Is this a quintessential ?home-sick NRI coming back to her roots? story? New York-based fashion designer Sanjana Rebecca John insists that she?s returning with more than just designs on Indian brides and this country?s ever-growing tribe of fashion victims. She?s coming to India with a mission: ?To introduce professionalism to the Indian fashion industry.?

That?s a familiar-sounding mantra and it could ruffle feathers in the fashion fraternity. But Sanjana insists that fashion should be more than just about clothes. Says the designer, ?For me, fashion is a state of mind. It should be comfortable, stylish and above all classy.? Sanjana says she learnt these overarching fashion rules from her celeb designer brother, Anand John, who has now hit the jackpot with his label Anand John in Hollywood.

Armed with strong backing from big brother, Sanjana is now all set to introduce her label, Sanjana NY, in the first quarter of 2005. For starters, she?ll launch a range of ?loungerie?, which in her words is, ?fashionable partywear that can be worn to a disco or to a formal dinner.? The loungerie range will initially be retailed through retail chains such as Ogaan, Kimaya and Ensemble. ?Later, I intend to set up my own retail outlets in Delhi and Mumbai, but that will be done only after I test the market through existing established fashion stores,? she explains.

However, she isn?t about to ignore the biggest market of all and her queen-sized plans for the Indian market include an exclusive boutique dedicated to the big fat Indian wedding. ?Weddings are big in India, especially in north India. I want to tap this market and make available a range of bridal wear that is both fashionable and affordable,? she says. It?s not just trousseaus that are on Sanjana?s mind. She aims to bring in the entire range of wedding solutions to the already saturated wedding industry in the country.

?My company will provide all the services required for a designer wedding ? from clothes and food to d?cor and packaging,? says Sanjana, who believes that a designer?s job does not end with dressing up the bride. ?From relatives to friends, everyone and everything involved will be taken care of by us,? she adds.

And how does she hope to beat the more established homegrown wedding planners? ?I am not in competition with the wedding planners because I am a designer. My job is to give the creative edge, so maybe I will work in tandem with the established guys here. My first job is always to make the best trousseau, after all,? she quickly clarifies.

However, Sanjana admits that bridal finery will be virgin territory considering that both she and Anand have so far only focused on Westernwear. After all, lehnga-cholis would have gone down well at the fashion weeks in New York or Milan where the sister-brother duo first attracted international attention. And clearly, the Indian trousseau market is not about ball gowns, ask JJ Valaya if you must.

Sanjana explains, ?Well, the Indian fashion market is not about Westernwear either at this point. It is still Indian ethnicwear that sells the most, which is why we would like to enter India by giving it what it wants.? As for Westernwear, she?s betting on her loungerie to strike gold thanks to the hip metro crowd. ?There?s a market for that too, but the big bucks still come from trousseaus,? she adds confidently.

Clearly, being a marketing graduate has given her a nose for the big bucks. In fact, Sanjana learnt the ?tricks of the trade? while she started handling the marketing side of the Anand John label. ?I handled the actual running of Anand?s label, and left him to his creative whims. However, over a period of time I realised I was doing more than just accounting. I was equally interested in designing.? Which is when Anand took her under his wing and they started designing as a team.

However, the sibling revelry ended soon after Anand trained his eyes on Hollywood. With big brother now training to become an actor in the next M Night Shyamalan venture, it?s upto Sanjana to keep the designer flag flying. But then Sanjana too is no stranger to Hollywood, what with the likes of Paris Hilton and Alanis Morissette among her buddy/client list. But for a family packed with illustrious personalities, getting into the right circle is not all that tough. Consider this: Sanjana?s uncle Zach Zacharia is a great buddy of the US President and is tipped to become a governor soon. And most of us have heard of her other famous uncle Yesudas, who wowed India with his singing genius.

But Sanjana is embarrassed when reminded of her heavyweight connections. Says she, ?I do not want to achieve anything by piggybacking on my relatives. I believe in myself.? She claims that her self-belief comes from her spiritual side. ?I never believed in angels and gods. But after I was rescued from a fire, I believe miracles do happen,? she says, relating how a stranger actually jumped through a window and got her out of her house which was gutted by fire due to a short circuit.

But then she is not depending on a miracle to make it big in the Indian fashion world. She is sure that all that?s needed is professionalism, creativity and business acumen. And Sanjana is confident that she has all of that ? and more.

Photograph by Rupinder Singh