Maithili Ahluwalia

Entrepreneur, Aesthete, Fashionista

An entrepreneur and a fashionista, Maithili Ahluwalia is known for her boutique Bungalow 8. She gets candid with UpperCrust about food, fashion and lifestyle...

Text: Shruti Anand   Photographs: Vijay Barathe

You are a fashionista and so it's hard not to talk about your boutique...
I've grown up in a family of aesthetes. I don't even know if it was my calling or not, I think it just felt so natural the way I've grown up. Fashion is just like food, you could take a traditional  ingredient and make a modern dish out of it. Similarly in fashion, one can follow the traditional method of weaving cloth in a particular way or use traditional techniques and turn it into a modern day piece of clothing and that's really where my interest is.
 
So how come you closed Bungalow 8?
I launched Bungalow 8 at the age of 24 with a lot of passion but for the past 2 or 3 years, I had started to fear that the store had outgrown being a one store outpost. Now the time had come to either scale it up or perhaps to opt out. But it had been such a personal endeavour that scaling it up would kill the essence of what it was– an intimate, personalised, individual operation. Also, I didn´t find as many people to take the vision forward with my idealism.

So now what, what lies ahead?
I can now, in a new chapter, look at fashion but in a much simpler, slower way without the sustainable and all those fad-ish terms. But I'm also seeing what role I can play in fashion, design and aesthetics in a simplistic way. So I´m really trying to distill things down. Food, fashion, life.

Isla Van Damme aka Loulou has had a great influence on  your life. Tell us a little about her.
She is an amazing Belgian woman who lived in Goa and had an exclusive B&B when my mom first met her. Apart from being an aesthete, she is an amazing cook. I've been encouraging her to write a cookbook on dishes that can be cooked within 15 minutes.

Are you fond of cooking as well?
I have been quite fortunate to have a mother and a grandmother who are hugely talented cooks and they share a great partnership in the kitchen. I on the other hand, have been their guinea pig, trying out all their experimental dishes.

Share some childhood memories related to food.
As a child, we lived in my grandmother's house. She was one of the most experimental, innovative, curious and an amazing cook that I've ever seen. She could throw things together effortlessly in a few minutes and they were always wholesome.
 
What do you prefer to eat on a daily basis?
I've been a vegetarian for the past few years and have been following Ayurveda as well. I've grown up eating healthy western food. So I generally eat salads, light stir-fries and dishes like poha, upma, dosa for breakfast. My lunches consist of light desi food made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. My cook knows how to cook South Indian cuisine and she makes dishes like dahi bhindi or coconut bhindi without adding too much masala.

So no strict diets for you?
I feel that there should be simplicity in cooking, freshness of ingredients, and hence the sense of security of what one is eating. While there´s a lot of obsession about weight and healthy food nowadays, here´s the thing; what if that healthy food doesn't suit you? With regard to health, I find Ayurveda very profound. I like how you are examined and recommended food according to your individual constitution.
 
And do you tend to try new cuisines or visit new restaurants?          
I like dishes which are cooked but not overdone which is why I gravitate towards smaller restaurants. So I like restaurants like Masque, The Table and even Swati. Being a chain, Swati manages to have that intimacy and look that I love. I´m delighted to be eating healthy stuff here today at Miss T which has a variety of vegetarian dishes on the menu.  
 
You love eating healthy but what would be your guilty pleasure?
I have a sweet tooth and I love chocolate but my guilty pleasure these days is the luxury to take time to decide what to eat and plan my meals. So for me sitting and quietly enjoying what I'm eating, be it  healthy or "unhealthy," actually savouring it is the biggest pleasure.