Istiaq and Ashfaq Shaikh are above-average embroiderers and below-average salesmen. When we meet in their workshop in Bandra East, the brothers are working on an elaborate landscape, like an ambitious Anchor stitch kit, with a vacation home set against an English countryside.

They're creating every surface with a different stitch: the grass is in long, wavy strands; the leaves in tight Afro curls; the meadows in braided ribbons of green and gold. A private commission, they've been on it since a fortnight. "Sukoon ka kaam hai," says Istiaq. "Because you have to think of every minute thing before you do it." We ask the ballpark figure for an artwork like this, and our mental math suggests a lakh. Ashfaq says, "We'll charge more than Rs 20,000."