Kitchen Kool

The modern kitchen in India owes its existence to the Western influences that have pervaded our lives quite completely with the coming of cable TV. Here we were treated to scenes of the large, clean, functional kitchen with the scrubbed pine table in the centre for the chopping and preparing the neatcupboards (and lots of them too!), the built-in ovens, the recipe books and the occasional potted plant. And we realised, how much more convenient it was to have everything out of sight and yet comfortably within reach.

People around the city, learned, quite quickly, the potential of offering kitchens made to order. Elite Interiors, with their shop in the West Wing of Aurora Towers caters to anyone with a deep pocket and a taste for a western style kitchen. Available in a variety of materials and colours, each cupboard or trolley makes up one unit or module, hence, modular system furniture. Each unit can cost you anywhere between Rs 6,000 and Rs 12,000. If you’re lucky and have a small kitchen, then you would be shelling out a minimum of Rs 90,000. And these are the cheaper materials – medium density fibre board (MDFB) which is apparently lighter and stronger than wood and does not expand or contract with temperature changes. The shutters are made with the same material and then coated with polyurethanesheeting.

Apparently these are termite resistant, although those nuclear-fission resistant creatures – cockroaches do still find their way into your lives! They have got corner utilisation cabinets, large storage units for the boxes of dal and rice and a whole unit of drawers to fill with cutlery and napkins. Shashi Rao, interior decorator and partner of Elite Interiors proudly displays their 7-feet high trolley fitted in a narrow cabinet for the storage of bottles. They promise to custom fit your kitchen. Their piece de resistance is the kitchen unit made in pure teak – wood, mind you, not board. The unit costs 50% more then any of the others. Elite Interiors finds that most people prefer to have the kitchen platform fitted making place for a cooking range and drawers made of steel for the storage of pots and pans because they are much easier to clean.

Standard Agencies, with their showroom in Clover Centre, offer a stunning range of colours – on show here are modular systems that come inorange, green and white and any other colour that you can think of. As Snehal Vasani, Director, Kitchen Grace, says,“The variety now available is mind-boggling. While the module may look the same on the inside, the outsides can differ in finish – solid wood, high gloss finish or matt finish laminate. They have as many as 200-300 types of storage units, all can be viewed on their computer. The most popular feature that people look for in their kitchens are, says Vasani, “Wire baskets in cabinets for storing fruits or vegetables, pull-out units for utensils, breakfast table, cabinets with a dish rack or integrating appliances like washing machines under the counter.”The units are made in the factory according to the specifications given. The actual fitting of the kitchen will take two days.

Decent Decor in Clover Centre specialises in furniture for the kitchen and have clientele that ranges from middle-class to the high-income groups. Their popularity probably lies in the fact that they don’t only sell thekitchen units, they also sell just the wire baskets as well. They normally note the specifications of the cabinets and then make them in their workshop. It takes approximately three weeks for a small kitchen to be ready for use.

So the next time, you watch TV and sigh wistfully as you admire the neat kitchens, despair not, seek and you shall find!