100 years of Bharat Floorings, the OG ‘Made in India’ company

Formed in 1922, this Mumbai-based company is intent on celebrating its heritage origins with a focus on the future

The first time Sanghamitra Chatterjee got in touch with Firdaus Variava, he totally blew her off. Chatterjee, who runs a company called Past Perfect, helps corporations with creating, building and maintaining their archives amongst a host of other activities. “Oh, I thought she was a spy!” chuckles a genial and completely bemused Variava when he is recounting the story to us in his office. Variava–who is Vice-Chairperson of Bharat Floorings and Tiles (BFT), a company that turns 100 in this year–is really glad that he finally met with Chatterjee. It’s partly to do with Past Perfect’s intervention, that BFT will soon kick off a host of activities to celebrate the company’s centenary. But we’ll get to that in a bit. It’s time to go back in time for now.

Rewind to the days of the British Raj

Tucked away in a somewhat quieter part of the bustling Mumbai Samachar Marg in Mumbai’s Fort is a former mansion that once belonged to the British Governor. Surrounded by several banks and the country’s largest stock exchange, with history stowed in every nook and cranny–that mansion has been the head office for BFT for many years now. In the long march towards India’s independence are also the stories of many corporations that helped shift the focus back to the nation through the manufacture and distribution of Indian-made goods. BFT is one of them.

The year 1922 was still a time when India was considered the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. Integral to the Indian Independence Movement was the call for self-reliance, in keeping with the Swadeshi Movement that began in 1905 as a reaction against the Partition of Bengal by the British. The Swadeshi Movement, of course, grew in momentum with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s clarion call for non-cooperation in 1921 which, while proved to be unsuccessful, did lead to the formation of BFT.

When Variava’s grandfather Pherozesha Sidhwa started Bharat Floorings, he effectively killed off the more expensive British exports. “It was Jamshed Mehta, a colleague of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired my grandfather who was a lawyer, by saying India needs both economic and political independence. Mehta was a philanthropist, freedom fighter and member of the theological society, and was visiting from Karachi. It was a chance meeting, really, but it led to my grandfather and Mehta becoming business partners who would manufacture cement tiles,” shares Variava while walking around the showroom and his company headquarters.

Made in India

“Our first factory was in the fishing village of Mora in Uran where the family made liquor from mogra flowers. So in the beginning we used to transport the finished goods on boats back to mainland Bombay.” The factory, now in Palghar, Maharashtra focuses on the domestic market with an eye to the future product lines that aren’t always tiles or flooring. It was in 1999 that BFT launched their heritage line to resounding success. “It was good timing, as several buildings and monuments from the days of the Raj were clearly in need of an overhaul. Bharat became the first choice when restoring most of these buildings,” shares an architect who has worked on several conservation projects.

Over the past 100 years, BFT has laid some of the best-known floors in several prominent structures across India. The Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur still retains its original BFT floors and architect Brinda Somaya has used their heritage tiles when restoring buildings like the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai. BFT has also won awards from the UNESCO and the EDIDA, received for restoration of The Yacht Club in Mumbai by architect Vikas Dilawari and for The Library House in Bengaluru by architect Sandeep Khosla. “The Jewish Synagogue project, was a six-month long process, involved recreating the tiles by making replicas of them first,” explains Variava. He also says the sky’s the limit for customisation. “If you're a designer there's no limitation on what you can do. If you want a textured tile, but you want it with a pattern and you want a certain colour, you can do it,” he shares. Meanwhile, micro cement is a recently introduced product that gets Variava very excited. “Micro-cement floors are designed to be overlaid on top of existing floors, preventing the need to rip out the floors to save money and yet give the space a seamless look,” he shares.

Collaborations lead the way

Making cement tiles and floors is a labour-intensive job, one that requires strict quality control. It’s also a job that’s been passed on through generations within the same family. “These are handmade [products] with customised work. They're not like prints, so it's actually like a filling. The products are from a bygone era when the emphasis was on making products that would last forever. This is basically engineered to last for like 9,000 years!” explains Variava when talking about the manufacturing process.

While Variava is clearly proud of the company’s heritage, he’s not resting his laurels on past glory. Passionate about design and a firm believer in working collaborations, Variava has partnered with architects like Ayaz Basrai of the Busride Design Co and Khosla for coming up with new designs for tiles, for wallpapers with and one for rugs with Shibani Shetty of Ecru Designs. “I have a keeda,” he laughs. “Now that I no longer look after the company’s sales, I feel I must drive the creative aspect more.” BFT has also collaborated with Bombay Atelier’s Farzin Adenwalla, who works with craftspersons, and during the pandemic-induced lockdowns of the last two years, decided to launch the Kulfi Project to help the artisan community by creating special aluminium tables with terrazzo tops from BFT, the proceeds of which were shared with the artisans.

Upcoming collaborations include one with interior designer Sarah Sham of Essajee Atelier, while other product lines will involve the use of BFT’s materials in many ways–think mirrors, photo frames, table lamps and a variety of bric-a-brac to be launched later this year.

Hitting a century

Given that this year is a special one for BFT, there are plenty of plans that are underway to mark the event. For starters, BFT has launched a new store in suburban Mumbai to tap into a growing demand. Dubbed ‘The Floor Story’ and located in the busy Laxmi Industrial Estate in Andheri, it has been created by Busride Design Co as a design hub of sorts for the city’s creative community.

Part of the celebrations will mean creating a travelling cabinet of BFT memorabilia and souvenirs that showcase the brand’s history and products that will go from city to city and will be displayed at various galleries. Helping them dig up the past is Chatterjee and her team. Expect to see the first tile ever produced by BFT, as well as the first-ever catalogue and sales register. A brand new website that will host 100 stories to celebrate each year that BFT has been in business is also in the works. Chatterjee met Variava in the initial years of setting up shop. “I was very keen to reach out to old business houses because back then no one was really documenting anything. Today, on Instagram, we see a lot of accounts that revolve around Bombay history.” Once she got past Variava’s initial skepticism about her intent, they were off to yet another creative collaboration. Past Perfect, which was established around seven years ago, is helping BFT build their archive and working towards their centenary celebrations. “Our work begins with hunting things down and noting the pivotal moments in their corporate history,” she adds.

Chatterjee initially worked with the chairperson of the Bharat Floorings Group, Dilnavaz Variava. “I began work with BFT in 2019 for an exhibition that focused on the first 50 years of the organisation. With BFT, what we are dealing with is more than 10,000 projects over 100 years!” Chatterjee credits the coming in of Variava into the business, circa 1999-2000, as making BFT a vibrant, future-forward design firm. “We suddenly see this fuddy-duddy brand, best known for heritage flooring, now making new moves in terms of products and business.” It’s in the interpretation of these designs across product lines that has grown the BFT catalogue over the last 25 years or thereabouts, points out Chatterjee. For Variava, the future lies in growing his bread-and-butter business of cement floorings, with a firm eye on creative collaborations and new product lines.

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