Today I met with two women whom I have known for years. The women I so fondly called “aunty” growing up. Great friends, caring mothers, fixtures at family gatherings. Women who existed in the soft blur of childhood memory: warm smiles, sari-clad elegance, gentle check-ins about school and life.
Today, I met them as Neerja Tata and Malini Mansukhani.
The artists. Two extremely level-headed and strong women with formidable artistic voices. Women who not only create art, but also live the values they translate onto canvas and cloth. Sitting across from them felt different this time.
Less like a child in their presence, and more like a witness to their becoming.
They are so different in their demeanour, and yet so aligned in spirit. There is Malini—outspoken, striking, expressive. Much like her portraits, she fills a room with her presence. There is movement in her words, conviction in her tone, and a fearless quality in the way she speaks about womanhood and identity.
“When I learned about portraits, I learned it should be more about who you actually are rather than who society deems you to be,” shares Malini. “It’s not nationality that’s important; you are a woman first. I find that makes it easier for me. The bit that takes the longest for me is the eyes… It’s the most important part of the face, I feel.”
Then, there is Neerja—calm, measured, articulate. Her sentences unfold thoughtfully, much like the intricate storytelling of Pattachitra. There is patience in her pauses, depth in her reflections, and an unmistakable discipline that mirrors the traditional art form she has so lovingly preserved and reinterpreted.
Long before their collaboration existed, both had firmly established practices of their own. Malini’s work has consistently centred bold, unapologetic women with faces that meet your gaze without hesitation.
Neerja, deeply rooted in the traditions of Pattachitra and Saura art, not only reinterprets the form in her own practice but also hosts monthly workshops, passing down techniques that require patience, precision, and reverence for lineage.
Two personalities and two art forms you may not imagine working together, and yet, they do. In complete harmony. A seamless interlacing of contrast and cohesion, much like their friendship.
Together, they are “Warp & Weft.”
“We always knew each other as artists doing different things,” explains Malini. “Firstly, I paint at the studio, and she [Neerja] paints at home, so we never crossed paths as artists. But I always saw her work and even went to her exhibitions as a solo artist, long before we started to collaborate. I was always very impressed and, more so, in awe as it was something I could not do. She possesses great expertise.”
Neerja reciprocates, “We met socially many times, and I’ve been to her [Malini’s] house many times. I felt all her pieces had something to say to me, so I was always amazed. Interestingly, I was painting on silk for the last 25 years; that’s how I learned to paint. It was only the last five years that we started collaborating, when I began painting on canvas.”
As we sat down over cups of homemade chai and bowls of roasted makhanas, the conversation drifted between laughter and long silences. It felt less like an interview and more like witnessing an unspoken language between two women who deeply respect each other’s craft.
At one point, I asked them if I were to remove the word “artist” from their identity, who would they be? A long, deafening silence took over the room. It wasn’t discomfort. It was contemplation.
Then softly, Neerja spoke in her gentle, grounded manner, “I’ve been painting for so many years now that it is a part of my identity. I travel, I cook, I have wonderful kids. But painting… painting is my passion.” There was no performance in her answer. Just the truth.
Malini nodded before adding, “Yes, it is a passion for both of us. I think definitely painting and being an artist right now is the most important thing to me.” Right now. That phrase lingered.
Because what I realised in that moment was that this wasn’t about titles. It wasn’t about exhibitions or acclaim. It was about commitment. About two women who have chosen art, consciously and consistently, for over three decades, not as an escape or a reinvention, but as a way of life.
Painting was never something they arrived at late or something they had to reclaim. It ran alongside everything else they built: families, friendships, full lives. Steady and uncompromised. Their identities as artists were never separate from who they were; they were simply woven in.
Perhaps the real beauty of Warp & Weft isn’t just in the art they create together. It’s in the space they hold for each other. To grow, to experiment, to learn, and to blend, without losing their individual voices.
Like threads on a loom, distinct in colour and texture, yet stronger when interwoven. And maybe that is who they would be without the word “artist.” Women who create. Not because they have to, but because it is who they have always been.
That commitment to art makes it even more fitting that their collaboration began without a grand plan. In 2020, Malini was working on a portrait of a woman in her favourite teals and blues. Hair flying in the wind, dressed in a striking red, embodying boldness and confidence.
Neerja, almost casually, suggested adding a traditional Pattachitra Tree of Life in the background, detailed, intricate, rooted in storytelling.
It wasn’t overthought. It wasn’t strategic. It just happened. And when the piece was finished, they both felt it. The painting had shifted. It felt fuller, more balanced. Unexpected in the best way.
“One look and we knew,” they told me, “this combination works.”
The duo broke down the balancing act of collaboration and individuality.
“What makes this work is the fact that we don’t paint the same thing,” says Malini. “If we did, we couldn’t collaborate. It’s a rare thing, what we do. Strangely, there is no stress or pressure. Both of us get the final say when we paint. So far, we have been very harmonious.
Sometimes I jokingly pull the age card, though, as I’m older. Neerja’s work has a definitive finish, but the thing we have to decide is whether we want more of it or not. That’s what I have to decide because it’s over the face that I paint.
