TWO decades back, they left promising careers to take the road less travelled. They set up a studio, in the stillest corner of their home, letting destiny carve out a path for them. Being artists who were not just in sync with their creative processes but also with nature and their environment, today they bless the day they gave up structured jobs in favour of a joint partnership.

Achal and Achla — their names too blend harmoniously almost as if they were two sides of the same coin — met at Interads, an advertising agency, in 1980. He was a copywriter, she a commercial artist. When an offer for teaching came her way, she took it up. The prospect of watching little Picassos at work was tempting, so much so that an impending promotion at the agency could not hold her back. Four years of teaching tiny tots at Delhi’s Manavsthali and Springdales was an eye-opener. She says, "Children are the most gifted and spontaneous of artists. They don’t need tutoring. All they need is facilitation by way of encouragement and appreciation. Each child can paint a given theme differently. It is only when you start tutoring them that they come up with identical patterns which are not their own creations but mirror what you want them to think and draw."

Marriage and the birth of their daughter Aakriti heralded a new chapter in their lives. The setting up of their own enterprise "just happened on its own." Before taking the plunge, neither did they have any major discussions nor did they wait till they had landed with big assignments. Akriti Designers was launched with a small project — designing artwork for a pharmaceutical company’s cardboard cartons, labels, bottles and promotional material.

At the end of 16 years, the couple is happy to see their growth, both as human beings as well as professionals. The experiences they have amassed and the qualitative refinement that has come about in their work is because "we have no egos, but have a lot of enthusiasm and a joint pool of talent between us. Like any self-employed couple, we followed leads, made sales calls and answered advertisements." While Achal takes care of visualising and copywriting, Achla translates all of that into illustrations, cartoons, pictorials and sketches.

Their receptivity helped them move easily from one kind of work to another. Being disciplined and organised, they successfully operated and worked from home, a concept that was not popular in the late ‘80s. After designing pharma products, they were hired by a card company to design greeting cards. Besides being a good copywriter, Achal had a flair for writing poetry and witty one-liners. The country had just woken up to the card boom. Card manufacturing companies wanted to go beyond the standard birthday and anniversary greetings and were looking for people who could catch the fancy of users from different age groups. Achal says, "We worked on practically every theme and emotion reflected on the human canvas. We could see our creativity peaking as we stretched ourselves to come up with new ideas." Devising cardboard cutout puzzles for a company specialising in creative educational aids/games followed this.

By this time their daughter had started going to a play school. She would colour whatever came within her reach, whether it was walls, tabletops, flooring or her parent’s drawing sheets and easels. To keep her imaginative mind busy, the couple devised impromptu exercises. As if on cue, they received an offer from Frank Bros and later Cosmos Book Hive, publishing house specialising in titles for children, for devise a new set of workbooks for pre-schoolers. Since these have been very well received by schools, the husband-wife team now plans to target the next higher age group. Their visits to the circus and family farm found a way into their sketches and brainteasers as they converted real-life experiences into a voyage of discovery for children.

While both these artists were comfortable with their unconventional career, their families were a little confused if not worried about their joining an offbeat profession. Achla’s mother for instance could never figure out what work her prospective son-in-law did. Did copy writing involve some sort of copying work? Wanting to work from home may make a lot of sense today to those who do not wish to get stuck in regimented professions but way back in the 80s unless one had a flourishing industry or business, doing one’s own thing was something that only evoked doubtful looks.

Freelancing was no cakewalk for Achal and Achla. There were no perks that come with the job. Since needs were limited, the compulsion of ‘making it big’, ‘networking top clients’ or getting into the numbers game were never the guiding motives. They followed their instincts, took on work that appealed to them, worked for people whom they could relate to. This helped them retain their freedom and sanity, things they might have compromised had they worked in a structured job.

According to Achal, when your motives are clean you automatically gravitate towards likeminded people and goals. He strongly believes that if you invest all of yourself sincerely in whatever you do, your efforts will never go waste. There were times when they had what could technically be called a ‘bad experience’ — a client defaulting on payments. Instead of dragging him to court or exerting pressure to extract what was their rightful due, they moved on and realised that such an approach always pays off. Not just in spiritual and abstract terms, but in real and quantifiable terms.

Khan, publisher of Goodword Press who was looking for illustrators for a children’s series, got in touch with Achal and Achla. Both sides were ready to take on the commitment of re-writing stories from the Koran for children. A series of books, an omnibus, story books with illustrations and a set of activity and colouring books were planned. The project took off and received rave reviews in India and overseas. Another series is being planned on moral science, based on the Koran, for Muslim schools.

For this artist couple what matters more than the cheque at the end of the assignment is the relationship they have built with their client. Having simple needs, they have never had to cater to an endless wishlist. Their professional aspirations have been an offshoot of their desire to do something that they enjoy.