What is that one passion that consumes you? Does it occupy your mind all day and keep you up at night? Well, think of your passion and multiply it by a hundred – that is how Rohini Sen and Eshwar Naidu feel about collecting antiques. For the past two years, they have dedicated their time to discovering and collecting crafts of the past.
Within the structures of a 21st century home on the Oolampara-Peroorkada Road, Rohini and Eshwar have curated antiques that date back to the 1920s and combined a sense of history and beauty as a part of their home decor. Thus, a walk into the couple’s home reveals an interesting story at every turn. Take the gorgeous cabinet that stands tall in the living room. On further inspection, this cabinet is no ordinary piece of furniture; it is a 150-year-old sweet stall, which the previous owner used to fill with sweets to sell.
Rohini, Eshwar and their team of expert restorers found this piece in the middle of the road in 2015 and have spent the last year restoring the sweet stall by replacing the glass and polishing the beautiful wood.
What’s more, Rohini and Eshwar’s antique collection can also be thought of as the crossroads of international and local art. As the couple travel to different parts of the world in search for vintage articles, each valuable doll and antique piece presents an interesting moment in history. For instance, the couple own several Japanese dolls that were gifted by Chettiar businessmen to their wives.
As the women worked their own craft on these dolls, the end product is a traditional 1920s Japanese doll embellished with traditional Chettiar bead work. Czechoslovakian pots with the engraved words ‘For Subramania Pillai’, and German bottles filled with traditional Chettiar dolls are a testament to the couple’s global collection.
That being said, antique and craft collection aren’t merely a hobby for this pair, it’s a lifestyle. The couple ground their filter coffee with an old 1940s Chettiar coffee maker. Rohini stores rice in a wooden Chettiar tub that was once owned by a person with the initials M.K. She adds: “Today’s machine-made world has fostered our idea of ‘perfect’. So, collecting handmade items is a reminder of the time before, which was imperfect, beautiful, and human. This is why I would much rather buy my saris from a local weaver than from a large department store. To the department store I am just another customer buying a perfectly stitched sari, but to the weaver I am a visitor who is able to see their tools, listen to their stories, and be a witness to their art.”
Married for the past two years now, the two discovered their love for collecting in different ways. An engineer for an airline, Eshwar began his endeavour of procuring old treasures at the early age of 16, where vintage cars, car accessories and handmade toys were his main objects of interest.
On the other hand, as an artist and art professor, Rohini has always found herself attracted to the intricacies of the old, the allure of the objet d’art. Rohini recounts: “Eshwar and I have always loved art and collector’s items but it was the time we spent in Madurai that switched on the ‘this is it, this is our passion’ spark. Madurai is a hub of art and culture. Especially in places like Karaikkudi, the energy of the Chettiars and their legacy is so vibrant that we couldn’t help but love collecting their relics. As a couple that once spent entire salaries on plush branded wallets and bags, we soon started spending that amount on collecting unique antiques.”
With every antique piece, their passion for the vintage propels them on to the next antique adventure. In a world obsessed with the new and improved, Rohini and Eshwar’s home and lifestyle transcends our consumerist world and focuses on the allure of the old and handmade.
