In a perfectly-draped soft silk sari, her eyes lined with kohl and glossy hair neatly pinned up, jewellery designer Ahalya is elegance personified.
“I always dress like this to work. I love dressing up,” she laughs, her long gold earrings (one of her own, she only wears her own designs) swinging as she turns to her husband Ajit Shetty, founder of Score Gym, and adds, “I take less than 25 minutes to get ready. Ajit takes more time than me.” Pointing to a woven bracelet of gold and silver with a dumbbell dangling on it, that Ajit sports, Ahalya says, “That was designed by me. My daughter says that he has to have a dumbbell with him all the time.”
She crafts jewellery, he crafts bodies, and a passion for both unites them. “If Ajith was a woman he would be covered in gold,” she says. “I started my career sorting diamonds,” laughs Ajith. Then the fitness bug bit him and he never looked back, “I came to Chennai to help a friend open Fitness One. I helped set up both the Kilpauk and Alwarpet branches,” he says. And that is where the two met. “I love food and I want to stay slim so I have to exercise. I started working out at Fitness One where I met Ajit,” she says. “I am highly motivated and having Ajith around made it even easier to stay that way.”
A graduate in psychology, Ahalya admits her foray into jewellery-making happened by chance, when she couldn’t find the jewellery she wanted to wear for her brother’s wedding, She first started designing for her family and friends, before retailing her own line. Her jewellery, she says, is perfect for the modern woman — contemporary, versatile, beautifully crafted and with a story. “My customers are like me, women who juggle many roles and want jewellery that doesn’t weigh them down. My business happens through word of mouth; I do a lot of customised pieces,” she says, adding that she is in the process of setting up a flagship store which will open in the city later this year. And though jewellery is what she is best known for in Chennai, she also sources and retails Kanjeevaram saris under the brand name Kanakavalli, “There isn’t much you need to do with the Kanjeevaram; my collection is all about traditional motifs and designs, but I do work with the weavers when it comes to the colour palette.”
“She has a great sense of aesthetics,” chips in Ajit, who says that current colour and design of Score Gym, which he set up after moving out of Fitness One, has been influenced to a large extent by Ahalya.
Talking about his own professional space, Ajit, who has worked with actors like Salman Khan, Suriya and Prithviraj, says that expansion plans for Score are on too, “We are in the process of setting up gyms in Bangalore and a couple more in Chennai. Setting up a training centre is also on the cards. Having qualified trainers is our biggest priority and we ensure that we put our boys through both internal and external training before sending them on the floor.”
And do they talk shop at home? “But, of course,” says Ahalya, “All the time — in any business there are things that worry and bother you that you can’t discuss in a workspace, so it is nice coming home to someone you can talk to about.”
Laughs Ajit, “Yeah, we talk while driving to the gym, on the treadmill, while doing weights. People wonder how, after spending the entire evening together, we still want to talk to each other in the gym. But we do.”
