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Meet the man whose world is made of paper

Anand Bhave makes furniture from scrap paper. And his paper table is strong enough to withstand the weight of his entire family.

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Anand Bhave is fascinated with paper — particularly waste paper. He works at the income tax department in Mumbai, but in his free time, he hunts for paper at scrap and waste yards in Sion, Dharavi, Jogeshwari and Chembur, chatting up raddiwallahs for corrugation boards, fridge and television boxes, industrial paper and print waste.

Back home, Anand, 48, and his wife Anjali, 44, use this paper to create paper furniture — it’s durable, environment friendly and  stronger than wood.

“Karate champions will not be able to break  this furniture,” Anand exclaims.

A hobbyist to the extreme, Anand sketches, makes natural colour, paints, knots together different materials, and makes papier-mache birds. He started out doing origami, and soon found out about people who were turning paper into furniture.

His inspiration was Shigeru Ban, the Japanese architect known for his work with paper and recycled cardboard, particularly to help victims of disasters.

Anand’s first paper furniture creation was a low stool 12 years back. Since then, he has branched out to armchairs, baby chairs, low tables, study tables and foot stools.

Some of the furniture he made back then is still going strong at his home in Andheri east. “Most people wonder how paper, which is so feeble, can result in strong, durable furniture. But paper is made from wood and it can always be strengthened,” he says.

The trick, he says, lies in the structure of the furniture and the ‘props’ that hold it up. He uses a lot of hollow paper tubes to form handles, hand rests, backs and legs of the furniture. He also uses triangles and diamonds as structural shapes for the legs of stools and tables. “These shapes allow weight to be distributed along their angles, increasing the strength of the object,” he says. His smallest stool can easily hold up to 300kgs of weight, and his family of four can stand comfortably on his low table without breaking it.

The process begins with making boards by sticking together about six or seven different kinds of paper (corrugations or industrial paper usually, newspaper is too weak) with glue. The Bhaves also make their own glue — a mixture of wheat flour and water which they claim is stronger than synthetic resin. The boards are glued together with cards made from weaker papers which are also stuck together. The thickness of the boards depends on the style and the desired weight.

“Making this furniture is very time-intensive,” says Anand. Each layer requires a day to dry. The longer it is kept, the better the binding. The final step is applying varnish, which keeps it waterproof, safe from insects and rodents, and reduces the wear and tear. If the paper starts sagging, the varnish layer can be peeled off and levelled with papier-mache before reapplying varnish.

Nothing goes to waste in the Bhave home, which now looks like a motley collection of papier- mache birds, knotted creations made of old Parachute oil bottles and dried orange peels, and paintings made from powder extracted from stone. The furniture he makes can be broken down or re-used. Or it can be buried. “They decompose on their own, the natural glue provides enough food for bacteria to thrive,” he says.

Being eco-friendly, however, comes at a price. The labour-intensive process finds few takers willing to invest time and effort into making paper furniture. Anjali adds that people are often put off by the price. Their furniture starts at Rs400 (a stool) and goes up to Rs1,500 (an interchangeable low chair). So for now, the Bhaves use their paper furniture as gifts for close family and friends.   

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