We don’t feel the risk of ‘losing our individual identities or styles’ because we’re like opposites that attract. We’re still in that ‘is it good enough’ phase.”
“Our USP is that we’re two very different artists on the same canvas,” adds Neerja. “We have contrasting styles; if we did the same thing, it would not work. We would just be stuck critiquing each other.
There are times when Malini says, ‘go over the face,’ but I don’t want to because once I do, I feel like there’s no going back. For the paintings not to get repetitive, I really need to think hard and research a lot. To pick the right motifs and make sure they aren’t being overdone.
There are times I am just looking at the painting, and nothing changes for a day. Suddenly, it’ll strike me.”
They kept coming back to the same point: their difference is their strength. It makes their work more compelling. From a distance, you see Malini’s expressive portraiture full of emotion and presence. Step closer, and Neerja’s meticulous detailing reveals itself. The precision and patience weave storytelling and heritage subtly into the background.
Neither overpowers the other. Neither disappears.
Their first piece was meant to be nothing more than a fun experiment. It found several admirers almost immediately. Very quickly, Warp & Weft stopped being an experiment and became something intentional.
Portraiture meeting Pattachitra. Contemporary energy layered over traditional form. A dialogue rather than a fusion.
The turning point came eight or nine paintings down the line, when Pragna Singh, wife of the Indian Ambassador to Thailand, noticed their work and hosted an exhibition at her home for members of the diplomatic and cultural community. The response was strong.
Soon after, they exhibited their work at the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre in Bangkok, with 19 spectacular pieces on display.
What stayed with me was how calmly they spoke about everything. No theatrics. No, “we never expected this.” Just two artists who recognised something good when they saw it and kept going.
Warp & Weft didn’t feel like a calculated collaboration. It felt like something that was always waiting to happen.
However, nerves and related emotions are also natural. The excitement is unavoidable whilst presenting their work.
“Can I be frank? I get very excited,” says Malini. “I’m not really a person who thinks things are going to go badly; I actually think people are going to love it. Since Neerja is in charge, I never get nervous. She’s the practical person in this duo.”
“The only concern is that the paintings should reach safely and that the canvases shouldn’t get torn,” adds Neerja. “The thought of people not liking the pieces hasn’t yet struck me because art is subjective. Someone may like one painting and somebody else, the other.
Actually, we’re more excited for exhibitions than nervous. We like meeting new people and other artists.”
It has become one of the driving factors behind their passion, still hungry to explore both technically and conceptually.
“A recent exhibition we went to in Mumbai boasted of 4,000–5,000 paintings and 300 artists,” Malini recollects.
“It was a huge convention. We noticed there were a lot of abstracts that were quite different from our art. It’s difficult for us to be abstract because Neerja’s art form is very particular; it can’t be abstract.
Might we try something with an indefinite face? We’re still thinking of ways in which we can make sure our work does not feel redundant. But personally, I would definitely want to explore different styles of portraits, something a little more striking.”
Neerja added, “I definitely want to do more abstract while keeping my style intact. Over the last 12 years, I have been merging these two art forms together. The Pattachitra style, which is the folk style of Odisha, and the Saura, which is the tribal art form of Odisha.
The Pattachitra is the most popular art form in Odisha, India, famously associated with Raghurajpur in the Puri district. Over there, everyone knows how to paint, even the young kids. So, initially, when I started my career, I learnt the traditional techniques and style which used old religious themes.
But slowly, I developed my own style where I blend the Saura art [founded by the Saura tribe in Northern Odisha] with the traditional Pattachitra. It’s a blend of both art forms to represent the state of Odisha, which is quite unique.”
Continuing the topic of what’s to come, I asked them to ponder on the future of the duo, on whether it was a lifetime commitment.
“Lifelong is too lengthy a word,” cautiously states Malini, “Let’s see how things pan out and where it takes us. But I will say, because there are two of us working on the same piece, there is more dimension to our work. Two voices are better than one.”
Neerja agreed, “I don’t know about that far along, but yes, at the moment it’s working well, and we are enjoying it, so we will see how long it goes. It’s a lot of learning for me, this process.”
I walked into the room expecting to meet two artists. I left thinking about something else entirely. Warp & Weft does not replace their individual journeys. It runs alongside them.
Malini continues to paint women who command space with quiet authority. Neerja continues her deeply rooted work in Pattachitra and Saura art, opening her studio each month to teach, to preserve, and to pass forward what she has spent decades mastering.
The partnership expands them; it does not dilute them. There is something powerful in that balance. No scrambling for the spotlight or urgency to outshine. Just trust in their craft, and in each other.
In a world that often celebrates singular genius, Warp & Weft offers another way of thinking: that contrast, when respected, becomes cohesion. That difference can sharpen rather than divide. That growth does not require erasure.
I grew up knowing them as women I admired. Now, I see even more clearly the depth of what they have built, individually and together. And perhaps that is the real masterpiece: not only what hangs on the wall, but what exists between them. Autonomy, respect, and the confidence to evolve side by side.
And upon concluding our conversation, they left me with these parting words:
“We’re really trying to talk about growth. About a woman standing on her own two feet. In some ways, it reflects what’s happening in India too, a country that’s constantly evolving. Women are strong. Our work is about showing that strength, simply and honestly.”