The idea of ghar

At HōmAnAn in New Delhi, the idea of home unfolds through mood, memory and movement, shifting the act of design from selection to inhabitation

24 Apr 2026

Namrata Dewanjee

In a city like New Delhi, where design frequently asserts itself as spectacle, the act of furnishing a home has become increasingly mediated by display. Retail, in this context, tends to privilege immediacy through visual shorthand, quick resolution or the illusion of completion. HōmAnAn offers an alternative, but it asks something of you in return: time, attention and a willingness to settle in. You enter, perhaps without intention, and remain longer than anticipated, akin to stopping for a cup of chai or a neighbourly chat before stumbling upon a piece that you cannot imagine parting with.

I was in Delhi briefly, carrying the usual fatigue of transit. And yet, inside HōmAnAn, there was a noticeable softening. Anubha Aneja has shaped the space with the care one reserves for their own home. “Well, it is my home, and you should feel at home here too,” she says, almost in passing. She pays attention to how a room receives you, what your hand instinctively reaches for, and how long you stay without checking the time. It felt, unexpectedly, like being hosted at someone’s well-curated ghar.

Hospitality becomes the framework behind HōmAnAn. The rooms are composed, certainly, but they are also permissive. Nothing is fixed for effect. You move through living areas, bedrooms, dining spaces, and in-between corners with a growing awareness of how a home gathers itself, through rhythm, through adjacency, through negotiations between objects that coexist. There are over 35 homegrown brands embedded into this environment. Names surface gradually: Sarita Handa, Oorjaa, Jagdish Sutar, Beruru, Anantaya, Keus, UDC, Inherited Arts, Kara Sabi. Each holds its own vocabulary of material and making. Many do not have a standalone retail presence in the city. Here, they fold into a larger composition of furniture, lighting, textiles and objects. You read them individually but you also absorb them as atmosphere.

"It is my home, and you should feel at home here too"

Anubha Aneja

“A home is never a sum of individual pieces,” says Aneja. It is an idea that stays with you as you move through the house. What you take away, eventually, is not a checklist of things but coherence and, most importantly, context. Often, retail spaces privilege stark individuality over the coming together of elements. HōmAnAn instead reveals how the opposite can craft a more pleasant experience. It hinges on the sense that ghar is not assembled in a moment of purchase, but arrived at gradually, almost inadvertently.

Why not come home to find a home? The question hovers in the corners of this New Delhi residence, where each room is calibrated to a different personality. On the first level, calm shades of blue settle the space; a mandir finds a tranquil, almost recessed position; a child’s room introduces a play of colour and texture. As you move upward, the house seems to gather new inflexions, punctuated by striking light sculptures by Oorjaa. The upstairs living room opens out, inviting pause. Surrounded by hand-picked antiques, bespoke tropical wallpaper and plush seating, it holds its own against the adjoining dining space, which turns inward and moodier. A rich carpet covers the floor of the latter, extending beyond its expected edges and climbing onto the skirting. Outside, on the balcony, leaves rustle, introducing a soft white noise. Somewhere between arrival, departure (and occasional birdsong in the clangour of the city), a realisation begins to take shape. Designing a home can never be cherry-picking from a catalogue of objects. A ghar is always assembled slowly, almost unconsciously.