Homegrown Feature

Exciting news!

Krishna Morzaria, our Founder and Creative Director was featured in Homegrown!!

You can read the full article right here.

HG: Could you tell us about the generation in your family where the varying ethnicity mixed marriage happened, and the story behind how and where they met, when it happened, and so forth?

KM: It was definitely fate. My mum is German with Czechoslovakian ancestry and her job in the garment industry required her to spend six months in Hong Kong, Philippines and India. My Gujarati dad who was born in Africa, fled Uganda with his family in 1970 before Idi Amin took over. They happened to meet in Bangalore and fall in love. Right place. Right time.

HG: What are the challenges you face in terms of identity, and cultural context of living in India with a mixed ethnicity? Could you tell us about the challenges faced by the previous generation of the mixed marriage, that you know of?

KM: My mum decided not to go back to Germany at the end of her trip. I’m sure there were reluctant relatives on both sides as with any family or any union. If she found it hard to adapt to the Indian culture, she didn’t show it. In fact, her business is thriving and she has even helped me start up my own Interior Design business. 

I consider myself a Bangalorean, I was born and brought up here. Amusingly, I have a German passport and I'm considered an OCI, while my mum, who unlike me was born in Germany, is considered a PIO! I think Bangalore is a cosmopolitan city with such a unique blend of cultures that I fit in quite well. There is that occasional squabble with a shop keeper when I’m charged the “tourist rate”.

HG: How have the food, traditions, lifestyle, values of your other ethnicity been a part of your life, if at all?

KM: I’m more or less vegetarian.. with the exception of Schnitzel and sausages! Does that count?! 

Every year we go to Germany to visit family we bring back a suitcase filled with groceries so we can cook authentic food at home. My German relatives love India so we always have someone coming to visit, keeping our stock of German food always complete.. I’m also a huge fan of beer, I love that I can have great beer, both in Dusseldorf and Bangalore.

HG: Being from a mixed blood background...

KM: Being from a mixed blood background has given me the ability to adapt to different situations. I'm deeply influenced by both Indian and European design sensibilities, which is partly why I created PureSpaces. I wanted to explore and show how there can be a happy medium between two cultures and perspectives.

Humble Beginnings

We’ve all been there, working from home in your PJ’s, Starbucks hopping for free wifi or two desks crammed into your parents garage. Famous multinationals like Apple, Google and KFC have been there but we at PureSpaces believe that humble can still look fabulous. Here are some images we took this morning of our two person home office. We are proud of our humble beginning and can’t wait to share our growth with you.