Antique chairs customised to suit the demands of eccentric patriarchs, hardwood Naga-beds, stone appam makers and even Thomas Edison's light-bulbs. Find them all at Anemos at Raghuvanshi Mills. The five year-old store, that initially stocked unique ceiling fans, is now a haven for antiques
Antique chairs customised to suit the demands of eccentric patriarchs, hardwood Naga-beds, stone appam makers and even Thomas Edison's light-bulbs. Find them all at Anemos at Raghuvanshi Mills. The five year-old store, that initially stocked unique ceiling fans, is now a haven for antiques
Place anyone aged eight to 80 in front of an LED television and you'll note that even today, electricity has a hypnotic effect on them. So imagine what it must have been like back in the 1800s, when the first light-bulb was invented. Surely, that must have been some show-stopper. Those old carbon filament light bulbs were pretty things too, with their coils glowing snugly inside lotus-tipped glass bulbs. It's the same warm incandescence that now flows out of two gorgeous enamel-coated brass lamps, pouring softly over Rajkumar Jain's antique desk at Anemos, a store that he aptly named after the Anemoi (Greek gods representing the four directional winds, since it initially stocked a range of unique fans).
A wooden Naga bed with rice measures seen below it
Metal appam maker at Anemos
Ceiling pulley lamp; Marelli Italian stand fan
Traditional wooden rice grinder
An antique rice measure
"These emit a much softer light than what we're used to," says Jain, telling us that he sourced the bulbs because in vintage chandeliers, light-bulbs were meant to be shown-off and hence, were aesthetically-designed. "You can't use regular light-bulbs in those pieces."
For orders of a minimum of 1,800 bulbs, the store can customise the coil inside antique-replicas to form any shape you choose. While his own passion for restoring antiques was born when his family's heritage home in Kutch needed refurbishment, the antique pieces for sale here, Jain says, "are, sometimes, sourced when such homes are being sold."
When it's a regal family that's liquidating its assets though, confidentiality is paramount, so though Jain's collection boasts several pieces of imperial origin, including a recently-acquired Raja-Rani rosewood sofa-set, documentation of such origin, cannot accompany the pieces. "It doesn't take much to see it's the real thing," Jain adds, as he leads us to a massive chest carved out of mahogany and ebony. "These shades weren't artificially conjured by veneer," he points out, "Most pieces were carved out of a single log in order to ensure the uniformity of the grain. Besides, hand-carving like this is obscenely expensive today and such work is impossible to achieve with machines."
Other pieces that boast a glorious old-world charm include fans with leather, fibre and rubber-blades (Rs 6,000 onwards), and reading lights that once served as nautical searchlights or doctors' operating lights.u00a0 We love the wood and brass rice-measurers from Kerala that have been restored to serve as dustbins or planters (Rs 11,000 onwards) and the store's brand new range of wood, brass and painted porcelain switches that allow for un-concealed cotton-cord wiring, reminiscent of rustic-villa-decor that's so fashionable these days.u00a0
AT: Anemos, 11/12 Krishna House, Ground Floor, Raghuvanshi Estate, Lower Parel
CALL: 24934306; 24934308
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