Thiruvananthapuram: When B. Venugopal passed out from College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram in 1990 with a mechanical engineering degree, he was sure that he wanted to set up a business enterprise of his own.
In 1998, when he got married to a Kochi girl, Sangeeta, they together dreamed and the very next year they launched Avantika, an interior designing company that is doing roaring business now across the state.
Out of humility, the couple would claim they are not in the big league yet. But when they have done the interior work of TCS, Infosys, Ernst & Young, IBS Software Services, Allianz Cornhill Information Services and others in Technopark and scores of offices and commercial establishments like banks, it speaks about the volume of the business the couple has achieved in the last 16 years.
Mr Venugopal recalls that a novice like him setting up a business enterprise then was a struggle. Armed with an MBA in marketing from Institute of Management, Kerala, he worked for Videocon and later with HLL Lifecare Ltd in Chennai. But the dreamer in him coaxed into setting up his own business.
“Like other jobs, it is tough to relax while doing own business, but it is the kind of pressure that keeps us going. When I take care of the planning and commercials, Sangeeta does the project and design execution as well as the creative side of it,” said the 47-year old.
As a couple, they complement each other and without her, it would have been difficult for him to reach great heights.
Son of S. V. Bhaskaran Nair, retired director of soil conservation and homemaker Valsala Nair, Mr Venugopal converted his ancestral home into its office aesthetically, maintaining its antique charm.
The couple has got two children, 11-year-old Pooja, a special needs child, and nine-year -old Diya studying at L'ecole Chempaka, Kallayam. The couple had a painful time during the early years of Pooja as Thiruvananthapuram lacked special schools or various types of rehabilitation therapy.
Sangeeta recalls her Bengaluru days where she was found juggling appointments for physiotherapy, music therapy, speech therapy for Pooja every day, armed with little Diya in tow. Those days, Venugopal stayed back in Thiruvananthapuram to run the business.
Finally, after two-and-a-half years of hardships in Bengaluru, they decided that enough was enough and returned. Pooja is now studying in Kalyan Plus, here.
“It was not easy, and all of us were very much frustrated when Venu was alone here in Thiruvananthapuram and me, Pooja and Diya in Bengaluru. It was Dr M. K. C. Nair (current vice-chancellor of Kerala University of Health Sciences) who changed our life forever. He suggested that I should have a life of my own and Pooja her’s. That was an eye-opener, and I felt that only when I am happy, my children too can be happy,” said the 40-year old.
Venugopal and Sangeeta is a tad bit disappointed that they are unable to go on long holidays except for short trips within Kerala and to Mumbai where his elder sister Anitha is based.
The couple is keen on seeing Thiruvananthapuram making rapid strides in infrastructure for improving the lives of the special needs children. But Venugopal is all praise for his wife who juggles her family and professional lives with equal acumen.
But Sangeeta says, if not for her in-laws’ support, it would have been difficult to juggle work and family life with equal zeal.
Daughter of V. R. Nair, an electrical engineer and the late Saraswathy, Sangeeta was helping her dad and elder brother, Rakesh Ramachandran, in running the family business, Aasha Levin Lighting System Private Limited and Technologies, Kochi, before her marriage.
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