Coming full circle

Anoo

My love for craft, upcycling, refurbishing, and repurposing old things comes from my mother and my paternal grandmother. Growing up I watched my grandmother upcycle everything from food

to fabric to avoid waste and to stretch every resource available to her. From her I learned the values of economy, efficiency, and resourcefulness.

My mother gave me the gift of creativity and a love for craft and making things with my hands and heart. She had many interests that she pursued with zest in the little time she could spare – sketching, painting, singing, designing, studying, cooking, reading, knitting, sewing, and more. These values and lessons are my most precious inheritance and have silently moulded me and informed my choices throughout my life.

As a child I loved making things out of “waste” – from craft activities to functional objects. I even had a little carpentry set that was my most prized possession. I recall making lamps out of old tin and discarded boxes, and teaching myself how to wire a bulb when I was not yet twelve. In my early twenties I would visit kabadiwalas to look for old glass bottle that I would upcycle to make table lamps. I once found an old table fan that I converted to a Lazy Susan, and someone actually paid money for it!

Cut to two decades later, I decided to teach myself woodworking as a hobby and very naturally gravitated towards making lamps again. This soon became my full-time occupation and after years of working my way through different jobs, I finally felt I was home. I had come full circle to pursue my childhood passion – making lamps. My values kicked in of course, and the lamps I make are frugal and functional, made with simple hand tools, in my small balcony workshop.

To add to this, in 2024 I started restoring and refurbishing old lamps. I was unsure if there would be takers given the plethora of options at every price point that you can buy online or at a store, which makes it very easy to throw out old lamps and buy new ones. The unhappy fallout of this is that a lot of old lamps end up in a scrap yard or landfill for want of simple repairs. I wanted to address this by offering people a choice that was lacking in Bangalore – I offered to repair old lamps and refurbish old lamp shades with new fabric. I was amazed by the response! Many people were keen to avail of this service and in the 18 months since I launched it, I refurbished over 50 old lamps, including a few beautiful, vintage pieces.

Working with wood is my calling, and refurbishing old, broken things to give them a new life is my love language. There’s nothing else I’d rather do!

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Objects of Our Affection is a series exploring our connections to the furniture and objects that make our spaces home. Through stories of tables, chairs, and that odd-shaped thing only you love, we celebrate the inanimate pieces that hold memory and witness our lives.

If you'd like to contribute your own story to this series, we'd love to hear from you. Micro-essays, poems, reflections, and fragments welcome. Write to us at hellothadi@gmail.com. Word limit 400.