A nomad in the mind, hungry for newer experiences and drawing from them for sustaining a curious soul. Srila Chatterjee. The founder of Baro Market, ‘an online store of incredible objects, magical skills and wonder-filled stories from all over India’, was in Calcutta recently with her travelling trunk of treasures at Kolkata Centre For Creativity (Anandapur, EM Bypass), a dream you wouldn’t want to wake up from. “We do three things. Baro Art is all our art, Baro Market is our market of all the crafts-based things and we also have a gallery in Bombay called 47-A which is a gallery for design,” Chatterjee says. A multitasker and a “doer”, Chatterjee has “never missed anything” in her life. “I move on. The greatest thing you can do is to live as close to what you believe as possible,” she smiled. Excerpts from a t2 chat.

Baro Market looks absolutely stunning. It’s lovely how you have set it up!

Thank you! I really have to say that our markets are really the best because it’s thoughtful, it’s not accidental. We are not selling tables. We are bringing people we believe in and have built relationships with. When I say thoughtful, it’s not a typical Baro Market because there is absolutely nobody from Calcutta here. There is no shola. Those are like our trademarks. We thought of things that would fit in and that would work for the city. In 2025, we want to go to 15 different places where we have never been to or have experience of, but I think what we have is universal and anybody would like it. What we try to do is make it comfortable for people. You have seen the prices. There are some expensive things, but they are justified because they are exquisite weaves and handcrafted. And, there are many things which are affordable at every level. There are bags from ₹ 100.

How has this journey been?

Baro Market opened literally in the pandemic, in 2020. There was Baro before that which opened in 2016, a different company and avatar. It was with a different partner where we had a big store and it was where Baro Market came from. We did mainly furniture, art and lighting, among others. The address was 12 Sun Mill Compound and that’s how the name ‘Baro’ came about.

I started experimenting with these markets and there was Bangla Bazaar first in our store. Those were so successful that when we shut down because of the pandemic, we decided to take it online and that’s how this happened.

We don’t have a physical store. Our online has a limited presence of the brands we are constantly with. We add on brands for our markets. Our markets are not online. Online is a different game and it involves a lot of things. We are happy at the moment to keep it the way it is and let it grow organically and at some point, when we get the right people to show us how, we can have an online market as good as our bazaars. We are going slowly and steadily.

I love what we are doing and we are a brand people recognise, know and respect. We have changed so many lives, which for me is the greatest thing. Are we rich? No. Is that the intention? No. Will we at some point want to be rich? I am sure, but I don’t think we want to be rich alone, we want to do it as a community.

You have done so many things, but was this what your heart was seeking?

I don’t know because I never stopped to think ‘Is this it?’ or ‘What next?’ I go with what feels right. I guess I have been lucky to have been in a position where I can make choices that are not based on ‘I have to earn this, so I have to get that’. But I don’t think it’s luck alone. I planned my life like that. I knew I didn’t want to have children from the day I was born because I wanted to do other things. I accepted my selfishness but I am reaping that benefit.

I think the greatest thing in the world is when you can really enjoy what you are doing, when the lines between what you are working at, playing at and learning from, are so blurred that they are all one. I love what I am doing because every day you meet unbelievable people who I am in awe of because of their skills, what they know, of the knowledge I am getting from them and that excitement is what I pass on.

Baro Market is about getting people from across India who are doing magical things and getting people to know and see it. I am so anti the whole thing of patronage. When you are a patron, you are paying and looking after them, sure, when that patronage stops, it dies. I want to be able to get somebody who is able to afford, to experiment, to do new things and evolve, so that craft is really sexy and they want it and it’s not a favour. And, that’s what I think Baro Market is doing.

How do you curate?

We have a very small team. When we started off, a lot came from my own knowledge and experience. As we have grown, so many people approach us and we have an email address where people write to us. We look at every single thing and answer. First we look at the pictures and if we think it’s nice, we ask for samples, which we always return, and if we think it’s going to work, we have them on our rolls. Then we decide who we want to have at every market.

We are showing more than 20 brands in Calcutta, but we have hundreds. What we try and do and we are going to do much more mindfully is not to replicate.
I travel a lot too and I love it. And, part of my travel is education and discovery. So, it’s a continuous process. Once you start, there is no stopping.

We have over 80 artists at Baro Art. For Baro Market, it would be in the region of 75-100 people we have on board that we can choose from and there is around 20 that are a part of our inner circle and we have grown with, but that number will change and grow all the time.

Baro Market travelling is a new thing. We did it for the first time in 2023. We took the Bengal Bazaar to Delhi. It was a huge success. We have also been to Pune, Hyderabad and Goa. I am determined for us to get away from just the metros and go to the Bhubaneswars, Patnas and Raipurs, which are looking for what we do.

The curation is so much about developing an eye...

It’s what you read, eat, where you travel, the people you meet and the conversations you have. There is a big advantage of being born in Calcutta. You have to get out of the Instagram world and web world and start looking at reality and that’s how your eye works the best. I am not dissing the Instagram world at all or what Google has done, but if your eye is not curious of its own, then what are you going to learn?

How has Calcutta shaped you as a person?

Hugely. My attitude to this whole city which I adore has changed. I grew up in a different Calcutta, very much of the Raj that was the most cosmopolitan city in India that was 100 per cent secular. I am so grateful that I grew up in Calcutta. I think I developed a mind that was less biased, of greater exposure and really of much deeper and greater values than I have seen anywhere else. This is my personal experience.

Older, coming back, of course there is nostalgia, but my nostalgia is one part. The other part is what I have learnt from many of the young brands that I have worked with at Baro Market. So many of these young girls and a couple of the boys who do such incredible things. I love the ambition, which is about quality of life. It is not the ambition that drove me to say that I have to leave Calcutta, otherwise, I’ll be stuck in the rut. Their ambition says that they want to live in Calcutta because they can live on their own terms, and their parents don’t have to pay for them. That’s so refreshing and fantastic. If that’s not success, what is?

Do you see yourself coming back and living here?

I don’t think where I might live, in one place or another. I would love to live one part of my life in Calcutta. I appreciate many things about Bombay. I never say I am from Bombay though I have lived there more than I have lived here. I appreciate one more thing that no other place in India can claim to have. Not for one second have I felt any different for being a woman. It’s about what you do. A lot of me has that, but my soul, DNA, what I am about, values and sensibilities are very much from where I came from and where I still think I belong.