Serendipity started out as an experiment. It metamorphosed into a well-curated collection of textiles, furniture and vintage decor retailed at one of Delhi’s many urban villages from a small store in an urban space. “Our lives too are serendipitous. We start with a plan but life takes its own course. Our store is one such example,” Kuldeep Kaur says.
After a year of operating from Vasant Kunj, Kaur shifted it to her family haveli in Jonapur village in Chhattarpur. Today her customers can enjoy shopping followed by some lemonade in the courtyard or at the rooftop. “Not to mention, a free parking zone,” she says. It’s just the sort of luxury Delhi seeks.
Her clients also love spending time amid the curated antique furniture neatly displayed in different rooms of her expansive haveli. “To like our things, one needs to be a bit of a gypsy at heart, just like I am,” Kaur says. She began by curating and designing home linens, and moved to apparels and personal care products. “We are also bringing in a few niche brands to our store,” she says. The gypsy-at-heart Kaur travelled all over India with her father, an Indian Air Force officer, before settling down in Delhi. Having spent a major part of her life here, she admits to not praising the city enough. “It still is like soul food for me, moulding my thoughts and approach towards life every single day,” she adds. Delhi has made her more assertive and adventurous work-wise, as she needs to push harder to get things done.
Kaur says life in Delhi has taken a 360-degree turn from the time she moved in. “It’s busy as it can be, fast-paced and aggressive,” she says. What melts her heart is the history associated with it, its monuments and the romance she imagines once existed in those ruins. Is there anything about the city that bothers her? “Every time I visit Chandni Chowk, Humayun’s Tomb or narrow lanes behind Jama Masjid, I wish Delhi would get back its lost slower pace and people would become more relaxed.”