Mrinalini Chandra opens her new Mumbai home to Lord Ganesha

Beautiful Homes: Tell us everything about your first Ganesh Chaturthi in this home.

Mrinalini Chandra: Since this is my first Ganpati at home, I wanted to keep it sustainable. The idea of being able to share the joy is really big for me. Inspired by eco-friendly nature of the chocolate Ganpati, I decided to do the same. Here the visarjan is actually in milk which can then it can be distributed among children. I don’t want to add or contribute to the idea of buying a mural and dispersing it into water.  For me, the festivities are going to revolve around food. There’s an NGO in Virar, that delivers authentic stuffing for modaks. My husband and I will be making them together. 

Our Bappa is wearing our own hand enameled jewellery. We do a lot of flower inspired jewellery and as you can see in my house, I am obsessed with flowers. He is wearing a beautiful bougainvillea necklace made in Jaipur. 

BH: Take us through your table décor. What sweets, savouries and crockery are on display today?

MC: Since now we are in Mumbai, I have got things that are locally celebrated. So, we have kothambir vadi, modak, ladoo and dhokla. Of course, I come from UP, so there’s jalebi, my favourite dessert. You can see my love for flowers in my table décor too. Most of my crockery is sourced from Jaipur. It’s a lot of fun things to have together!

BH: You have recently completed your home. What was the best part of designing it?

MC: I guess the best part was getting to do it with my husband. So normally I am the one with aesthetics, but when we started doing the house, we realised that he had some really good ideas as well and he wanted to experiment with so many things which we hadn't discussed before. 

I was very inspired by a room in a Jaipur palace which has blue walls with arches. It stayed with me, and I wanted to bring that alive somewhere in my house. I have come a little bit close to that. Asian Paints came really handy, because they were very helpful in suggesting all possible blues till I found the one I liked. I am a person who loves colours, so in my house I don’t think we have gone with a white wall in any of the rooms. All our paints are from Asian Paints. I am glad now the home is contemporary yet rustic and it all came together so well for us.