Print Exclusive: Houseful of hugs

While designing the home of Marathi cinema’s actors couple Priya Bapat and Umesh Kamat, Amoeba Design dove deep into their childhood years

11 Sep 2026

Rajashree Balaram

For actors Priya Bapat and Umesh Kamat, the annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival is the most hectic spell of the year. “Like my mother-in-law, I make sure I cook every meal that is served at home for those seven days when we bring the Lord home. It’s a family tradition that I love to maintain,” says Priya. Their house only knows fleeting moments of silence then, while their large circle of family and friends drop by all day and get treated to the elaborate Maharashtrian feast that Priya rustles up enthusiastically.

Conceptualised by Satyajeet Patwardhan and Pashmin Shah, founders of Amoeba Design, the sweet dichotomy of the modern, elegant home is hard to miss — it ably reflects the starry status that the couple has arrived into professionally as well as the humility that has shaped their stories. “We would never want anyone to be intimidated by the aesthetic of our house,” says Priya. “Our friends should feel free to lie down on the floor, sit with their feet tucked in or cross-legged on the couch, loll about on the swing, and not have to think twice about stiff etiquette.”

“Each one of us is an accumulation of the places we travel to, the homes that raised us, and the choices we made along the way”

Satyajeet Patwardhan

The compact modular kitchen with a quartz countertop is quite possibly the most modern aspect of the house; Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi

Priya and Umesh are among the most consistently prolific stars in Marathi cinema, OTT and theatre — their three-year-old play Jar Tar Chi Goshta still draws a full house and their latest web-series Hey Kay Navin? has been widely appreciated for its witty, insightful exploration of the lives of an urbane, childfree couple. Between the two, they have amassed a sizeable heft of accolades for their diverse choice of roles on the big and small screen. However, celebrity status aside, the couple still loves to roll up their sleeves and personally contribute to the labour that love demands. It often shows up in the details that they slave over — in the lemongrass that Priya plucks from her balcony garden to add to the tea she brews for visiting friends, or in the way she fastidiously wipes her kitchen counter to a spotless gleam at the end of every day, regardless of the long hours she may have spent on a shooting set. It’s as if they have devised their own coded ways to stay rooted even as they balance their shiny renown with a home that is not defined by the cliched trappings of affluence.

The 1,500 sq ft home has a distinctive story embedded in its design vocabulary — one that speaks of character, rootedness, and a deep resonance with the couple’s childhood homes. “Each one of us is an accumulation of the places we travel to, the homes that raised us, and the choices we made along the way,” says Satyajeet. “This house is a bridge between the couple’s past and their present.”

Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi

The guest bedroom favours minimalism, with an elegant table lamp from Fleck and a series of wall art in handmade paper, conceptualised by Amoeba Design and executed by Trunk Design Studio, reminiscent of the textured plastered walls of the couple’s childhood homes; Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi

As Priya had grown up in a British-era chawl in Dadar and Umesh in his parents’ Reserve Bank of India employee quarters, the couple wanted their home to include the characteristic design elements of their unpretentious childhood environment — the double doors, for instance. “Old homes always had double doors. You unlatch one and then the other. It is like you are throwing your arms open to welcome someone,” says Priya, who runs a full house on most days with practised ease — unless swamped by work commitments.

For their friends, their three-bedroom flat is the chosen hangout for sleepovers, weekend get-togethers and script-readings. Such a wide embrace may almost seem anomalous in a world that is increasingly vocal about boundaries, ‘me time’ and personal space. But even the open kitchen attached to the living room, fitted with hyper-modern amenities, serves testimony to the bonhomie that pervades the house on most days. “When our friends come over and we have script readings here, I like cooking for everyone and still be part of the conversation,” says Priya. “Had the kitchen been a separate room, I would have been constantly seized by FOMO (fear of missing out)!”

Keeping in mind the unique social traffic of the Bapat home, Satyajeet and Pashmin fine-tuned their choices over many iterations on the drawing board. “It was easier said than done to draw the balance between modern design and vintage charm,” points out Pashmin. “They don’t live in a chawl or government quarters anymore. The idea was to marry the modern with the traditional, and be mindful while doing so. We didn’t want the outcome to look like a set design. We wanted elements that would trigger sweet memories and not seem dated.

The customised wooden swing and the teakwood pillar with a stone base define the old-world charm of the living room; Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi

A cosy dining nook in the open kitchen has chairs from DesignBee. A row of sage-green bars above and wooden windows honour the design motifs of Mumbai’s old chawls and government quarters; Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi

The resulting ambience serves both remembrance and charm. For instance, the vertical railings above the threshold to the kitchen, the teakwood pillar in the centre of the living room, and the cupboard recessed in the wall speak softly of bygone years. “In olden days, wooden shutters were painted in a way that you could see the grain underneath,” says Satyajeet. “To maintain that oddly rustic appeal, we decided on an open-grain veneer for the cupboard in the living room, and asked the painter to paint it with a brush and skip the roller.”

The grey-and-white cement tiles, laid out like a chessboard, and the muted palette of beige and off-white with hints of red and green speak of playful choices. The compact breakfast counter attached to the kitchen has the desired elevation of a formal dining table, which is conspicuously absent in the house. (The couple prefer to have their meals seated on the floor or on the couch.) The crux of the house, though, is the swing in the living room. “It’s my most peaceful corner. I sit there with my tea and watch the birds who have built a nest on the balcony.”

The bird song is a calming symphony at sunset, as the fragrance of Kamini and night jasmine flowers waft in. Her favourite view, though, is of her father enjoying the serenity of her balcony. “I love seeing him spend long hours there. The other day he told me that our home reminds him of our old home in Dadar, which is now under redevelopment. It’s such a precious feeling to know that our house made him feel this way. All the hard work is worth it.”

Chequered rust-and-white cement tiles and a walk-in closet (behind the white doors) are some of the key highlights of the master bedroom; Photography by Yadnyesh Joshi