Rabindra Pokharel

Kathmandu:

J-bar at Himalayan Java looks splendid with its recently remodeled interiors. Sonia Gupta is credited the transformation. Sonia is signed up for many such projects in Nepal. Remodeling of parlors, Ghare e kebab and the coffee house at Annapurna Hotel, the wine gallery at Baber Mahal Revisited, a new sports bar at Kamaladi and a restaurant in New Road for the Himalayan Java are some of her ongoing projects.

“The J-Bar at the Himalayan Java would be a revolution in the field of interior designing in Katmandu,” claims the designer. Though each of her creation is different from the other, she believes in promoting ethnic and tribal handicrafts. However, J-Bar stands out as one of her best creations where she had the complete freedom to indulge in her eccentricities. Beginning with the J-bar at the Himalayan Java; the arched bar station, jet black floor furnished with plush immaculately white sofas, quaint marbles set on the walls add to the brilliant decorum of the room and give the impression of a canvas where the artist has meticulously used the magic of her brush strokes. Surprisingly though, she’s refrained to add paintings as part of the interior. The prolific use of coloured lights on the ceiling as well as the floor is yet another part of her wonderful design. “The idea behind the unusual setting of lights is to give an impression of an artist’s palette. The entire bar looks like a painting on canvas,” explains Sonia. The lights are so set to a computer programme that it changes the color of entire bar every few minutes. The problem areas which gave the bar an unkempt look have been transformed to form beautiful patterns. “It has an exclusively international feel that no other bar in Katmandu has”, she adds.

Sonia Gupta who comes from Delhi is one of the first Indians to get a degree in interior designing. She received a BFA degree through a Rotary scholarship programme in interior design and art appreciation from the University of Georgia, Athens. “Anand Gurung and Gagan Pradhan, proprietors of the Himalayan Java wanted a very modern and classy bar and they left it all to me. Though, the bar has turned out to match my expectations, this wouldn’t have been possible without their cooperation. I couldn’t have done it hadn’t they accepted my advice straightaway,” she says.

Sonia explains: “Interior designing like any other design is based on principles of form, mass, texture, pattern, colour, harmony and I’ve to create them in response to the building site and it’s always important what image the clients want to project. Designing is something like translating a sketch into the real picture and once the picture is made there’s a feeling of sadness as if a mother has to let her baby go,” explains she brimming with emotion.

She also reveals an intense love for her daughter as the only parent who has had to take care of the child. “I didn’t do much for the first five years immediately after I received the degree in 1990 because my daughter was small.” However, she has many creations of the past to her credit. Back in the 1990 she designed law firm offices in New York and window displays in London. In India, she’s designed residences for some of the richest industrialists in India. Recently, she’s designed an office for a Japanese company called Grave City and a resort in Bandhavgad National park, India.

As a little girl, Sonia would visit her friends’ and relatives’ houses and would shift the paintings and furniture from one part of the room to the other and nobody would intervene. Sonia first visited Nepal in 1998 during her holiday and since then she’s felt it to be her second home and developed a strong fetish for Golbeda ko Achar and Tama Alu ko tarkari. “I’d like to move here. The Nepali people have been really nice to me and I really like the foods here”, she reveals.

Asked how she’s able to manage time for her family with her hectic schedules, especially as a single parent, she says, “I’ve to make a lot of quick trips to the work site and make sure that everything has been done properly. I’ve a very good support system and my parents look after my daughter when I’m away.”