Stories from the Atelier - Mahindra Zala
Mahindra Zala is a third-generation karigar, with his family long involved in tailoring. In his attempt to escape a life that felt predetermined, he left home, only to find himself returning to the very world he once tried so hard to avoid.
It was through his father that Mahindra met Ansar Master, the man he would one day call his guru. In the early years, Masterji absorbed every lesson as if gathering light: the discipline, the patience, the secrets folded into every seam. “He taught me everything I know,” he says even now, the weight of that gratitude steady in his voice. Those lessons became the spine of his craft, shaping the hands that would later build Papa Don’t Preach’s embellished couture bridal wear, thread by thread, memory by memory.
Mahindraji found an unexpected sense of purpose in the costume departments of the film industry, drawn by the glamour and energy of Bollywood. After years of running from tailoring, he returned to it, realising that the problem had never been the craft itself but the environment he grew up around. “I still remember how giddy I felt when I met Rekhaji for the first time and took a picture with her.”
He eventually began working with luxury designer Neeta Lulla. “It was the first time I was earning a good income, and my ambitions grew with it,” he says. He felt that his life finally found direction until he suffered a paralytic attack at the age of fifty-two, bringing everything to a halt. He describes those years as the most difficult of his life. “I had to give up work for a few years. It was the first time since I was a teenager that I felt aimless.”
After years of debilitating struggle, his course shifted when a designer from Papa Don’t Preach somehow found his number. To this day, he laughs and says he has no idea how she came across it. She invited him to meet Shubhika and stitch an outfit on a trial basis. His first garment impressed her, and he soon joined a tiny seven-member unit whose energy reminded him of everything he once loved about this world, especially the meticulous couture craft techniques.
Today, he is known as ‘Masterji’, a title given only to those whose hands have mastered their craft. His precision in cutting, his quiet authority in stitching, and his instinct for pattern making form the very structure of Papa Don’t Preach’s handmade designer lehengas and the wider universe of luxury wear that surrounds them.
On every Papa Don’t Preach label, his name and the names of his team sit alongside the garment they brought to life.
As Shubhika often says, “Li Edelkoort famously said that it takes an army to create one single outfit. But it’s only in fashion that you see one person’s name at the end, credited as the designer. I wanted to change that.”
In that shift lies acknowledgment stitched permanently into the story of every piece created by Masterji and his team.