How Two Women Built, 'My Contemporary India', Bringing Indian Heritage Home
The story of My Contemporary India, founded by Sumita Kumar and Sonali Escrader in August 2022, bringing heritage, quality, and softness to daily living.
For nearly two decades, corporate employee-turned-entrepreneur Sumita Kumar spoke the language of numbers – probabilities, controls, and quarterly reviews. She rose through the corporate ranks to lead a risk management department in Fidelity International, Gurgaon, mastering the art of anticipating what could go wrong. The success was real; so was the quiet tug to build something more personal, more tactile, and more rooted in culture. And then, she chose a different kind of calculation: to trade the certainty of a corner office for the creative risk of building something with her hands and her heart. That decision became My Contemporary India, co-founded with Sonali Escrader in August 2022 in Delhi, a lifestyle label that celebrates Indian craftsmanship through thoughtful, modern home linens.
The pivot – and the plan
Leaving a secure leadership role to start from scratch is never a tidy arc. Sumita describes it as an honest re-calibration – trading KPIs for craft stories, and commute time for conversations with weavers and vendors. The skills travelled with her: the discipline of risk, the habit of scenario planning, the comfort with spreadsheets. Those corporate muscles helped her set up supplier checks, quality SOPs and lean inventory routines. But the heart of the brand came from a different place: a long-held belief that our homes can carry the warmth of Indian handloom without compromising comfort or contemporary aesthetics.
Early days meant everything at once: scouting dependable printers and stitchers, calibrating finish standards, setting up lean inventory, and listening, obsessively, to what first-time customers needed from everyday textiles. The spreadsheets didn’t disappear; they just began to track different KPIs – washability, softness, repeat orders, and the quiet joy of a room that feels more like home.
A contemporary home with an Indian heartbeat
My Contemporary India sits at the intersection of calm design and cultural memory. The brand’s catalogue is deliberately everyday – tablecloths, dohars, bedcovers – objects we live with, not lock away. The aesthetic is clean and contemporary; the craft cues are unmistakably Indian: hand-block motifs, breathable cottons, and lightweight quilting that’s made for real homes. On the website, you’ll find cotton block-print tablecloths in versatile 6-seater sizes, the kind that brighten weekday meals without shouting for attention.
There’s comfort built for all seasons too: pure-cotton reversible dohars – three layers with a flannel middle that helps the dohar keep its shape after multiple washes – available in single and double sizes. These are designed to be machine-washed cold and to age softly, which is precisely the point of linens you actually live under.
For those who like a little lift on the bed, the brand’s mulmul, hand-block quilted bedcovers bring texture without weight; framing them within a customer-friendly promise of fast shipping, safe checkout, and premium quality. Orders ship across India and internationally, and the brand is available to shop on its website, Instagram, and Amazon – a small but telling detail: the language of trust and ease remains as central to Sumita’s enterprise as it was in her former career.
The ethos is simple: “Customer first” with their traditional yet contemporary Indian products in an affordable pricing. The ethos shows up in quick responses, careful packaging and transparent care instructions. The brand’s own “About” note puts it perfectly – blending modern design with the richness of Indian heritage – and the feed echoes the same sensibility, showcasing soft palettes and unfussy borders.
Of course, no first venture is friction-free. Sourcing consistency in small batches, aligning finishing tolerances across artisan partners, and educating buyers who are new to block-printed linens – all of it tested nerve and patience. Sumita’s solution has been empathy with structure: shorter feedback loops with clusters, training on finishing and shrinkage, and a service stance that treats every order as the start of a relationship. It helps that the products are built for the real: easy to wash, comfortable against skin, and designed to sit quietly in a room and still change it.
What makes this story resonate beyond SKUs is its subtext: women building their second act on their own terms – and inviting others in. My Contemporary India’s growth plan reads less like blitz scaling and more like craft-minded compounding: deepen relationships with artisan partners; expand the core linen range without diluting quality; show up where customers already are (Instagram, the website, and marketplaces like Amazon); and keep the brand a synonym for “fewer, better things.” The Instagram presence – steady, conversational, visual – doubles as a catalogue and a mood board, and it’s where many first discover the label before moving to the website to shop.
Check out some of their Instagram posts here:
Where it’s headed
Ask Sumita what success looks like now, and the answer lands somewhere between a perfectly laundered dohar and a message from a returning customer. It’s the practical magic of textiles that breathe. It’s work that pays craftspeople fairly and predictably. And it’s the quiet satisfaction of homes that feel a little more personal because something handmade sits at their centre.
My Contemporary India began as a brave bet in August 2022. It has matured into a blueprint – proof that you can bring the rigour of a risk head to the tenderness of craft and, in doing so, make contemporary Indian living feel beautifully, effortlessly Indian.
Quick facts
• Founded: August 2022 • City: Delhi/Gurgaon
• Founders: Sumita Kumar and Sonali Escrader
• Ethos: Customer first; craft with conscience
• Ships: Pan-India and international
• Where to shop: • mycontemporaryindia.com • Instagram @mycontemporaryindiaofficial • Amazon.com
If the story resonates, let the textiles do the talking: order a piece and see how it lives in your home. Pan-India and international shipping, with bulk orders welcome. Happy shopping!
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