken tremendous efforts to give this previously dilapidated house a new lease of life.

One finds an eclectic mix of different cultures in this villa. From Rajasthani handicrafts on the furniture, to the traditional Korean ‘hanbok’ hanging on the wall, to carefully curated paintings and sculptures by Indian and foreign artists. The bright shade of red in the aptly named ‘Red Room’ adds a Moulin Rouge-sque touch to the place. Old-world chandeliers, golden architraves, baroque mirrors, and glass candelabras further add to its regal aura.

The entrance of the house is serene and welcoming. A waterbody peppered with fragrant flowers stands in the middle of the foyer lending the place a sweet fragrance. A majestic gold gate with filigree work stays open, welcoming people to a sensorial experience that the house offers.

This Photo Essay was made exclusively for Housing.com for their campaign 'Houses of India'.
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Bhonsle: Day 27

Buy My Book! Centrepiece: New Writing and Art from Northeast India

Curated and put together by writer and graphic artist Parismita Singh, 21 women writers and artists come together in this stunning collection that combines words and pictures to explore the theme of work. Whether it's brewing beer, or hawking everyday goods, or weaving fabrics and fairytales, women from Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and the Chittagong Hill Tracts bring us a feast of words and pictures that showcase the region known as the 'Northeast' with nuance, complexity and humour.

This book brings you a wealth of stories, in words and images, from a part of India known as the Northeast, a term that is widely contest for the ways in which it homogenizes a region of great diversity. It is also a term that has come to be a marker of identity and solidarity by many who are of the region. Here, 21 writers and artists look at the idea of ‘work’ — from street hawking to beer brewing, from mothering to dung collection — and describe their lives or those of others with humour and compassion. Parismita Singh’s wonderful compilation of the works of women asks: what are the different ways of telling a story? What if we were to attempt these tellings through poetry and portraits and essays, older traditions like textile art and applique and new genres like hashtag poetry tapped into a smartphone? Where would it take us, what would the world look like?

My contribution is a photo essay on a Mizo woman called Josie Paris Renthlei, who works in the Indian film industry as a Stylist.

This book has been made possible with the generous support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and has been published by Zubaan Books - an independent, feminist publishing house based in New Delhi with a strong general and academic list.

Art, poetry, photos, essays, and fiction by:

Zubeni Lotha - Minam Apang - Alyen Leeachum Foning - Aheli Moitra - Soibam Haripriya - Gertrude Lamare - Rini Barman - Nitoo Das - Thingnam Anjulika Samom - Parismita Singh - Dolly Kikon - Ayangbe Mannen - Aungmakhai Chak - Jacqueline Zote - Meena Laishram - Prashansa Gurung - Shreya Debi and Bilseng R Marak - Mona Zote - Nabina Das - Mamang Dai - Sanatombi Ningombam - Kundo Yumnam

You can get Copies of Centrepiece: New Writing and Art from Northeast India HERE.
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Help me continue bringing you untold stories through photos and films. Become my Patron. Follow the link: https://www.patreon.com/prashansa

Bhonsle: Day 26