Ethnic aesthetics meet contemporary design at this Hyderabad home by Sona Reddy

But what’s a triumph without challenges — this residence’s story perhaps transpired from the deepest abyss of Sona’s aspirations, who was eight months pregnant with her second child at the time. Scripted as an Indian modern setting, a barrage of furniture, decor and art are assembled from diverse choreographies of India. In traditional compositions, it’s the colours that bring out a certain emphasis. Hence, on Sona’s canvas, the shades were sober, almost reticent. “The clients were very particular that they didn’t want an overly ethnic house, so we carefully picked one or two ethnic pieces per the space and kept the rest of the setting up to date.” The porch unmoors to a floor dressed up in cool grey kota stone that runs into a feather-hued formal living area, as if witnessed through a rose-tinted glass. Eccentric but elegant, a stretched fabric chandelier dangles from above, looking out to all directions and corners.

A rousing labyrinth of art, artists and their perceptive handworks, the home surrenders itself to the beauty of raw and rarity — seen first at the corridor’s ceiling, animated with hand carved and painted wooden panels by Ramesh Gorjala, essaying the chronicles of Mahabharata. Second, possibly an influence of the family’s hometown, one of the wood-panelled canopies is embroidered with thousands of parijat flowers, mizzling a sense of nostalgia with it. Decor by decor, detail by detail, footsteps soon reach the living room that swoons in the outpour of natural light, offset with the dining section cradling a 13ft long wooden table on a base from Viya Home. It silently converses with the floor above, bridged with an industrial-style custom Paul Matter lighting that drops right above the table along with the grooved tadelakt stairway sketched in sharp, clean lines. The navigation to the first floor bares open the moodboards of the four bedrooms, a snuggly lounge and a 17ft long wooden bookshelf by a wall. Leaving the unassuming, concrete imprints behind, the bathrooms pose yet another paradox, a conspicuous departure from the sober mood of the home. These spaces of privacy and solitude assume a rather adventurous character in lively colours, textures and materials. Think, jewel green, lustrous blacks, red travertine, stone and copper tones.