Off the Beaten Track

Nikita Malhotra's business venture is aptly titled 'Chocolate Story'.

For these young city entrepreneurs engaged in unconventional businesses,no dream is too big to realise

Nikita Malhotra’s business venture is aptly titled ‘Chocolate Story’. She was 16 when she first started dabbling in chocolate-making at home. A year later,she was prodded into thinking business by her father. Books repel me, Malhotra says with a laugh. I knew I was not going to spend any time doing science or medical or any such degree. So after my 17 th birthday,my dad gave me a push to start a store. In 2009 came the first store in Kalyani Nagar at Big Cinemas. By the time she was 18,two more stores,at Aundh and at Koregaon Park,had come into being. The store pioneered the making of chocolate bouquets,and has established its reputation by creating customised chocolates for customers ranging from wedding parties to corporate events. I always had dreamt of owning a dessert store. But I realise now that there is so much to do in chocolates that I am going to stick to it, says Malhotra.

Like her,many youngsters in Pune have found unconventional career paths to exercise their talents. They may have come from more conventional academic backgrounds and have made a natural progression to appropriate jobs,but along the line decided to give it up and follow their passion. Twenty-nine-year-old Shishir Nikam worked as a trade analyst in Bengaluru for five years,before he decided he had had enough. The home-to-cubicle-and-back life was troubling me. That was not the kind of life I wanted, says Nikam. In 2007,he quit to come back to Pune and work from home. In May 2009,he started exploring and visiting places,and interacting with the people there. Traveling is my passion and I started researching on how I should be traveling, says Nikam. This was the start of his community-based travel company,Black Swan. In January last year,he quit for good and is now involved in organising travels to sometimes obscure places around Pune and Bengaluru. The travel agency has hosted close to 350 people so far as part of group and individual travels,has six destinations on its list and is planning to add Varanasi as the seventh. Back-packing made me realise that that is the way to travel. And interactions with the locals helps change perspectives, he says. Replicating his personal likings,he has introduced home-stays at destinations and organises meals at the homes of locals.

Another person who did the proverbial following of the heart is 28-year-old Karthik Natarajan. The trained architect admits to having wasted time” before he wound up to start Collective Independent. The firm involves itself in designing of all sorts,from posters to user interfaces for softwares. What sets it apart from other design firms is that it doesn’t limit itself to any particular field. One can’t be a specialist. One has to be a generalist to have a better understanding of how things work, says Natarajan. So they work along a spectrum that includes working with an ad agency to preparing graphic presentations for architects. We didn’t want to start something like an organisation which has employees. So there is no real structure here, says he.

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