On a recent weekend, a Morgan Hill home’s two-car garage was transformed into something dazzling.
Fingers grazed sequined saris and embroidered chaniya cholis lining the walls, and reached for the gold and silver jewelry that shimmered from the center table. Shoppers chattered in Hindi and Gujarati.
“Aunty, you are sparkling,” one woman called across the room to an elderly woman trying on a patterned salwar.
This is Nivy’s Nook, the homegrown boutique Nimisha Jadav runs out of her garage. In between hangers and clothing racks, she pulled options for shoppers and peeled away packaging, excitedly showing Rakhee Mohanty what she brought back for Mohanty’s daughter from India.
“I felt like I was shopping for my daughter,” laughed Jadav, holding up a multicolored sharara with a sequined crop top.
“It’s so beautiful,” replies Mohanty. “Perfect for Diwali.”
As the festival of lights and new beginnings approaches, Nivy’s Nook stands as a cultural anchor in the South Bay: a gathering place, and a touchstone of culture, memory and belonging.
Looking in a mirror, Pooja Sharma held an earring up to her ear.
“Once you move out of India, you really want to embrace the roots more,” she explained. “The fact that [Jadav] is even conducting this [pop-up shop] close to the festival shows that we all want to be connected. I think the importance is there’s a sense of belongingness where you feel like you have your people here.”
Jadav started the business nearly a decade ago, despite the many warnings from her friends, she said. At first she kept her job as an accountant, but last year she devoted herself to the boutique full time.
“I think of it as my passion,” she said. “I have the opportunity to turn [it] into something that is out there to help people.”
Each year Jadav returns to her home country of India, gathering textiles and jewelry to bring back to the Bay Area. But the shop is more than a marketplace — every thread carries a memory.
“It’s my tradition,” she said. “It’s something I’ve seen our mothers wear, our grandmothers wear and I feel like when I wear a sari, it takes me back home.”
That sense of belonging is what Jadav craved when she first immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult in 1986. She lived in Washington and Texas before moving to the Bay Area. She recalled being ridiculed for her skin color, food and clothing.
“I was picked upon because I was brown-skinned. I was picked upon because I was eating this weird food that the normal American people don’t eat,” she said.
But when she moved to San José in 1999, she said she felt welcomed.
“The way I dressed was not an issue, putting a bindi on was not an issue and wearing Indian clothes and going to the grocery store is not a weird thing,” she said. “So that is where you feel like you belong.”
Her experience is part of a much longer history of South Asians making a home in California. The first documented Indian immigrants arrived as early as 1857, possibly working in the gold fields. But it wasn’t until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — which removed quotas on Asian immigrants — that South Asians increasingly made their way to California, drawn by educational opportunities and high-tech jobs.
Many settled in Silicon Valley, helping make California one of the top three states for South Asian immigrants. By 1993, Indians made up 23% of the Bay Area’s foreign-born engineers. Today, Asians account for 37% of the population in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, with a large share of that growth driven by Chinese and Indian communities.
The connections forged at Nivy’s Nook rarely end with a sale. For Vidya Srinivas of Los Banos, a sari she bought from Jadav ten years ago marked the beginning of a relationship that still endures.
“We are a family,” Srinivas said. “I’ve seen her kids grow up, she knows my kids [and] they know Nimisha Aunty.”
When Srinivas lost a cousin suddenly, she said Jadav was there to comfort her.
“I was crying and she just called and said, ‘what’s happening?’ and we shared that bond,” said Srinivas. “She knew what to do, just being there, just to listen.”
Jadav, too, has leaned on this community. After losing her mother, brother and sister in quick succession, she said the Nivy’s Nook circle carried her through grief.
“A lot of unknown people that didn’t know me, they all came together,” she remembered.
Customers dropped off food and texted her messages of support, she said.
“‘Hope you’re okay today. You’ll get through this,’” she recalled. “It made me realize that I’m not alone and I have somebody who’s got my back and I wanna be that for someone.”
For many shoppers, Jadav’s garage feels like stepping into India.
Harbans Chhabra, an elderly woman living in Morgan Hill, explained in Hindi: “Even in India, I have to look for places to go. Here, you can easily get clothes — Especially at my age, it’s nice to be able to do that.”
Younger visitors see the space as a bridge to their heritage. Ritika Kumar, who grew up in San José, said Jadav — who she also affectionately calls “Aunty” — holds generational knowledge.
“There’s all these different prints that come from different parts of India, and Nimisha Aunty, whether or not she carries it directly, has access to getting those, which as a first generation, I could have never dreamt of having access to,” Kumar said. “I want to stay connected to my roots and it matters to me because it is my identity.”
Srinivas adds that Jadav has to be well-versed in the diverse traditions of India to source the right materials.
“She knows for [the Hindu festival] Sankranti, usually for South Indians, that’s the only time we wear black,” Srinivas described. “So she will have a range of black with different prints.”
Deepali Khullar, who recently visited for the first time, said she was struck by the energy in the room.
“People are chit-chatting, catching up with each other. Some know each other, some don’t,” Khullar said. “I really appreciate somebody like Nimisha who’s taking that commitment to really converting her home into a place where community members can come and find good things and feel pretty.”
Sharma stressed the role Jadav plays in local festivals. Sharma, who helps organize South Bay Diwali events, said: “[Nivy’s Nook] was one of the sponsors [of our annual festival] and they supported the community.”
Nimisha Jadav is building community piece by piece, showing up for her friends, and sometimes precious moments are just facilitated by her space.
Jadav brushes off the idea that her work is unusual. “I think somewhere in our Desi culture … there is always willingness to help and step up and be there for someone in time of need,” she said.
Nivy’s Nook is a place for refuge, a mirror of cultural pride and sometimes even a shoulder to cry on.
And many times, as her friend Srinivas put it: “It starts with one sari.”
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