From the confines of a plush office and luxury of fixed work hours, to the grime of wholesale markets and deadlines, Bhatia’s life changed forever. Apart from the physical discomfort, for a start-up, there were several other things to be dealt with. “I didn’t have many employees then and had to do most things myself. The fabric market in the interiors of north Kolkata were very difficult to negotiate,” she says. And unfortunately, the city is yet to wake up to the concept of women directly dealing with vendors from remote areas. You have to rely on middle men to source fabrics. “But I hope to get rid of such hindrances soon,” she smiles.

“The best part of my work is client satisfaction. And my involvement in understanding their brand value,” says Bhatia, whose list of clients include Max Mueller Bhavan, Future Hope Foundation, Saturday Club, Bengal Rowing Club, Calcutta Swimming Club, among others. The designs created for Future Hope were accepted for their function head in Europe and was customised for the entire organisation.

But then, there are problems aplenty. “It’s a chain manufacturing process and requires a lot of coordination. The set-up needs a lot of support from ancillary divisions. The failure of one particular section results in breaking the chain. I am always working on deadlines as I primarily cater to clubs and corporates where events are all pre-scheduled. There are a lot of foreseen and unforeseen circumstances like bandhs, cable faults and power failure which delay the process of production and thus lead to failure in delivery,” says Bhatia.

... contd.