Mallika Mohta was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in a family of six. She was raised in Kolkata. Being the youngest member of the family, everyone was highly protective of her. She has been very creative ever since she was a child. She loved to draw, write poems, and come up with riddles. One of her favorite pastimes was solving the daily jumble puzzles in the newspaper with her grandfather. She has been highly studious and has a liking for reading as well.
During her childhood, drawing was her favorite thing to do, and she wanted to grow up and be an ‘artist.’ A piece of paper and a few colors was all she needed to scribble away for hours. She loved watching cartoons and anime on the television and would recreate the characters in her sketchbook.
Mallika Mohta – Cartoonist
Gradually, she became adept at making cartoons, especially those of Disney characters. In school, it became a ritual for her friends to queue up with their notebooks to get their favorite characters drawn by her during a free class. Her teachers would give her the responsibility to make charts for the class, and she was always chosen to represent her school in various art and creative competitions.
While growing up, she also started developing an interest in sketching, doodling, and comic making. She participated in those competitions and even won various school fests. However, as years passed, Mallika’s academics gradually started gaining precedence, and she had to stop considering art as a viable career option.
Mallika was a bit confused about her career. She initially wanted to get into the medical stream but opted for Humanities and finally took up Political Science Honours in college. There she was exposed to a whole new world. She had a plethora of exceedingly skilled designers around her. That became intimidating for Mallika, and as a result, she started doubting her abilities.
Meanwhile, she had also signed up for a Diploma Course in Multimedia and Animation in college at her mom’s behest. There she started getting the hang of digital software and designing posters for college events and clubs. In her final year, she also got the opportunity to co-head the Creative Department of the Fine Arts Society, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata.
However, the rigorous college environment took a toll on her creative abilities, and she started feeling drained out. Towards the end of her final year, she decided to start an art page on Instagram on a whim. She decided to find her lost passion for design and push herself to create things that she loved. It also served as a platform to share her work with others.
She started with posting small animations. But the final semester of her college brought with it several project deadlines, assignments, and exams for her. It caused a break in her art-related work once again.
When the lockdown was imposed in March 2020, Mallika revived her Instagram page and started posting regularly. This time, her work started getting noticed, and coincidentally, a Bingo template that she had made for her college went viral. Soon, she began getting requests from other colleges in different cities to create a template for them. After making it for free initially, Mallika decided to start charging a nominal amount for each template. And this was her stepping stone into the world of freelancing.
But this journey was not an easy one. For a long time, Mallika sought validation from people around her who did not appreciate her work enough. There were several days when she felt underconfident and when her future seemed uncertain. Also, it gets tricky when you fall into the trap of numbers (social media followers) and low audience engagement.
But not someone to get deterred, Mallika kept at it. Right after she started her page, Mallika had posted an animation of a Nutella jar. To her surprise, a few months later, she received a message from the official Instagram page of Nutella Spain. They told her that they liked the animation and wished to share it on their official Instagram handle. Mallika was thrilled with the idea.
After her animation got featured in Nutella, her work on Instagram started getting noticed. Everybody was highly supportive and encouraging. Not only her friends but people with who she was barely acquainted started sharing her work and reaching out to her with words of praise and encouragement. This entire experience felt very gratifying. Mallika thinks that she is extremely fortunate that her family has always supported what she is doing. There have been times when relatives expressed dissent and confusion at her career choices, but nobody opposed her choice.
She gained a lot of credibilities too. Her work has been featured on the official Instagram page of the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Facebook page of SHEIN India. One of her artworks was also selected for the Virtual Self Love Exhibition at Mood Indigo, the cultural fest of IIT Bombay.
Recently, she got an opportunity to work with Durjoy Datta, one of India’s bestselling authors, to create illustrations for his new book – A Touch of Eternity. Over the last few months, she has built a community of more than 1500 people on Instagram, and they are her pillars of motivation.
Currently, she is working on diversifying her content on Instagram and in terms of freelancing. Mallika has also secured an All India Rank 2 in the NIIFT entrance examination. She is looking to pursue higher studies in the field of design and graphics. She helps newcomers and other art aspirants enter this field by giving them tips and advice from her experience as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. She also has plans to host a webinar and release new content in videos to empower and enable new artists to find their voice and art style.
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