A Day in Kochi with soft-geometry’s Utharaa Zacharias

Utharaa's portrait by Palaash Chaudhary.

Utharaa Zacharias is the co-founder of Soft-geometry, a design studio creating collectible furniture and objects that serve as poignant reflections on the universal yearning for softness in an often harsh world. Utharaa established the studio in 2019 with Palaash Chaudhary, after completing their Masters in Furniture and Industrial Design, respectively, at the Savannah College of Art & Design. With the narrative backdrop of Zacharias and Chaudhary’s own experiences of living and working between cultures in India and the US, soft-geometry’s objects explore the suspension between contemporary geometries and ritualistic hand-building inspired by Indian craft traditions.

During the months of August and September, Utharaa traveled to Kochi, Kerala, where she is originally from, with Palaash for what she describes as their annual “research and family trip.” She decided to chronicle one of the days for Madame Architect, a day that involves pookkalam, Onam sadya, and a return to where Utharaa and Palaash were married.

6:30 AM: I’m waking up to rain in my childhood home. It is the most familiar thing in the world, which is odd considering I so rarely get to experience this tail end of the monsoon season in India.

I’ve settled into a morning routine of coffee that my mom hands me with a kiss, which I take out to the balcony. I only drink coffee in India—because it’s essentially dessert! The rain is beating down heavily, and I’m getting the occasional splatter at my feet. The sound, the smell, the chill in the humid air—it’s a treat.

7:00 AM: The house is already bustling. Everyone's home because Onam, Kerala’s harvest festival, is just two days away. This marks my first Onam since leaving for the US in 2015, and it’s Palaash’s very first celebration.

Pookkalam—an arrangement of fresh flowers forming a pattern on the floor. Courtesy of Utharaa.

We’re starting the festivities with a pookkalam—an arrangement of fresh flowers forming a pattern on the floor. My sister gets an Onam playlist going, and we settle into the corners of our small courtyard, beginning to separate the petals from their stems. The scent of fresh marigolds fills the air. I feel so happy to be being reunited in this tradition where the whole family is arranging flower petals. It’s not easy work though; Palaash improvises by using a hula hoop to draw the pattern on the floor for the flowers, speeding us along. My mom and grandmom feed us breakfast during our breaks, our backs aching from being bent over. After almost three hours, we’re tired but pleased with our pookkalam.

10:30 AM: My dad gathers us outside the house and proudly walks us to his sprawling vegetable and fruit garden. The two teak trees now tower over thirty feet, with bananas ready to harvest, eggplants, gourds, chilies, and a mango tree almost ready to bear fruit.

11:00 AM: Palaash and I have a research trip planned for the morning. We’re driving to Neytt—a 100-year-old rug weaving facility. The drive is poetic—the rain has cleared, and the backwaters glimmer on either side of the road, with lush green paddy and coconut trees cradling the sky. Palaash stops a dozen times to take photos and I’m grateful as always to have grown up in this picturesque landscape.

11:30 AM: At Neytt, we’re greeted by Sivan Santhosh, the fourth-generation son of the family business, who gives us an extensive tour of how yarns are sourced, separated, dyed, mixed, braided into cords, and woven on massive looms. Sivan speaks with passion, touching on details and stories of their weaving heritage, sharing his dreams for the future of the business while we walk through different stages of the meticulous work that goes into crafting each rug. My mind wanders to what it would mean for soft-geometry to create a rug and what would make it soft beyond its tactility.

2:00 PM: We navigate through the Onam traffic to get back home, just in time for this season’s first Onam sadya—a 30-dish vegetarian feast served on banana leaves during the festival. We lay out the banana leaves and begin placing each dish along their lengths. My uncles, aunts, grandmas, and cousins have joined us, and we take turns serving and enjoying the sadya amidst loud stories and laughter. The delightful chaos eventually dissolves into afternoon naps sprawled along the living room furniture and floor.

4:30 PM: In the afternoon, we take a break from the festivities and venture out to my favorite part of Kochi—Fort Kochi, a historic neighborhood on the coast, renowned for its Dutch architecture and diverse culture. I love coming to Fort Kochi because it is a great ground to notice things and be inspired, it allows me to play both tourist and local. We stroll through the quaint streets, weaving in and out of the many gallery cafés, stores, and churches.

5:30 PM: I particularly adore Kashi Art Café, where everything feels just as it did when I used to visit with my high school friends. The art at Kashi has always been exceptional; some newer works include a series of paintings of Buddhist children and a striking wall of metal relief work alternating between portraits of Gandhi and Nehru to great effect. I don’t need the menu to order “the cake”—a chocolate cake drowned in a special sauce made with condensed milk. Sweet, nostalgic, divine.

7:00 PM: After our long walk, we treat ourselves to ayurvedic massages—a ritual I cherish during every trip home. As always, the masseuse gently touches my shoulders and remarks on their stiffness, a sign of my chronic worrying. I quickly sink into the earthy scent of the oils, embrace the silence—no music—and drift away into the massage. When I wake up, I feel like a happy child, restored, refreshed, and profoundly grateful for the ease in my shoulders.

8:00 PM: We take our final walk of the day along the water, passing the iconic Chinese fishing nets and the bustling line for the ferry, arriving at Brunton Boatyard—an english oatyard turned hotel, where Palaash and I got married two years ago. We check into our charming room and fall in love with the traditional, carved four-poster bed that takes center stage, flanked by wood doors opening to a balcony overlooking the water.

After showering and changing, we head to the restaurant, wandering through the corridors that hold memories of our wedding day—the courtyard where we gathered, the arched windows that frame it, and the boat ride that brought us here.

9:30 PM: We return to our room, sit on the balcony with some beers, and listen to the horns of the ferry shuttling people, bikes, and cars across the water. I finally climb into bed, under a delightful painting of a playful cow, reflecting on a perfect day—the completeness, contentment and softness I feel in everything here—half wondering when we will be able to move back home for good.