Kitschy corners

Art has done it, so has high fashion. Now, lifestyle designers are transforming objects of everyday Indian life into quirky statements for classy homes. So, an Indian-style commode is turned into an ashtray Rs 400, a metal replica of the bulky iron your neighbourhood laundryman uses has morphed into a trinket box Rs 400 or an ashtray and the glass tumblers in which the streetside tea-shop serves you chai have become candle-holders. A jacket of broken glass bangles turns a discarded bottle into a brilliant-hued vase Rs 595 and faded film posters and Bollywood postcards are being laminated onto old hand-crafted wooden stools Rs 2,000 8211; 2,500. Kitsch has been chic for some time now but these commercially produced artifacts are now taking the aesthetic of tackiness out of art galleries and into upper-class living rooms.

There are other mutations. The staple of a thousand south Indian kitchens, the humble coconut, has a string of white teeth running through its middle. What is this? Take a closer look. A white zipper has fastened the two halves of a shell and voila 8212; you have a purse for loose change Rs 200. This is a craft that makes you look anew at objects you wouldn8217;t even notice otherwise 8212; and then look again.

8220;As a design studio, we wanted to push our medium beyond traditional parameters of expression. So we launched a range of everyday products that reflected the wit and parlance of Indian culture,8221; says Divya Thakur who started Designtemple.net, an online store and design studio.

These are knick-knacks for people who want every corner of their living rooms to shock and amuse. A row of steel baltis 8212; miniature aluminum remakes by lifestyle store Good Earth that are actually candle-holders 8212; sitting primly on a shelf does the trick.

The prices span a wide range. 8220;Miniature replicas of cars like the Porsche or a Merc can cost you Rs 2 8211;3 lakh. Our pricing is not in the same league. We are the FMCG of the design world. We keep our prices and margins between Rs 200 8211; Rs 500 because we want more young people to buy,8221; says Rajat Tuli, whose Happilyunmarried.com, an online store in Delhi he started with partner Rahul Anand, his batchmate from MICA, sells the toilet-ashtrays designed by Mukul Goyal and coconut purses.

At Loose Ends, Bandra, prices vary from Rs 50 to Rs 2,500. 8220;We try and make it as affordable as we can, but you need to understand that the raw material isn8217;t just lifted off the streets; it is sourced and worked on and the prices are in relation to the cost of labour and of course, the idea,8221; says Madhu Goswami, product designer and proprietor of Loose Ends.

As in most forms of kitsch, the over-the-top post-modern irony hides a nostalgia for a way of life being swept aside by the forces of globalisation. And designers are increasingly using this to link an urbane modernity with the past, but with an earthiness rooted in the Indian experience. Says Goswami, 8220;Three to four years ago, the trend was towards loud kitsch and it was oriented towards the Westerner. Now products are revealing Indian shapes and Indian humour.8221;

Case in point: Design Temple8217;s Cheerharan Toilet Paper. Inspired by no less than the Mahabharata, this is toilet humour made literal. For all those who have forgotten their epic, Duryodhan had ordered the disrobing of Draupadi 8212; Cheerharan 8212; after the Pandavas lost her in a game of dice, for which crime the Kaurav king8217;s visage finds itself on the paper. Krishna ensured that the saree8217;s endless reams saved Draupadi8217;s honour but you aren8217;t that lucky. This toilet paper does run out.

But doesn8217;t this fixation with the minutiae of 8220;Indian8221; life slide into clicheacute; and perpetuate the exotic India label? 8220;I have a problem with the word kitsch itself, I think it8217;s a safety net we resort to, to make a sale. I wish to see an Indian product or design that didn8217;t have typical Indian iconography of Gods, royalty and now dabbawallahs and their dabbas,8221; says Maithili Ahluwalia, proprietor of luxury home store, Bungalow Eight at Marine Lines. 8220;I admit that these products fare superbly even at my own store. But I8217;d rather see product designers being inspired by indigenous crafts and create something new, rather than opt for kitsch,8221; she says.

Product designers like Krsna Mehta say they are breaking that mould. Krsna Mehta8217;s new line of watches, for example, borrows its style from international brands like Tag Hauer and Omega but combines it with the rough jostle of a Mumbaiya life. So, the dial of the leather strap has the image of a stainless steel dabba or the red-and-cream B.E.S.T bus or the iconic vadapav. 8220;As Indian designers we are tired of being restricted to parrot green and fuchsia pink. The West8217;s understanding of kitsch, prior to this, has been restricted to very overt forms of street-side art. It8217;s time for us to reclaim kitsch and create a new urban chic that combines the elements of chic modernity with the kitsch of the past,8221; says Mehta, on his Bombay Project exhibition cum sale with Sangita Jindal at Good Earth.

Thakur goes a step further. Kitsch, she says, is India8217;s graphic language 8212; a jerky mix of varied and incongruous, colours, tastes and cultures. 8220;With the end of the British Raj, this took on the name of kitsch. Only, it was a perspective from an outsider8217;s point of view.8221; The wheel has turned full circle. And it8217;s time to bring the loo into the living room.