Written by Suvir SaranNew Delhi | Updated: October 5, 2025 07:59 AM IST 8 min readMade-in-India is no longer a whisper or apology, or a compromise or a cheaper alternative; It is a declaration (image source: file)The first time I met Sravanya Pittie, she did what great hosts, great homemakers, and great visionaries always do: she fed me. Not merely with food, but with feeling, not only with a meal, but with meaning. In kansa bowls—the ancient alloy of copper and tin praised by Ayurveda for soothing the stomach and sharpening the spirit—she served a spread of South Indian soul. Idlis as soft as monsoon clouds, sambhar alive with tamarind’s tang, rasam fiery as a whispered secret, and payasam so silken it seemed spun from memory itself. Everything gleamed in kansa, that quiet metal with centuries of memory folded into its grain. Each dish became more than nourishment: it became narrative. That afternoon was my initiation into Sokka, her tableware brand, which is less a company than a conversation, less a product line than a philosophy, less about plates and bowls than about the poetry of how we live, love, linger, and tell our stories at the table.And in a world where the future feels fogged with doubt, where nationalism is shrill and jingoism loud, where identity is tossed like a coin into the chaos of geopolitics, there is something radical, almost rebellious, about a Made-in-India moment that doesn’t shout but shines, doesn’t scream but shimmers. A store, a plate, a cup that simply insists, through quiet brilliance, that India is enough. More than enough. That our heritage is not only history but horizon, that our craft can be as current as tomorrow and as ancient as eternity. The opening of Sokka’s flagship store in Worli may appear to be a retail milestone, but it is in fact a cultural one. It layers beauty with brilliance, heritage with modernity, ethics with aspiration, and whispers a truth we too often forget: what is made here, by us, for us, is not compromise but luxury, not imitation but origin.And what deepens my admiration for Sravanya is that Sokka is not her only orchestration. She is a mother of two, not distracted but deeply engaged, a woman whose time is divided but whose love is whole. She is a spouse, a homemaker, a daughter, a friend, and every one of those roles becomes raw material for her design. Her home is a haven, styled not to dazzle but to comfort, arranged not as a museum but as a melody, a place where every guest feels embraced. And from that layered life her tableware draws its soul. The mother in her teaches empathy: a plate must serve children and grandparents alike, must withstand breakfast chaos as gracefully as it hosts a banquet. The homemaker in her sharpens rhythm and repetition: every table is a tale, every napkin a note, every fork a footstep in a dance. The wife and the friend give her generosity, reminding her that hospitality is not performance but presence. The daughter in her keeps her rooted in traditions older than the nation itself, making sure each contemporary line is tethered to memory. Each role refines her artistry, each passage through life’s many chambers becomes a pattern pressed into porcelain, a motif etched into metal, a rhythm woven into linen. She doesn’t design objects so much as orchestrations—compositions of craft and care, symphonies of function and form. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sokka Tableware (@sokkatableware)Step into her new Worli store and you are immediately transported. Outside the city roars, restless and relentless; inside, you are bathed in a white ocean. Bright but never blinding, pale but never plain, luminous yet serene, it is a sanctuary of stillness in a city that seldom stops. The walls whisper calm, the light lingers kindly, the air itself feels like a pause. The space refuses to be simply retail. It is at once an intimate dining room, where you can almost imagine candlelight flickering against china; an art gallery, where crockery perches like sculpture; a lifestyle studio, where immersive visuals narrate the story of each collection. Like her home, every detail here is hers. She designed it as a diary and a dream, a shop that feels less like commerce and more like confession.And then there is the craft itself, defined not by singular material but by marriage and mingling. Vegan bone china, luminous and translucent, ethical in its refusal of cruelty. Linen, crumpled elegance, soft yet strong, a fabric that ages with grace, a textile that becomes truer with every touch. Kansa, copper and tin bound together, humming with history, healing with science, gleaming with gravitas. Kansa cools, kansa soothes, kansa alkalises the body as it alkalises the imagination, balancing acidity in the gut and harmony in the home. Each material a note, but together a harmony. Consider the Bambini Collection: at first glance, playful shapes designed for children, for teenagers, for families. Look closer and you see it is handcrafted in kansa, seventy-eight percent copper, twenty-two percent tin, a ratio perfected centuries ago. It aids digestion, balances acidity, marries ethics with elegance. Imagine toddlers spooning dal from the same alloy that once served emperors. Tradition made tender. Wellness made whimsical. Heritage made hopeful.And who walks through this white ocean of Worli? Not the bargain hunter, but the new Indian chasing quality. Young professionals hosting their first dinner parties, couples newly married, hoteliers and restaurateurs, aesthetes and curators. People who understand that a plate is not only a plate but a stage, a surface upon which food performs, a canvas upon which culture is painted. For them, Made-in-India is not about affordability. It is about aspiration, identity, integrity. What could be more luxurious than something crafted on our soil, by our hands, for our people, sustaining our communities and celebrating our craft? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sokka Tableware (@sokkatableware)For too long, we measured our worth in mimicry. Did our porcelain rival Limoges, our glass Murano, our linens Irish flax? We lived as echoes, rehearsing someone else’s standards. Sravanya rejects that script. Sokka does not imitate, it originates. It even found itself this year at Maison & Objet in Paris, the world’s most renowned fair of accessories and tableware, where barely one percent of Indian brands ever receive an invitation. To stand there was not only to stand beside Hermes Maison and Villeroy & Boch as an equal, but to stand as an Indian original, confident in its craft, sovereign in its sensibility.Also Read | Why no one sings this song anymoreOn opening day I went with Natasha Kilachand. We laughed that we were only dropping in to see what mischief Sravanya was up to. What we found was not mischief but magic. The store shimmered in shades I can only describe as pale-pale-bright-pale-bright-pale, an impossible palette, muted yet radiant. Table after table stood like poems in porcelain, verses in vegan bone china, choruses in kansa. Each begged to be mixed, matched, lived with, dined upon. As we left, I thought of that first meal again—sambhar swirling in kansa, payasam glinting like liquid gold—and I realized that the store was simply an extension of that gesture. An invitation. A welcome. A reminder that beauty, when rooted in belonging, is not accessory but essence.And so Made-in-India is no longer a whisper or apology. No longer compromise. No longer a cheaper alternative. It is a declaration. It is dignity. It is identity itself. In Worli, in this luminous white ocean of calm, that declaration is made daily, on every plate, every bowl, every fork, every folded napkin. That is Sokka. That is Sravanya’s gift. And that, perhaps, is our horizon: to dine not as imitators of someone else’s ideal, but as originators of our own. To gather not merely to eat, but to remember—that the table is where a nation speaks, where a people dream, where a culture finally, firmly, takes its place.© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd