Our story.

Ace steals another pair from the laundry. Third one this week. I pick it up — grey, fraying, forgettable — and I think: this is what gets made when nobody cares. I've been feeling the same way for two years. The question arrives and doesn't leave: why does everything in India carry a story except the thing on your feet? Then one afternoon, doing nothing, I catch myself saying something I've said ten thousand times. Aai, majhe moje kuthe ahet? Where are my socks? That's the name. Not invented. Remembered.

Someone asks: what does the brand look like? What does it feel? I don't know. So I do what I always do — I disappear into my own head. For months I turn the questions over. No answers come. But the obsession isn't going anywhere. Neither am I.

I start going to Starbucks every morning. Not for coffee — for the fiction of motion. If I'm out of the house, maybe something will happen. One morning, a college student across from me has an iPad, a stencil, and absolute focus. I watch for ten minutes. Then I ask: are you a designer? She is. I tell her about the brand. She pulls out a blank page. That's the first time Majhe Moje looks like something.

The first pitch is bad. The second is better. Ampere says yes. First B2B deal. First invoice. I have a real customer before I have a single D2C sale. Small thing. But a real thing.

Going D2C feels right. The only problem: no logistics partner, no marketing strategy, no execution plan. Just the belief that real things find real people. Stories of Winter goes live. Chapter 01 is in the world. I'll figure out the rest later.

Launch day. The website has bugs. Logistics aren't integrated. I have 5,000 pairs in a warehouse with no reliable way to sell them. This is what happens when belief outruns preparation. Expensive lesson. Very much paid.

The posts start hitting. Real reach, real orders — 600 pairs in January. Chapter 02, Perfectly Mismatched, drops. For one month it feels like breakthrough. Then the festive season ends. The numbers settle. I keep going — differently.

The numbers aren't impressive. The brand isn't famous. But every day, one more person puts on a Moje and feels like they're wearing something that means something. That's enough to keep going. Chapter 03 is next.