story

Childcare services, Daycare, Early Education for both individuals and corporates.

Backstory

The Little Company was born in the living room of my first home in Bangalore. It was a compact two-bedroom, with my first born Isha and husband Mihir and loads and loads of guests. One visitor was Mihir’s childhood friend – Amrita. She came visiting with her infant son and maid in tow.

Amrita was and still is extremely forthright, almost to the point of being shameless. But politely shameless. She has the ability to call you an idiot in the most gentle manner and have you thank her for pointing it out. Anyways, Amu, as I would come to fondly call her, was not the type to stay at home and be all Mother India. She was ready to take on the world. Not being satisfied with the daycare services available in Bombay, she decided to open one. She had no prior qualifications or experience in the domain, but then again, she had no prior qualifications or experience in being a mother. Yet, here she was, in my living room, infant in lap, love in heart and ideas in head.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

Little Company came out as a joke. She said she wanted to build a professional daycare service. I said, “What! You want to start a company for little children?” And just like that, Little Company was born. She added ‘The’ before ‘Little Company’ to make it ‘The Little Company,’ so that it could be made into the acronym ‘TLC’ that was synonymous with Tender Loving Care. It was a masterstroke.

As TLC grew big, Amu and I grew close. We have fought fiercely and loved deeply. The design cycle was always whirling, brief to design timeline collapsing, centres launching. I remember one time when Mihir took ill, and I was stretched between hospital and home, Amu gave blanket instructions to 180 members of her staff not to send any work-related email or phone or text to me until she lifted the ban. Another time I was stressed out over some random stuff, she packed her bags and mine, dumped all the kids in the car and drove to Goa. Picked up her parents from Pune en route so that they could babysit the kids as she nursed me back to wellness. Martin’s fish curry and beer played a role in this recovery, but it was significantly her doing. And being.

12 years and 10 months later, with kids all grown up, and the venture having served her purpose, she sold her company. TLC was acquired by an investment fund that was looking to consolidate the Daycare business in India.

Imagine, if she wasn’t satisfied with the Universities in India. Chances are that she would have opened her own.

When we closed TLC, we had 5013 creative units designed and executed. I am going to put up none below. I mean, where do I even start, what do I even choose? Let nostalgia remain in this textual description.

I will be doing designs for Amrita until she pops it. From labels that her children would put on their schoolbooks and water bottles, to her 40 years coffee table book, to anything and everything for The Little Company and her next venture Back to Source. My husband’s childhood companion has transitioned to being my professional spouse and 2 am friend and ours is an Atrangi Yaari.