Zameeni

Backstory

Alok has a wife, Manisha. Manisha has a passion for handloom sarees. Manisha also has an unused MBA degree. Alok has a cousin, Monica. And Monica is a great promoter of women who step out and step up and claim their space under the sun.

Manisha said she was working closely with weavers and was inspired to promote their work. I remembered a dialogue from the film Swades where Mohan and Gita were having a spat at dinner and the word ‘grassroot’ kept getting thrown around. The Google English to Hindi translation of ‘grassroot’ was ‘aadhaarabhoot’ and that sounded very loaded. But its plural (grassroots) was Zameeni. 

Manisha loved it. Alok felt it sounded similar to ‘Kameeni’ (loosely translated as Meanie (it rhymes) or Mean (it doesn’t rhyme) in English). An old uncle said it begins with Z, it will be last on the roll call. But I didn’t give them another name option. Some perks of being a bully family designer. Zameeni stayed and stayed in style.