Moonlight Mantras: The Home of Cultural Kids Toys
Moonlight Mantras is a company created to continue the legacy of Indian culture through the generations. It was founded by two women, Nita and Sarita, who come from two different generations (Gen X and Millennial) but share a strong passion for preserving the Indian culture.
As time goes on, it is evident that our culture and traditions are being diluted, and we are becoming increasingly westernised. With each generation, fewer people are able to speak their mother tongue, our traditional foods are being replaced by processed alternatives, our Ayurvedic remedies are being substituted with pharmaceuticals, and the teachings from our spiritual scriptures are slowly being forgotten in the chase for consumerism. While we have gained so much from the West, there is immense wisdom in our culture that we risk losing if we don’t actively practice and keep it alive. Our culture gives us a shared community, a sense of belonging and a source of guidance during difficult times. Keeping these traditions alive isn’t just about preserving the past—it’s about enriching our present and future.
We have chosen to focus on creating products specifically for children because it is during childhood that our brains are the most receptive. This gives us the window of opportunity to instil values and teachings from our culture that can stay with a child for the rest of their life.
We hope you join our mission at Moonlight Mantras and become part of a community that cherishes the beauty of the Indian culture, honours the wisdom of our ancestors and keeps the flame of our traditions burning bright for generations to come. Together, we invite you to explore our product offering, designed to pass on the richness of our heritage to our children and beyond. We are in a continous process of innovation with the aim to bring you and your kids fun and culturally educating experiences.
Sarita Thakrar
Hi, my name is Sarita and I’m the co-founder of Moonlight Mantras. A bit about myself; I am the youngest of 3 siblings, I have a niece and nephew who inspired this brand and a very supportive mum and dad who made me realise the necessity of this initiative. I left my corporate job in 2018 to look for a way to live my life in a more fulfilling way. Acting on intuition, I handed in my notice, during Christmas I completed my final day in the EY London Bridge office and before the new year I was on a flight to Mumbai. My journey with yoga started there and unknowingly paved the way for my new career path.
For those who know me will tell you that my number one love in life is India. My mum thinks I must have some past life connection with India because she was born there and as much as she loves it, even she’s not as attached as I am! The country, the people, the culture, the food..the list goes on.
My upbringing exposed me to the Indian culture and Hindu religion since birth and the school I went to for almost 15 years, although an ordinary British school, with a mix of all ethnicities, taught Sanskrit, teachings from the Gita and meditation. Unfortunately then I felt like I shunned a lot of this as it wasn’t the “cool” thing but it’s ironic how you always return back home (thank you St James for my solid foundation and I wish I’d appreciated you more back then!).
As it happens, life has done a full 360 as now my purpose and mission with my future children and hopefully many other children through Moonlight Mantras is to spread the magical, colourful and important teachings from the Indian culture. The unfulfillment I felt in my corporate job led me to the only place I intuitively felt would give me answers to my next chapter, India. There I discovered the science of Yoga. Training, learning, practicing and teaching over many months and years uncovered my innate passion; the Indian culture. When I reflect on my life, it was this that gave me my identity, my community and my direction. I appreciate and love so many parts of the West where I’m grateful to have been born and brought up but the thought of my future children living in a completely Westernised society scares me. I want them to have the same North Star to guide them and add wind to their sails. Faith and certain traditions I’ve been brought up with are what I have leaned on through the tougher times in my life and I feel there’s nothing that can match that support.
We have put our heartfelt energy into creating a playful product which we feel is a solid start to embedding culture into a child’s life as language and mother tongue is like a child’s passport to their culture. It’s one of the first entry points they have to access and absorb their heritage from a young age.
Nita and I have learned through the multiple stages of this process how much time and commitment it requires and we don’t want to rush any product we put out. So please bear with us while we develop our product offering, we have so much in store to share with you.
We promise to put thought, love and devotion into every product we create and hope you join us on this mission of passing the magic of India down through the generations.
Nita Kara
Hello! My name is Nita, and like my co-founder Sarita, I'm part of a trio of siblings. Growing up as the eldest, I often felt like an only child, as my two younger brothers felt more like my little ones than my siblings. My roots run deep in a family devoted to Swaminarayan and that's where my journey began.
I was that kid who always brought homemade lunches to school, packed with cheese, salad and chutney, along with homemade nutritional bars called "mature" and a rainbow selection of fruits, while my friends indulged in chips, pizzas, and custard pie. Our home was a lively hub, constantly buzzing with extended family members. It was the regular gathering spot for sabha, whether it was kirtan or satsang. Weekends meant Bollywood movies with family, I woke up to the tunes of Sunrise Radio and the best part was summers spent in India and Africa, road-tripping with my cousins and living the true Eastern way of life.
Back then, I was made to feel a lot of this and many of our regular traditions were uncool and rather weak, so I often dimmed my light to “fit in”….but that was until I met my soulmate, my husband, the person I could be myself with.
Fast-forward to today…that lunch-packing kid has grown into someone who embraces clean, high-vibration eating, intermittent fasting and natural remedies from the kitchen.
Throughout my adult working life, whether at the BBC, running a estate agency, owning a wellbeing and aesthetic clinic, or assisting my husband with his various entrepreneurial ventures, I feel like I’ve unintentionally ended up on these paths rather than consciously choosing them.
Last year, everything shifted with the birth of my youngest brother's first child, Khyl. Unlike my other brother and me, who belong to Generation X, Khyl's parents are millennials. This created a stark contrast between my 20-year-old daughter Nya, who was raised with a deeply ingrained Indian culture, and Khyl, whose cultural exposure felt diluted. It felt like we were on a fast track to losing our cultural heritage.
Reflecting on my life, I realised how deeply the principles of karma and dharma were embedded in growing up, reminding us of our responsibilities and the importance of upholding strong ethics. These principles have served as a moral compass through all life decisions and challenges, ultimately giving me a sense of direction and identity.
Though Khyl marked a pivotal moment, this isn't just about him, it's a broader issue affecting all children of his generation and those to come as cultural identity is on the decline.
Whatever your culture, it’s “cool and exotic” to be different. This uniqueness makes us special. The values, language, beliefs, food, art and history that culture offer are too precious to lose. Today, I recognise one of my biggest blessings is living in a Western society while my heritage is rooted in the East. I don’t believe this was a random act, and I embrace the best of both worlds and everything and everyone it has brought into my life.
On that note, as if by cosmic design, Sarita entered my life with the idea of Moonlight Mantras.
For the first time, I consciously chose to take a purposeful path to support the mission of preserving our culture for future generations. To spread the knowledge, wisdom and important teachings from our Indian culture during a time when loneliness and identity crises are a global issue.
And so, our new journey began…
Moonlight Mantras
The Home of Cultural Kids Toys
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