Mrinalini Mitra On Building Worlds, Bending Genres, And The Making Of Mithrasa
From early exhibitions to Oxford to world-building, Mrinalini Mitra explains how her life and work converged into Mithrasa’s first myth-cycle
Mrinalini Mitra’s career began early enough that the word “career” barely applied at the time. At thirteen, she held a solo exhibition at the National Lalit Kala Akademi, an experience she now describes with a kind of distance, as if it happened to someone she used to know. In the years that followed she moved between mediums and continents: a Founder’s Scholar studying Classical Studies at Denison University, then a graduate student in South Asian Studies at Oxford, absorbing academic structures with the same intensity she once brought to studio practice. Peer reviewers and collectors knew her as a writer; museum curators knew her as a painter. In hindsight, the duality feels inevitable. At the time, she says, it felt like having “two separate languages in one mouth.”
Mithrasa — the studio she founded and now leads as Creative Director — is the first place where those languages coexist without negotiation. It didn’t begin as an entrepreneurial idea. It began when her mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage-three breast cancer, a period Mrinalini refers to without sentimentality but without detachment either. The experience clarified an old philosophy. Imagination, she realised, wasn’t an indulgence. It was a stabilising force. A way of holding faith when everything else felt contingent. That belief became the foundation of Mithrasa.
On paper, Mithrasa is a luxury, multi-medium narrative studio. In practice, it functions more like a long-term worldbuilding lab anchored in South Asian aesthetic theory. The studio is headquartered in the United States, run day to day from Lucknow, and held together by a global team led by Mrinalini and her sister, Nyonika Mitra, an LSE alum who manages operations. The output is meticulous: museum-grade ChromaLuxe prints in editions of nine; hand-illustrated poetic bundles capped at 108; animations directed frame by frame; scent profiles sourced from Paris; incense from China; soundscapes produced in collaboration with independent composers. There is no AI in the pipeline — not as a badge of purity, but because, as Mrinalini puts it, “the world we’re building depends on human rhythm.”
The studio’s first major project, The Isa-yana Chronicles, is structured as a long-form myth-cycle that will unfold over several years: illustrated letters in Fall 2025, fine art prints in January 2026, a tabletop game in Summer 2026, and a novel in 2027. The story follows Ishrakin — the human reincarnation of the god of gods, Artim — through the writings of Amaia, the last Asavan. But the narrative isn’t delivered in a single volume. It’s encoded in objects: art, scent, sound, fragments of text. Each release is treated as an artifact in a broader archive.
If this all sounds unusually methodical for a “fantasy” project, that’s because the scaffolding comes as much from Mrinalini’s academic training as from her studio instincts. She cites ancient epics, rasa theory, and theological structures, not as references to be imitated but as systems for organising meaning. The point, she insists, isn’t nostalgia. It’s continuity — the sense that contemporary storytelling can be capacious without being derivative.
It’s early to say what Mithrasa will become within the larger cultural landscape — an art house, a luxury imprint, a narrative universe, or something that doesn’t yet have a name. But the intention is clear: to build a world slowly, artifact by artifact, in defiance of a market that rewards speed. The ambition isn’t minimal. It also isn’t loud. Like Mrinalini herself, it arrives in a measured voice, calibrated with thought, pursued with precision.
We, at Esquire India, spoke to Mrinalini about the origins of Mithrasa, the structure of The Isa-yana Chronicles, and why she believes imagination is the most undervalued resource in contemporary culture.
You’ve had an extraordinary artistic journey. How has that journey shaped you?
My early years gave me the freedom to create without inhibition, but they also taught me to treat creativity as a serious discipline. Oxford, in turn, pushed me to question the very act of creation. Exhibiting young gave me confidence; scholarship gave me precision. The tension between instinct and inquiry now shapes all my worldbuilding and ultimately, the identity of Mithrasa.
What was the core idea behind Mithrasa?
Growing up, as my interest in art and writing deepened, I noticed a quiet yet persistent cultural hesitation toward creative careers. Caution was always prioritised over imagination. I have since realised that people vastly underestimate what imagination can achieve.
Mithrasa was born during one of the most difficult periods of my life, when my mother was unexpectedly diagnosed with an aggressive, rare form of stage-three breast cancer. That experience clarified my values. I understood that imagination fortifies faith, and that faith is essential to survival. Imagination is power — not indulgence.
That belief became the bedrock of Mithrasa: a studio where story, craft, ritual, and imagination become tangible, contemplative experiences.
What makes this cultural moment right for a brand like Mithrasa in India?
India is not “having” a cultural moment; it is reminding the world where culture began. Globally, there is a renewed interest in depth, craftsmanship, and rooted imagination. For a brand like Mithrasa — which revives mythic imagination through sensory, craft-forward artifacts — the landscape is full of possibility.
The brand seems both deeply Indian and globally resonant. How do you navigate that duality?
“Mithrasa” merges “myth” with rasa, the Sanskrit term describing the emotional essence of art that cannot be fully articulated. That duality sits at the heart of the studio. While our foundations are unmistakably South Asian, imagination itself is borderless. The challenge is sometimes logistical, but conceptually, Mithrasa was designed to hold both rootedness and spaciousness.
What is the story behind The Isa-yana Chronicles?
The Isa-yana Chronicles (Ishrakin’s journey) is our inaugural myth-cycle — a multi-part series comprising museum-grade fine art prints, a book, a solo RPG, and a card game. The narrative unfolds the way ancient stories once did: through ritual objects and discovery. At its core is Ishrakin, the human reincarnation of the god of gods, Artim. His time on Airth is chronicled by Amaia, the last Asavan, living in an age when memory of the divine has faded. Through her eyes, we witness cosmology, ritual law, and the symbolic echoes between her world and ours.
The collection moves across media — art, text, scent, sound. What was the biggest challenge in harmonizing them?
The challenge was conceptual rather than technical. We realised early that each artifact needed to merge fantasy with intentional use. Once we committed to creating ritualistic experiences rather than products, harmony emerged naturally. The scent must support the soundscape; the soundscape must support the art — each component forming an atmosphere someone can inhabit. Only when these elements align does fantasy shift from narrative into ambience, into a way of living. We source scents from Paris, incense from China, and collaborate with sound artists across the world. Each artifact carries its own soundscape, its own visual novella, its own scent. With every release, we refine that immersion.
How do you envision the “World of Mithrasa” evolving in the years ahead?
World of Mithrasa is our narrative anchor. Everything — from the curated soundscapes to the animation — is handmade. We do not use AI. Our global team of animators spans Japan, Indonesia, and the United States. Our focus is to continue producing high-quality, contemplative animations that draw from the poetic worldbuilding we undertake at the studio. The goal is to revive mythic landscapes and bring them into the 21st century through stories and artifacts that invite imaginative ritual. Our ambition is simple: to become what would happen if Perrotin and Disney conspired to build a myth — part gallery, part fable.
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