Sometimes the timing’s off. Sometimes I don’t know the person well enough to say anything meaningful. And sometimes, I simply don’t have the conviction to put my name behind something I’m not sure about.
When you write a recommendation, you’re staking your credibility.
Someone who doesn’t know you might make a professional decision based on what you said. That’s not something to take lightly. Last weekend, I had no such hesitation.
Anubha Gandhi deserved every word I wrote.
The Saturday Meetings
My wife Gargi and I first met Anubha in 2018. Anubha was part of the Uppal Group team, brought in to help with the interior design of our home. What followed were months of Saturday visits — sampling fittings and fixtures in different shapes and colours, extending to tiles, counters, cabinets, wardrobes, and the works.
And here’s what made those sessions challenging:
Gargi and I don't always agree on these things. She leads with aesthetics. I lead with functionality. Both of us are particular. Neither of us is especially easy to shift once we've made up our minds.
Anubha had to navigate that every single Saturday without taking sides, losing patience, or letting the tension between two clients derail the process.
She’d take time to understand where each of us was coming from, offer options that addressed both perspectives, and guide us toward decisions we actually felt good about. That’s harder than it sounds. Clients who disagree are manageable.
Clients who each believe they’re right are a different proposition entirely.
What set her apart wasn’t only her design sensibility but also how she held the process together. She didn’t impose; she guided. And she brought warmth to every interaction, making you genuinely look forward to a Saturday morning discussion about floor tiles.Â
Seven Years In
On the 4th of July, 2019, Gargi, our daughter Sara, and I moved into this home.
Changing homes is a project — planning, decisions, design, execution, and then the blessed moment when it’s finally done. I felt that relief keenly. Done and dusted.
Gargi had other ideas; for her, it’s never fully done.
Every few years, there’s a rethink. A refinement. A makeover. I’ve come to accept that a home, like most things worth keeping, needs periodic reinvention.
Freshness matters. The right change at the right time can bring a satisfaction that’s hard to explain until you’ve felt it.
It comes at a cost, of course.
Our home is a balance between design and functionality. Left entirely to me, it would skew functional — clean, practical, uncluttered. Left entirely to Gargi, design would win decisively. Neither extreme would be quite right. What we have instead is a product of years of give-and-take, small concessions, occasional standoffs, and the gradual understanding that the other person's instinct, even when it differs from yours, usually has something worth considering.
Anubha helped us find that balance during the months we worked with her. She held space for both of us without flattening either of us. That’s what a good designer does.
In the seven years since we moved into our home, the give-and-take continues, and despite our differences, Gargi and I are slowly learning where to concede and where not to budge.
The Common Thread
Nothing is perfect; it's how you balance that determines what you end up with. This shows up everywhere, not just in home design. Work and rest, discipline and giving yourself a break, emotion and clear-headedness, spending and saving, holding on and letting go. Balance doesn't mean splitting everything down the middle or always landing on some perfectly moderated position.
Sometimes it means leaning one way, knowing you’ll need to lean the other way next time.
It’s dynamic, not static. And it requires you to stay honest about what’s actually needed. Not just what you instinctively prefer.
Our home is, in some small way, a physical reminder of that — two people with different instincts, and a result that neither of us would have arrived at alone.
Seven years since moving in to our present home, it still holds. Maybe that's what balance really is. Not the absence of disagreement. Not a neat midpoint between two extremes. But remaining open to the possibility that someone else's instinct might make the outcome better than your own ever could. It applies to your home. Your relationships. Your work. The way you spend your time and the way you spend your energy.
You don’t find balance; you negotiate it.
Every single day.
This post is part of an ongoing series sharing life lessons from lived experience — the kind that reveal themselves slowly, often in the details of ordinary things.
About Me
I am a thinker at all times. I see, I think. I hear, I think. I read, I think. Every weekend I write. I would love to know what you think.