Living · 14 February 2026 · 3 min
A room in Bandra
Notes from the first Padmaja space: lime plaster, one mirror, and nowhere to hide a bad garment.
The walls are lime plaster in a colour close to the undyed cotton, which was not a coincidence. Lime is breathable, it holds a room a few degrees cooler than paint, and it takes daylight in a way that does not throw a cast onto fabric.
There is one mirror, deliberately. Fitting rooms with three angles are a retail trick to make you find fault. We would rather you looked at the garment once, in daylight, and made a decision.
Stock hangs on a single rail at eye height with space between pieces. If a rail is crowded, the shop is telling you it cares more about assortment than about any individual thing on it.
Come in the morning. The east light between nine and eleven is the best test of a colour that exists, and it is the reason we took this particular room.
