I began my career when I was 21, with a part time job in tele-marketing. My friends Suresh and Anand roped me in for a job when they saw that I was ‘quite’ free after college and in between in my pursuit of a Pilot’s license. I was made to sit at the reception of a private limited company and attend to basic administration at the front office and I also had to call people from a list of prospects given to me and ask them to sign up for a seminar. It was a fun and super eye-opening experience which taught me some basic lessons in communication. I then pursued a career in Sales and Marketing in which I apparently showed promise, but I was not too happy or ‘into’ it. However, it did give me a great peek in to what a sales career would be like — approaching new people, making cold calls, getting a foot in the door and following up diligently, until a sale was made.
I then became a trainee and later a Commercial Officer in the Commercial Department of a shipping company that owned and managed dry cargo vessels. The work was simple enough, with a lot of operational work which I quite enjoyed doing although it did not really challenge me. After a maternity break, I took to writing like a fish to water and went from happy writing (and venting!) on my personal blog to writing a column in a fitness newsletter and writing features, reviews, people-interviews and editorials as a ghost writer for Chennai-based magazines.
I am so grateful to the people who encouraged me to write — right from Vani Saraswathi who started it all whilst we were still in college, to Ameeta Agnihotri later, and Bina Sujith (JFW magazine) and Aruna Krishnan (Ritz magazine) for giving me the opportunity to write more and more.
It was with Chennaigaga in 2010 that I realised I had a creative side to me. A combination of creativity and people engagement with an overall feel for operations is what got me through the next decade as the brand grew and i learned to run a retail store.
I feel more grateful today, on the auspicious occasion of Vijayadasami, to have had these opportunities that kept me fruitfully occupied, and supplied much learning through the years.
