Nilaya means home, a refuge that is a reflection of your identity. We help you create a beautiful, personalized, and nurturing home with thoughtful design choices crafted to your style and needs.
Simple | Intimate | Quintessentially Indian
SLOW, INTENTIONAL LIVING
“BEING STARTS WITH WELL-BEING.”
A quiet corner of random reflections.
There is so much life in this shade. The Chitrasutra, an ancient Indian text on varna (color), ascribes the qualities of love, beauty, and harmony with nature to green.
Heritage is a complex, layered word. It encompasses a wide array of meanings from the tangible like food, language, rituals to something far more nuanced that runs deeper. It sets the context to our lives.
Even if it's misplaced curiosity, I find myself spotting all these interesting juxtapositions here. A blue ladder, a green coat of something on the walls, a block of wood put together as a temporary switchboard, a flash of a rani pink saree, but the golden hour remains my favorite. There is always a mood of bustle and transience, chaos and commotion - but it is all part of the process in creating something permanent and stable for us.
She stood over the stove for hours slowly coaxing the milk to condense into the rich creaminess suffused with a hint of saffron. It tasted so divine that I felt she had poured all her love and warmth into this bowl of Kheer as we celebrated a special moment.
This one plant brought home so much joy, old and new. I couldn’t have enough Mogra in my daily life…It brightens my mornings and calms me in the evenings. A simple thing anyone could try out.
I listened to Anoushka Shankar playing ‘Stolen Moments’ the other day - a nippy evening in Pune, the stage flanked by tall slender trees, with a beautiful full moon peaking through them - and I felt the rich, soulful notes of the sitar taking me away from time itself. Maybe, I thought, a pause is just a moment stolen from our own lives. And what better way to pause than with music, live preferably.
We are emotional beings after all and we do get attached to things, and feel a certain way about everything including the coterie of objects that we assemble around us. Choosing them with thought and care is the only realistic way I can think of to go about it.
“No, we don’t need more sleep. It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don’t need more sleep, we need to wake up and live.” Brooke Hampton
A pinch of salt artfully flung onto the hot kadai, the blanket folded with that flick of a wrist, a stain removed or a weed plucked off a plant, the day’s newspaper folded with a flourish, and the spectacles folded over and kept aside on the table - it's all done so gracefully and effortlessly.
The candle and tea light holder nestle against a wooden framed mirror that I had picked up years ago in a small antique store in Bangalore that has shut its doors during the pandemic. The tea light holder was a gift from a previous client from Good Earth, a home decor brand that I absolutely love. How such a motley mix came together to create that perfect little moment for me.
Muri by Nilaya is a series of soulful portraits of our intimate spaces, of how we connect with and experience with what we surround ourselves with.
I got this product a few months ago and I can vouch for its functionality and beauty. There is a sense of warmth around this piece. Every time I walk by the stack of fruits, there is an impression of abundance and nourishment, that translates to feeling taken good care of.
Everybody needs a home. Everybody needs to feel like they belong to some place. More so, when they are away from their roots. There is no one right way to go about doing this. We all do it differently and well in our own ways. What is your go to thing to do while setting up a home away from home? What makes you feel like you belong to space that isn’t yours forever?
I wished that the project could have promoted Khadi as the fabric for the flags. Not only would it have been a promotion for a sustainable material, it would have been a simple, yet powerful nod to our beautiful past.
Who was to be blamed, when everyone he held close to his heart disappeared forever? Who could he have turned to for help when life, as he knew it, was gone in the blink of an eye? Such is the paradox of life, they say. Life is never fair, they say. Come to think of it, I can only say how odd is life - I started 2021 reading 'Shuggie Bain' and ended it with 'The Small-town Sea'.
But whenever I came across a beautiful paperweight or a vintage typewriter - things I could totally survive without - my heart would skip a beat and do a little hankering jig. I knew I wanted things. I would always want more. Maybe what I loved to pieces now, might fade away from the spotlight eventually. Maybe it will become all the more dearer.
It is beautiful when a new place can give you such a sense of home. Here are some snippets of a city I love, captured over the years and collated into a day -
Staying true to Malayali simplicity, the decor at Kayal is understated, sustainable and inviting. An old world charm seeps out of the woven cane and wooden furniture, the vintage doors and windows, and these rustic framed mirrors.
Today, we have come to the close of this weird, sad year. Knowing full well that tomorrow isn't going to be all that different. There is just a faint glimmer of hope trickling through all that gloom. Let's just hold on to that and walk on.
As Ingo Maurer, the 'Poet of Light' said, "light is not a thing, but the spirit which catches you inside.” I guess it is this spirit that we need to work with. Lightly. Gently. So that it is just enough. So that there is some magic to how it interacts with the objects around and how we perceive it.
"Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree."
To anyone planning to buy a Teak Lab product - here’s urging you to think twice!! From a personal experience, they have been unreliable, unprofessional and their nonchalance and arrogance when it comes to customer service is beyond imagination.
The curtains blowing in with a gentle breeze brings nature into the space in a subtle way. Their caressing touch as they brush gently against your skin is poetic as well.
A home is where we are who we are, unfiltered and unfettered. To create a comfortable home - from scratch or redesigning an old space - can feel daunting, with the insane amount of choices and passing trends, or space and budget constraints.
Joshua Fields Millburn, one of the Minimalists, says his attitude took a turn when he realised how he had brought so many things into his life without questioning. The key to living with less, according to him, is to justify everything you have or want to buy.
Within ten minutes of waking up, you have already dealt with a riot of sensations, feelings, and thoughts. All of this disappears into thin air as the day progresses with its humdrum routine. Nonetheless, it is a short and sweet episode of mindful indulgence before you kickoff a busy day.
I shall call her Madam Sarah. Why give into the patriarchal norm of being defined by the male figurehead in her life and call her Madam C J Walker, after someone who clearly had no respect her. That's an 'insult' that can be done away with now, if not back then.
Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course.. No more than one or few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.
A handmade work of art can breathe life into a space and set the mood/tone of your home. It might scare most of us to pick or place a piece of art. But it all about the emotional connect and rather intuitive. If you just listen to your heart, there will be nothing more easier. If you need help with tips and pointers, we are here to help -
Psychologically, human beings crave a sense of continuity. Something that has endured the ravages or blessings of time signals stability. Being part of a story that exists beyond ourselves is essential to creating a sense of belonging; it acts as a balm to our own impermanence. These heirlooms and symbols connect you to a past you weren’t a part of, and in doing so, reassure you that your own story will continue into an unknown future.