Brothers Arnav and Aditya Mukherjee are not just business partners but also writing partners. They recently started up their business venture Toko Innovation Studios in February 2014, focusing on children’s entertainment products. But their other collaboration is an Indian thriller, Karm, which hit bookshelves earlier this year. Set in the seamy streets of Mumbai, the book follows a couple of journalists uncovering the mystery surrounding a corporate giant.

Aditya Mukherjee has previously authored a book, Boomtown, about four young Indians looking to start a chain of restaurants. The book takes you through the ups and downs of starting up a venture with interesting pit-stops on the way.

Their writing interests began with creating comics in their childhood, and eventually writing articles and creating comic strips for the Deccan Herald. Arnav’s cinematic vision and Aditya’s previous writing experience made for the perfect combination when it came to collaborating on Karm.

Their writing process involves first discussing the plot and agreeing on the tone they’re aiming for. They then split up the chapters among themselves, write independently, and then come back to review and critique each other’s work. While they are quite comfortable working as a team, they play devil’s advocate for each other’s work so that there’s an internal editing process in place. It can sometimes get difficult trying to ‘speak the same language’ and understand each other’s point of view when working together on something as abstract as a story. But, in their own words, writing can be quite self-indulgent so having a second pair of eyes helps keep things in check.

Their next writing collaboration will be for a series of fantasy books for their business. They have recently launched Astra, a collectible card strategy game based on an epic fantasy story inspired by Indian mythology. Astra is being developed along the lines of Pokemon and is set to revolutionise children’s entertainment in India.