Surbhi N Bagla's Chitrakaari — From Bedtime Tales to Bespoke Wall Art

Sometimes, starting a brand isn’t about a grand vision. It’s about fixing something that feels personal. For Surbhi N Bagla, the founder of Chitrakaari, it all began when she was setting up her kids’ room. She was looking for a wallpaper that felt meaningful, something that wasn’t mass-produced or borrowed from Pinterest. But everything she found felt repetitive, Westernised, or simply too ornamental with no real emotional connect.

“I wasn’t trying to start a business,” she says, laughing at the memory. “I just couldn’t find a design that felt like it belonged in my home.”

That’s how Chitrakaari was born- a surface design studio that doesn’t treat walls as an afterthought but as a canvas for storytelling. It’s not a wallpaper company in the traditional sense. It’s more like a boutique art studio that creates large-scale wall art, deeply rooted in Indian crafts, culture, and personal memory.

Surbhi’s journey into design was part instinct, part discovery. She always had a love for visual aesthetics and storytelling, but it was through her search for meaningful design for her own space that she found herself drawn deeper into surface design. “I realised there was this gap, there weren’t enough options that blended Indian heritage with contemporary design sensibilities. Wallpapers felt either too western or too blandly commercial.”

The approach at Chitrakaari is intentionally slow, it begins with references that are personal; sometimes it’s a textile, sometimes a verse, sometimes even a photograph from a temple visit. From there, Surbhi and her team hand-sketch the visuals, layer them, and slowly build the composition. Once the sketches are ready, they’re digitised and refined by Lahari Ashwin, Chief Designer at Chitrakaari, to ensure they maintain their intricacy when scaled to large walls.

But Surbhi doesn’t just rely on visuals. “We often test our designs emotionally, showing them to our own kids or asking clients how it makes them feel. It helps us avoid designs that might look good but don’t evoke the right emotion,” she explains. It’s a process that’s deeply intuitive and grounded in real human reactions.

Her latest collection, the Alankara Series, is perhaps the most personal yet. Inspired by Lord Krishna’s stories, particularly the ones she grew up hearing from her grandmother, Alankara is a layered, textural journey into the landscapes of Mathura and Vrindavan. The collection features seven distinct designs, each one carefully interpreting devotional icons like peacocks, cows, vines, lotuses, and temples into immersive wall art.

“I wanted to give form to that feeling of stillness and sanctity. It wasn’t about decorating a wall. It was about creating an atmosphere where you feel connected to those stories,” she says.

The visual language draws heavily from traditional Pichwai paintings but with a modern lens. The gestures, the colours-soft blues, deep greens, vibrant yellows all pulled from her own childhood memories. The designs are printed on silk and then finished with hand embroidery, using pearls, zardozi, and aari work. Collaborating with Kolkata-based artisans, Chitrakaari ensures that every piece carries that tactile depth which is becoming rare in today’s fast design culture.

One of the things that sets Chitrakaari apart is their decision not to sell by roll. “We don’t believe in repeat designs,” Surbhi says firmly. Every wall is custom-designed, keeping the space, story, and client in mind. “It’s not scalable in the traditional sense, but it’s what keeps the work authentic.”

For Surbhi, textures are everything. She’s drawn to materials like raw canvas, silk, and feather paper surfaces that have a certain grain and imperfection, making the designs feel alive and not digitally manufactured. “Texture adds character. It makes the wall breathe,” she says.

While the Alankara collection is a natural fit for prayer rooms, Surbhi also points out how these designs can transform transitional spaces like entryways and passageways, places that are often overlooked but have immense potential to create atmosphere.

In recent years, she’s seen a noticeable shift in how Indian homeowners view wallpaper. “People are moving away from plain paint or random decals. Wallpapers are now seen as an investment in atmosphere and identity. It’s less invasive than stone or large art installations, but it has a powerful impact.”

But running a design studio isn’t all about the creative high. Surbhi is very clear that operations are just as important. “You can’t sustain beautiful designs without building a strong backend. Creativity and operations have to go hand-in-hand,” she says. Over time, her understanding of success has evolved. “Earlier, I thought success was about being seen features, visibility, name recognition. Now, it’s about the depth of our relationships with clients and collaborators. It’s about how meaningful the work feels, not how loud it is.”

When it comes to staying creatively inspired, Surbhi doesn’t believe in over-the-top strategies. “I take simple breaks travel, observe things around me. Even watching light play through leaves or going to a museum with my kids sparks ideas. And I always keep a sketchbook for loose thoughts. It helps me reconnect when things get overwhelming.”

For her, Chitrakaari isn’t just a design studio. It’s a space where stories, emotions, and crafts come together to create something that’s personal and timeless. It’s not about trends. It’s about connection.

“When someone lives with our designs, I want them to feel like it’s a part of their story not a piece of a trend. It should bring warmth, memories, and a sense of calm every time they look at it.”

In a world chasing fast design and mass production, Chitrakaari is choosing slowness, choosing depth, and most importantly, choosing stories that deserve to be lived with, not just looked at.