Poonam Bhagat Shroffs new Mumbai house is a showcase for artistic talent in India today, reflecting the organic development of architecture and art collection.
Even before her marriage Mrs Bhagat Shroff had begun collecting contemporary works for a future home.
Erecting the sculpture was a major job, recalls Mrs Bhagat Shroff. 'It was a surreal experience, and felt like something from Ancient Egypt.
This left very little wall space--much to the initial delight of Mr Shroff, who hoped that his wife's spending on art would thereby be curtailed.
The skill of forming a meaningful collection was not new to Mrs Bhagat Shroff, whose parents had been collecting Indian art ever since the 1960s.
Mrs Bhagat Shroff started collecting independently after she returned to India in 1991 from the Wharton business school, University of Pennsylvania.
Marriage threw something of a spanner in the works, as Mr Shroff was not at all appreciative of art.
In commissioning works for her new house, Mrs Bhagat Shroff turned immediately to Subodh Gupta, then already becoming a superstar on the international art scene for his use of everyday objects in the creation of masterful sculptures that reflect the social and economic transformation of contemporary India.
Drawing on conversations with Mrs Bhagat Shroff about her philosophy of life, spiritual values and artistic and cultural passions, he created Between Heaven and Earth, which consists of 21 dimly-lit marble temples housing everything from banal everyday objects to images of deities covered in gold (Fig.
One floor up, artist duo Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra have used Mrs Bhagat Shroff's love of mid-20th-century design as the inspiration for a convex work painted with floating transistor radios such as those that sit on the Art Deco and modernist furniture which she has inherited.
Interestingly, not many know that filmmaker Ghai, who had launched Jackie as a leading man in Hero , had given the Shroffs a token amount of Rs 500 as a signing fee for Tiger when he was born, promising he would one day launch the boy in Bollywood.
TIGER Shroff, the 19- year- old son of actor Jackie Shroff, has rubbished rumours that he will be making his Bollywood debut in Subhash Ghai's Hero 2, in an interview to Men's Health magazine.