Meet our Team
Our Story
Rajashvi Jajodia
Founder
A storyteller at heart, Rajashvi has a keen eye for all things that narrate a chronicle. She is an artist by qualification, with a bachelor’s in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While gaining a global perspective abroad, she continued to be fascinated by her own roots and culture.
Masaya is her easel where she combines her two big loves, storytelling and art. It is also an attempt to build a community that can help keep the delicacy of the arts and crafts of India alive in an increasingly digital world. With Masaya, she wants to create a gender neutral and sustainable world for children. And when she’s not painting tales onto pieces for Masaya, you can catch her with a camera, hunting for stories in the most unlikely places.
How the name 'Masaya' was born?
Someone once told me- you should remember the following while choosing a name:
- Easy to pronounce this easy to remember
- Few syllables
- Relatable
Masaya as a word has a lot of different meanings, a few that resonated with me and I thought it would with people too:
In Amharic it means “leaving an impression” which is built around our ethos of Hand block printing - that literally leaves an impression on your fabric.
Some could also relate it to Messiah- A leader
And another meaning that someone recently took from it was “Maa ka saya”- Fitting to our brand.
How is Masaya different?
When Masaya started, it was out of an opportunity, however throughout our journey Masaya built itself through trial and error. Masaya’s beliefs on how you want to contribute
to the society was decided from the very beginning.
Even though there are brands that are sustainable, you trying to introduce a brand with principles of sustainability is still adding to the solution of say waste generation or global warming. One brand in one category cannot solve the existing pile of global issues.
Through showcasing our designs to our audience and making the adequate changes based on their feedback and getting to know the market better, we laid down our beliefs:
- Support Indian handicrafts and artisans
- Sustainability & Quality
- Gender Neutrality
- Unique product designs
- Choosing our Craft
What makes people come to Masaya?
I feel what attracts our customers most is the experience we offer; in other words, we make their ideas come to life using our expertise.
Our Name Pillows are our most unique product I would say, the story behind it is one I don’t remember. I believe it was a request from a customer, that led to an idea and now to its many iterations. It has now gone on to become one of the most sought-after products. Had we not given it a try we probably would not have introduced this category.
Art of Masaya
Each of our pieces is meticulously researched and designed to ensure that we build upon yours and your little one’s sense of wonder. The design process itself takes different forms before its final conceptualization, where we see if our designs have the following principle elements: gender neutrality, an educational property, and a story for the little ones to dream. Our motifs are hand drawn and curated into patterns for each of our furnishing pieces, this ensures that each product we produce has its own charm however they also come together for a complete experience. We then work with artisans who bring our characters to life by hand printing each piece and embodying it with generations of culture and traditions. At last we have your own unique piece in the softest cotton wrapped with motherly warmth ready specially for your little one.
Masaya's goal is to communicate with people through Art along while sustaining India’s arts and crafts. Hence, most of our products are handmade, as we increase the awareness amongst people about local, handcrafted and sustainability. At Masaya we grow with the community around us, and believe in building a family.