About Karma

A peek in the window reveals richly colored hand woven textiles in lush patterns and jeweled stripes, elegant and earthy beaded necklaces and earrings, carved statuary, and sculptural vessels in ceramic and metal while Indian rhythms, Delta Blues or Latin jazz waft out the door.

Step inside, that's when the fun starts. Karma is all about fusion—part specialty retail, part gallery, part cultural exchange. Karma blends traditional techniques and modern sensibility, bridging cultures through fair trade.

Visit Karma today to see our current selection of fine imported crafts.

Meet the People of Karma

Karma is the creation of Phuni Kim Meston and her husband, Daja Wangchuk Meston, who possess the temperaments of gracious hosts and exude lighthearted calm. Their lives are shaped by a fusion of their remarkable cultural backgrounds and experiences. She is Tibetan, raised in a refugee camp in south India by nomadic parents forced to flee their homeland following the Chinese invasion. He is the child of American Jewish parents and raised as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Nepal. They met in a bookstore in Boston and married soon after. Their lives have continued on an intertwining path of unlikely connections, global influences and life altering encounters with sociopolitical events.

With fifteen years of retail and high-end fashion experience under her belt, Phuni wasn’t looking to start her own business when a Newton storefront became in early 2006. "I had recently finished my degree in sociology and women’s studies at Brandeis and was dedicating more time to my activist work on human rights, concentrating especially on supporting Tibetan women’s rights and eradicating human trafficking. Wangchuk was hard at work on the last chapters of his memoir, Comes the Peace." After quick consideration they decided to take the leap and establish a socially responsible business that would allow them to source fairly traded products and open new markets for high quality, traditionally produced crafts by artisans from Asia and around the world. In endlessly subtle ways, the Meston’s experiences and passions are echoed on the walls and shelves of their store.