Diwali home décor: Cane, bamboo and earthy hues, go natural this festive season

Opt for cane aesthetic for home décor. (Photo courtesy Umesh Chaurasia, Cane Art Furniture)

Diwali may have always been known as the festival of lights but light, after all, doesn’t mean only a spark of fire. Light, which relates to the idea of “vision”, therefore also means beauty and aesthetics.

Cane lighting (Photo courtesy Umesh Chaurasia, Cane Art Furniture)

And it has always been aesthetics that we have sought in India, whether it is through the spiritual agni that is fire or through the cultivation and curation of other natural elements on earth. Aesthetics, which is an amalgamation of beauty and thought, is also a blend between art and science in itself. Such a synthesis is something that many people have found in the creative use of nature’s own elements, and there are several continental raw material items that are at the heart of this new interior-design market that is fast emerging in the global culture economy.

As the post-pandemic economy has just begun to revive itself in time for Diwali after two long years, the natural aesthetic of bamboo as well as cane and rattan are at the centre of urban desires — materials sourced and seasoned out of many East Asian cultures, including India’s very own Northeastern states.

Umesh Chaurasia, owner and manager of Cane Art Furniture, Goregaon, Mumbai

“After the pandemic and the subsequent downturn, people began finding bamboo and cane considerably more affordable and its sale has increased,” remarks Umesh Chaurasia, owner and manager of Cane Art Furniture at Goregaon in Mumbai. Chaurasia imports ready-made rattan and cane from Indonesia and then exports it all over the country where it is sold in the form of the coffee tables, mats, chairs, and other kinds of furniture items that are now all becoming Diwali favourites.

Outside Inside

Rattan furniture (Photo: Umesh Chaurasia, Cane Art Furniture)

But that’s not all. Economic factors are only one part of the reason for which people are choosing natural material like bamboo and rattan. The other is a kind of ecological aesthetic. “There is a desire to bring the outside (the openness, green trees, blue skies) inside — particularly because of the confined spaces, a sense of claustrophobia, the angst of rush hour, and the crowds,” notes Nisha Jamwal, south Mumbai–based interiors architect and interior-style columnist who has worked on a lot of earthy home designs to spruce up spaces.

“Today, the interior scenario and trends around us dictate verdant graphics and prints, furnishings, design, and the use of natural elements because of this leaning,” says Jamwal, noting how elements such as bamboo and rattan as well as water hyacinths create not just environmental sustainability but also a “lighter look and feel” compared to heavy wood and other kinds of classical artifacts and accessories. She further adds that it also impacts the way we experience colour.

“The combination of earth-coloured walls in tangerine and crimson — light hand-woven cushions, waterbodies, tall stately palms juxtaposed with jewel-like organic paper and cloth chandeliers that look like huge organisms of luminosity — no longer looks like a compromise,” she states. And so, with the worry about climate change at the cusp of our minds as well as the need for an outlet from our cooped-up spaces at home, how should one creatively utilise natural elements indoors this Diwali to feel that sense of earthy liberation once again?

Rattan furniture (Photo: Umesh Chaurasia, Cane Art Furniture)

Breathe

“Bamboo has proven to be a natural air-purifier,” says Tolto Metha, team member (project officer) at the Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency (NBDA), Government of Nagaland (the flagship initiative of the National Bamboo Mission). “Bamboo is able to remove a lot of chemicals from the air and it also adds moisture to the air. So, it is a natural humidifier, too,” adds Metha.

Metha describes how bamboo, which sequesters carbon, reduces greenhouse gases from the air and releases oxygen as well as ozone and negative ion, all of which regulate climate change and become therapeutic for the lungs.

Nagaland’s rich and old heritage and tradition of bamboo is something that is rooted in the East Asian culture that Metha points out, what with the way almost every East Asian dish is garnished with the edible part of bamboo shoot as well as every traditional house in Nagaland still constructed and sheltered by bamboo. But what makes East Asian bamboo culture significant is the way in which it is both modern and contemporary as well as ancient and classical, bridging past eras and knowledge systems of our civilisation with present-day development.

As Metha points out, bamboo can be used in multiple ways in our immediate surroundings:

1. Bamboo can be used in making utensils which can in turn store water, wine, as well as beer.

Bamboo blinds

2. Bamboo can today be widely used as Venetian blinds on windows in hot and sunny locations, providing a cool shade to one’s interiors or room.

3. Bamboo can be used as mugs, cups, and colourfully-dyed Diwali dinner table mats, as well as festive trays to serve food to guests.

4. Bamboo can be used to make ornaments as well as lamps, furniture, and other decorative items on pillars and walls during Diwali just as the way it is done during Christmas on the Christmas tree.

5. Bamboo, when tied up at its joints with cane instead of with plastic or other synthetics can create intricately woven designs that are not just more sturdy, sustainable, and environmentally friendly, but also more aesthetic and innovative, says Metha. Cane can thus be woven with bamboo on furniture joints such as chairs and tables or even the handle of a bamboo mug.

“The woven look is very big,” observes Jamwal, noting how many brands have used such intricate weaves on items such as cushions as well as handbags in the recent times. Aesthetics, therefore, is also about such a weaving-in of stability with creativity, but one must never forget that it is only the human element of labour that can create this relationship.

“Then again, for using bamboo, and for making it last, it is very important to treat and season it. We give training in that — and skill upgradation as well as capacity-building is a major part of the NBDA’s work and focus,” says Metha.