The culture troopers of the Nehru-Gandhi variety are back in full force, restyling and modifying the style errors of the recent past and encoding their own brand of aesthetics in public imagination. From interior designer Sunita Kohli to palace fashionista Romi Chopra, publishing executive Nandini Mehta to art restorer Rupika Chawla: they are all either in business or on the threshold of future projects, ranging from designing family memorials to publishing family letters, from restoring Sonia’s office to redecorating the Prime Minister’s residence. Take Kohli, a Gandhi pal and designer, who has not only painstakingly restored friend Sonia’s new office, as chairperson of the National Advisory Committee, at Motilal Nehru Marg, but is also refurbishing the PM’s house at 7, Race Course Road. Kohli is candid when she says she is ‘‘restoring the heritage buildings to its natural glory.’’ It means false ceilings are being ripped off, faux enclosures opened up. She will also be collaborating on one of Sonia’s pet missions—a blueprint to preserve Lutyen’s bungalow zone. Both Sonia’s office and the PM’s residential complex (three bungalows) are the once ‘‘jerry villas’’ built by Sir Edwin Lutyens. While the office took three months to be restored to reveal its classical Indo-Western designs, the PM’s house is still undergoing work. Purists may shudder at the several new additions in the PM complex made by its former occupant, Atal Behari Vajpayee—from a mini-golf course for his foster son-in-law to the new Panchavati office specially constructed for him, who preferred his residential office to the more traditional South Block. While Chopra is acknowledged as fashion handyman for the Gandhis, he and Kohli collaborated to see through the exquisite art memorial at Sriperumbudur, for the late Rajiv Gandhi, from its inception to its execution. The memorial, unveiled this year, was conceived by well-known artist A Ramachandran, and build by some of the best landscape artists, architects and artistes. Kohli and Chopra also executed Rajiv’s memorial in Shantivan, New Delhi. Nandini Mehta, who works for an international publishing house, got the rights to publish Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India, for the publishing company she works for, apart from releasing two more books, released by the PM last Friday: a lavish, abridged version of letters between Indira Gandhi and Nehru, edited by Sonia, and a richly illustrated Letters from a Father to his Daughter, by Nehru. Mehta, however, protests saying, ‘‘Our company began discussions to get rights last year, and I am glad to say that the once, dull, text-book style books have been converted to make good reading for children and adults.’’ Columnist and Sonia’s once fellow-art restorer, Chawla says though she is busy working on a ‘‘fresh perception on the life and works of Ravi Verma’’, she is open to the idea of joining a committee or council on culture and popular art. ‘‘I have not got an invitation as yet but I’ll wait and see,’’ she says. Surprisingly, the poster boys of the culture world of the 1980s and 1990s, Rajeev Sethi and Martand (Mapu) Singh, are barely in the picture today. Both are famously known as the late culture czarina’s Pupul Jayakar’s proteges. Singh, who is credited worldwide for starting the conservation body, INTACH, now leads a semi-retired life between Mussorie, Delhi and London (he is the founder of INTACH’s international chapter after the hostile takeover of the Indian one). Sethi has moved on from the Festivals of India to become an internationally acclaimed cultural impressario. However, many uncharitably point out that the ‘‘boys’’ are not ‘‘in’’ with Sonia—Singh is the younger brother of former Defence Minister Arun Singh; their mentor, Jayakar, was a social outcast in the Gandhi household after she marched up to Rajiv and accused him of being ‘dishonest’ during the Bofors days. Sethi is horror-struck by this allegation and hits back: ‘‘I have refused to be part of an advisory committee which lacks teeth, for they have achieved nothing in the last 15 years, except for indulging in small-time power brokering. Show me a mission-oriented body and I will participate. I have submitted a proposal to the Planning Commission on culture, I am waiting for a response from them.’’
