Between the Delhi-Mumbai divide, one argument that always takes us ahead is our bungalows. Open, airy, well lit and usually done in superb taste. And former UN diplomat and author Bhaichand Patel’s Sujan Singh Park residence sits smug right in the middle of that description. Where each wall is adorned with a poster, a painting or a photograph recreating an old-world charm, there are several nooks and corners, which could lull you into hours of loopy thoughts.
A relic from his years of travelling across the world and a keen interest in movies, there is an entire gallery of vintage Hollywood movie posters which are rare and nothing like you would have seen at Big Chill or one of its several clones. “I love movies in every way, I collect them, read about them, write about them and watch them. I think I watch more movies than anyone I know. And that particular collection, I bought from an auction in New York, a couple of years ago,” said Patel when we had gone over to meet him. And it’s not just Hollywood, but a wall of Raj Kapoor posters and another collection of black and white photographs by Jagdish Thakkar of yesteryear starlets, with an exception of Madhuri Dixit, who as Bhaichand told us, “had come to Thakkar to get herself clicked”. As we pointed out his love for brass artifacts, which are almost by a dozen in every room, he seemed surprised that we noticed, as he hadn’t. “It’s not on purpose but I do have a lot of brass in the house. Though I only bought the two antique gharas from Ahmedabad,” he explained as he led us to the mementos from his ancestral house in Gujarat. “There were three doors, which I didn’t want destroyed, so two I used as exhibits and one I got converted into a table. Now they are very special to me,” he said with a twinkle.