What happens when two women who are neighbours and friends get together every day? Gossip, did you say? Oh no, not at all. They put their heads together, let the creative ideas bubble out, use their talents and what you get is a brilliant kaleidoscope of colours, shapes, textures and designs.That is what happened in the case of Amita Kulkarni and Mrinalini Gandhe who held a wonderful ehibition of their handiwork under the name `Snehrutu' at Fortune Art Gallery last week. The two have been neighbours for the past seven years or so . To make matters even better, their children are exactly the same age. After some time they discovered that they shared other common interests like painting, needle-work, embroidery - in short anything artistic. Says Mrinalini,"In the beginning we just decorated our children's rooms using appliqued bedcovers, with matching pillows, cushion covers, curtains and wall hangings."Once that was over they turned their attention to making more but this time with a view to marketing them. Their handicrafts were quickly snapped up by friends and neighbours. This spurred their interest and they finally decided to hold an exhibition. It took five months of concerted efforts and the result was a feast for the eyes.On display were all kinds of patchwork in the most unusual designs - cushion covers with puppies, kittens, rabbits and chicks appliqued on, shopping bags of all sizes with three-dimensional fabric flowers sewed on, wall-hangings, pillows in shapes of fruits, cars or animals, table-mats and lacy cake-covers. It's not just fabrics that are their focus. There are coasters and key-holders cut out from plywood into interesting shapes, there is ceramic jewellery cunningly combined with silver, there are tiny dolls' furniture with cute furnishings, there are Ganapatis and lampshades in stained glass, bags and letter-papers each painted with individual designs on hand-made paper and other items too numerous to describe.That is not all that these two innovative friends are into. They also organise theme parties complete with decorations, return-gifts and cakes. They hold summer workshops for children, they make stunning backdrops of thermocole for conferences and weddings and all this while looking after housework and helping their husbands with their respective businesses. For Amita this means looking after their garage, Auto Prima, while Mrinalini helps her architect husband.They have named their endeavour `Snehrutu'. It is a combination of Snehal, Mrinalini's daughter and Rutuja, Amrita's daughter, both of whom are incidentally good friends going to the same, school and class. "We hope that they will continue this creative partnership," say the enterprising moms with a grin.
