Not an unusual question to ask someone who makes a rather drastic U-turn in life. Why Jungle Marigold? Why textiles? Why now?

Especially when, just a few months earlier, I was busy expanding my kitchen, making space to grow Sugardust — my bakery venture, which I had loved, built and ran for over 12 years. And then, quite suddenly, within the span of three weeks, I shut down operations and walked back into textiles.

Back home, really. The funny thing is, textiles were never really “work” to me. They were simply the soundtrack of my childhood.

I grew up around yarns, fabric swatches, conversations about fabric prices, frantic searches for missing staff during festive timelines, printers who would suddenly decide not to print, fabrics that arrived late, fabrics that arrived wrong, and enough production problems to give an entire family sleepless nights. My mother ran the business — and our home — with an extraordinary amount of integrity.There was a certain pride in the way every piece that left our building was treated. It wasn't just fabric. It wasn't just another order. There was gratitude, responsibility and a sense of honour attached to what we made.

I watched it all.

Countless designs. Prints being developed from scratch. Colours being debated. Production disasters being fixed at the eleventh hour. Mistakes being pulled apart and corrected. And, most importantly, I watched wisdom being built over years of simply doing the work. The kind of wisdom no textbook can teach you.

Did I always know I would return home to prints? Honestly, no.

Did I imagine that after 12+ years of baking, I would find myself obsessing over colours, fabrics and prints again? Also no.

Do I miss baking? Sometimes. But here's the beautiful part: I don't feel like I abandoned that love.

I still cook. I still bake. I still love feeding people. I just get to do it now at my own pace, without deadlines looming over me and without those glorious 18-hour shifts that somehow seemed completely normal at the time.

That part of me hasn't disappeared. It has simply taken a different shape. And so, Jungle Marigold.

What I really want to do with this brand is make people a little less afraid of prints. Of colour. Of texture.Of being noticed.

I want clothes to give you a little hit of colour dopamine on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. I want your personality to have somewhere to show up — loudly, quietly, dramatically or somewhere delightfully in between.

I want to explore menswear beyond the usual sea of navy, black and denim. Give me more shades of carrot. Beetroot. Apple. Maybe even a little brinjal when we're feeling adventurous.

And yes, the culinary references are absolutely going to continue.

Because apparently I cannot talk about colour without turning it into food.

But that's me.

I love colour. I love print. I love the way the right outfit can completely change how you feel when you walk out the door.

And perhaps that is what Jungle Marigold really is for me.

A space where I can take everything I've grown up around, everything I've learnt, everything I've loved — and put it all back into the world in my own slightly colourful, slightly chaotic way.

I also wanted to create a safe space to explore prints.

No rules about what you're “supposed” to wear at a certain age. No rules about which colors belong to whom. No rules about how bold is too bold.

Inclusivity will always be at the heart of Jungle Marigold.

Any age. Any shape. Any form.

There will always be something for you somewhere in our Jungle.

So yes, this was a U-turn.

But maybe it wasn't really a U-turn after all.

Maybe it was simply finding my way back home — with a few more stories, a lot more colour, and considerably more confidence in my ability to troubleshoot a production disaster.

Why now?

That's a story for another day.

For now, welcome to our journey.

And thank you for being a part of it.

Come get a little lost in the jungle with me.