Our Story
We started Puna with a simple question: what does India look like today? Not the version you find on a postcard or a souvenir shelf. Not a handful of symbols repeated until they stop meaning anything. India today is layered and alive, still shaped by stories and symbols that people carry with them every day. We wanted to build something that reflects that, in objects you would actually want to wear, hang on your wall, or write in.
That's what Puna is. We design apparel, home decor, and stationery inspired by India's symbols, stories, and everyday rituals. A t-shirt built around a festival story. An acrylic stand shaped by an idea as old as Ganesh Chaturthi. A poster that turns a kolam pattern into something worth framing. A daily planner rooted in the heritage of a city like Agra. We organize our work into collections, Symbols & Meaning, Sacred Everyday, Journeys & Landscapes, and Festive Editions, each one a different way into the same idea: India, made for everyday life.
The Genesis of Puna
What’s in a Name?
Puna borrows deeply from the ancient Sanskrit word Punah, which means again or once more. We liked what it says: a culture doesn't stay still, it keeps renewing itself. It's also a small piece of us. Puna comes from Puja and Nanda, the two of us who started this.
Meet the Founders
Puna is the coming together of two distinct life paths, bound by a shared commitment to honesty, dedication, and slow, intentional luxury. Based out of the green, subdued urban canopies of Bengaluru, we bring decades of end-to-end industry mastery to this craft.
Puja
The Sustainable Visionary
Puja is an experienced e-commerce businesswoman and a pioneer in conscious consumerism. She spent years building Fabartistry, a sustainable e-commerce venture built on ethical sourcing and close work with artisan communities. At Puna, she channels this deep-rooted knowledge into ensuring every product carries a soul.
Nanda
The Global Retail Strategist
Nanda is a seasoned retail professional who has navigated the end-to-end value chains of the world’s largest corporate retail giants, including Walmart, and Kroger, across both the United States and India. His decades of commercial expertise ensure that Puna’s vision is backed by world-class execution and uncompromised quality.
How we design
We start with the story, not the palette. Every piece begins with something real: a place, a ritual, a fragment of history that doesn't get told often enough. Take Prithvinath, a temple in Agra, a city the world mostly remembers for the Taj Mahal next door. We didn't need to mute that story to make it feel worth telling. We rendered it in bright watercolor hues, because the color is what makes you stop, and the story is what keeps you looking once you're curious.
That's the principle behind everything we make: the story has to be strong enough to carry a t-shirt or a planner cover, and the design has to make people curious enough to ask what they're looking at. Sometimes that means bold color. Sometimes it means something quieter. Either way, the design is in service of the story, not the other way around.
What we're building
Puna is still small and still early. We think of it as an open door for anyone curious about India, whether you have roots here and want something more thoughtful than a souvenir, or you're anywhere else in the world and drawn to how India tells its stories through color, pattern, and symbol. We're building this one piece at a time, and we'd love for you to be part of it.
Thank you for being part of our journey. Welcome to a unique India.