About Me
I am a textile designer by profession and have spent most of my professional life, working with artisans from around the country. I have been working for the past 28 years and it’s been a wonderful journey thus far. I have a long way to go before I can say that I’m ready to retire. I graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad as a textile designer. While at the institute, I decided that I wanted to work with artisans from all over. I was very lucky to get an opportunity to do so, when I joined Fabindia Pvt. Ltd., in 1992. I worked closely with craftsmen and women from various states, developing designs and products to be sold both to the export buyers and the domestic retail stores. This part of my journey, helped me apply my academic knowledge to real life. I worked at Fabindia for 15 years and I came out richer for it.
Then motherhood happened…the quintessential question about career or kids. I gave up my job which I absolutely loved, to watch my boys grow. I wanted both – a career and motherhood. I joined my husband’s company Indisign Pvt. Ltd. Under this we have a store called Indi store, established in 1998. My key role is to manage the store and staff and take care of the logistics for exports. Working at Indi gives me flexible timings that I need to keep my work-life balance. Working here, opened up a world very different from the one I knew at Fabindia. The world of luxury and high-end handcrafted design.
In 2007, I started my label making children’s clothes, called Pappu – the little Indian. I found a big gap in the market for affordable, simple and elegant clothes for children in India. The market was niche, comprising mostly of ex pats and people like me. I identified this need when I was looking for clothes for my sons. I ran the store for 6 years and then it became hard to sustain the same on my own.
In 2011, I felt the urge to create limited edition sarees. Pieces that are made using embroideries, prints, tie and dye etc. but not from the traditional methods. I wanted to experiment and see if there were takers. I started my line of sarees under the brand name Song, lyrical rhapsodies. The sari has always been my favourite go-to attire. I find that each sari is a canvas for a woman to drape the way she thinks fit. For me, it is a canvas to paint the way I like. I have worked on two collections to date. Each one comprising of a limited edition of a 100 sarees. Now I am working on my third.
Besides design and crafts, I enjoy teaching a lot. Working with children makes me very happy. I suppose each one of them reminds me of my own and makes them relatable. I like engaging with students on a level where they use their minds to research and experiment with ideas. I enjoy teaching subjects like Indian textiles, weaving, print design but most of all, I like taking projects. Such as kids wear, Men and womens wear, craft documentation and design, textiles for interiors and electives. In the past few years, I have been a visiting faculty and a design educator in several design schools. I am also an external juror at NID Kurukshetra and NIFT Delhi.
In addition, I work as a freelance design consultant and have worked with many NGOs to conduct training programs in the craft sector. My intervention is mostly in skill up-gradation and capacity building through design thinking and learning…to empower artisans with tools that help them become entrepreneurs.
I have also worked on interior projects with designers and architects. I was part of a curatorial team that was engaged by a company called Direct Create ( www.directcreate.com), to find the perfect artisanal products for a beautiful bazaar that was set up as part of Mukesh Ambani’s daughter’s wedding.
In the past year and a half, I have been part of a volunteer-led movement called Creative Dignity ( www.creativedignity.org), where a large group of volunteers from diverse professional backgrounds have come together to energize the ecosystem that Indian artisans face during these covid ridden days. I have helped in managing volunteers, mentoring interns, raising funds to provide relief for artisans, and being part of a great team, whose goals are the same – that of working with artisans to empower them and help them create sustainable livelihoods.
Besides the above, I love traveling, nature, dance, music, cinema, and reading especially graphic novels and comic books. Thanks to the lockdowns, I have begun to love cooking.
