I left the copper pot behind. Years later, it brought me home.
I grew up in Ludhiana, Punjab, the youngest of four, in a house where my Nani ran everything.
Every night before bed, she filled a dented copper lota and left it on the windowsill. Every morning, before the chai, she poured each of us a small glass of water.
Nobody asked why. That was simply how mornings began.
In 1994, my husband Rajiv and I moved to Canada with two suitcases. We settled into a basement apartment in Brampton. I had packed my wedding jewellery, a pressure cooker and my mother’s recipe notebook.
The lota stayed behind.
At twenty-nine, with a new country ahead of me, it felt silly to pack a water pot.
For the next twenty-five years, life was full. I did the books for a car dealership in Mississauga. We raised two children. There were school runs, bills and winters I never quite got used to.
Somewhere along the way, I forgot about the water on the windowsill.
Then, in 2019, Nani passed away.
After her funeral, my cousin handed me a small cloth bundle. Inside was her lota, still dented, with a dark patina along the rim.
“She said it was for you.”
This time, I brought it home.
I put it on my windowsill in Mississauga and began filling it before bed. It took ten seconds. But those ten seconds became something I looked forward to: a small pause at the end of the day, and a moment to think about her.
My daughter Priya noticed. She wanted a copper vessel for her own home. Then my neighbour Linda asked about the one on my windowsill.
When I began looking for something to recommend, I realised how much mattered to me. It had to be beautiful enough to leave out. Practical enough to use every day. And it needed to come with the story of the tradition that had brought it into our home.
Those conversations became the beginning of Ayurveda Heritage.
I started with copper bottles because that was the ritual I knew: filling a vessel at night and making a little room for yourself in the morning. A bottle could fit into my daughter’s life in a way my grandmother’s lota might not.
Through the brand, I share the traditions I grew up with and the ways I have made space for them here in Canada.
I still keep Nani’s lota on my windowsill.
When people ask why, I tell them about her. About our busy kitchen in Ludhiana. About the water before the chai.
And about how something I once thought wasn’t worth packing became the beginning of something I wanted to share.
— Meera
Founder, Ayurveda Heritage