Hi, I’m Sneha — and I’ve been called a dreamer
for as long as I can remember, the eternal optimist, deep-feeling, and a perpetual seeker of aesthetically beautiful things.
I grew up in New Delhi, where my mother taught me that beauty is a way of living, not a luxury — in how she set a table, dressed, and made a house feel like a warm home. She handed me crayons before I could read, and storybooks shortly after. That was the beginning of everything creative; the early seeds had been sown.
In my late twenties, I moved to Canada chasing a lofty dream: a warm home, a thriving career, a safe and beautiful life. What I didn’t anticipate was how hard the becoming would be — a new country, -30 winters, nobody I knew. And then, in the middle of finding my footing, I became a mother.
The joy was unparalleled. So was the loneliness of raising a newborn without a village. I lost my job on maternity leave. I lost my sense of self somewhere in the fog. I kept asking: “Where am I in all of this? Who am I now? Who am I besides being a mom?” These were persistent questions that refused to leave my orbit.
I LOVE being a mom. It’s the most consuming, demanding, and rewarding role ever, but in the middle of diaper changes and toddler tantrums, I felt lost. I couldn’t find a source, a blog, or anybody that held all of it at once and spoke my voice — the books, the art, the longing for beauty, the very real chaos of mothering far from home, and the many interests and passions I carry as I became a new mom. So I decided to become that voice myself.
That’s Kalmeri Studio. Kalmeri — calm and merry — is both an aspiration and a practice: the life I’m building, slowly and intentionally, one seemingly ordinary day at a time. Here, I write about the books I can’t stop thinking about, the mandalas I make, the home I’m styling on a real budget, the meals that are quiet acts of love, the rituals that make me feel like myself again — and underneath all of it, the real kind of motherhood. Belly laughs, screen-free learning activities, hard days, and building a village from scratch.
I write for the woman I am and was two years ago, in the trenches of new motherhood and a lost job in the same breath, in a new country, in a new body, who also loved beautiful things but felt guilty wanting them. Who had creative fire and no permission or channel to express it.
You don’t have to choose between being a present mother and a creative woman. You don’t have to earn your rest.
If that’s you — welcome. You’re in the right place.
Sneha
Dreamy, book-loving, art-making mama — writing about the beautiful, intentional life she’s building.