They gave it an official name for the use of editorial column-
Rags to Rich
But a lot more is there to
change the dots,erase the dots,connect the dots....
The God made Destiny Dots.
Frida lost her father before her birth. Her mother did not survive much longer. One of her aunts took her under her wings. She was always happy-go-lucky, having weathered the vagaries of life from early childhood, of which she has a vague memory. All she remembers is the railway station where trains were brought to clean.
That day, as the kids played hide and seek, the train started moving. All friends managed to jump down, except Frida. Next thing she knew, she was in Mumbai. Not knowing what to do, she looked around with fearful eyes. “I saw a few children who got paid for collecting empty plastic water bottles, and followed them, searching every bogie of a train that would halt there. One day while doing this, that train started moving. This time, I landed in Bangalore,’’ she says, nonchalantly.
If Mumbai was bad, this was worse—she couldn’t even speak Kannada. “All I knew was Hindi and Marathi. A woman who spoke in Hindi and promised me a job, handed me over to another stranger. He took me to Salem, and put me to work in a silk yarn factory,’’ she adds.
At the factory, Frida was given a huge vessel, full of silkworms. “I was asked to stir the vessel to boil the silkworms. The liquid would be very hot and would often spatter, leaving me with blisters all over,’’ she said. After a workday that stretched from morning to midnight, she and her co-workers would get their only meal. “We went hungry quite often. They gave us stale rice,’’ she says.
With little money, she ran away from the place and boarded a bus. The bus driver took the money and left her back to Bangalore. Again, she was duped by another stranger who placed her as a domestic help. “I was very young and not used to doing housework. My employer would scald my hands and legs if I did not work properly. One day, I just ran away,’’ she explains.
And so, once again, she landed up in Bangalore railway station. Here she met volunteers of Bosco, an NGO for street children. “They brought me over to Navajeeva, a residential hostel for rescued street children, and sent me to school” she says. While studying, she learnt about a special workshop organised by Bornfree Art School.
“I learnt the basics of painting and photography there. After a one-and-a-half month workshop, I was back in school, but my interest in photography remained,’’ says Frida. The school took six of them on a tour of Tamil Nadu, led by mentors John Devaraj and Mioi Nakayama. “We were given a digital camera and told to capture pictures of child labourers, and collect their details,’’ she adds. As a child labourer herself, Frida wanted to do something for the community.“I chose photography because it captures reality.The difficulties faced by labouring children can be captured as is. Whenever I see kids working, I try to take their pictures,’’ she says.Today she is a part of Bornfree, where she conducts workshops for deprived children. Her photography exhibition on World Anti Child Labour Day was a hit, revealing a talent for sensitive compositions. “I hope one day she will look after the school,’’ says Devaraj about his favorite pupil.
Recommending and selling foreign books while dexterously evading the frantic pace of Mumbais traffic ensures that a Mobile Bookseller is probably the most dangerous paper-route in the world. Yet Wahid's character shines through the hustle and bustle; an admirer of Obama, Wahid: wants to do good for everyone and become a doctor for villagers normally given fake medicines. Says as much about modern India as mans insatiable thirst for knowledge.
know more: Click Here
This was all very new for me, says Nida. Coming from a family of professionals who had absolutely no idea about starting something of your own was going to be a challenge, but that did not deter me from starting my own label. With no backing, no money and no experience of running a business, Nida took the plunge. “See with no kind of financial or industry backing I had very little room for error and I was sure that making silly or wrong decisions were only going to make things harder. So I was fortunate enough that things went into the right direction because I was focused” she says. Another reason that Nida feels went in her favour was the fact that since she did not know how to run a business, there were no set boundaries for her, there was no such thing as right or wrong, or someone to criticize her work. This gave her the freedom of not restricting herself and her work giving her the freedom to do things her way. “Not knowing anything sometimes can also been a boon” she says. And this has really helped her learn a lot.
Nida says that the biggest challenge working in this industry is the fact that not everyone can take working under a woman as a subordinate. Her biggest learning being a female entrepreneur she says is that, one needs to think and act like a boss to be taken seriously by your employees.
“You know this happened just by chance” she tells me. “We were sitting one day discussing the next show and I happen to just think about what ever happened to the poster painters of the yesteryears and how it’s now a dead art”. Being an avid painter, Nida went on a search looking for artists who were once respected for their work. Six months into the research and after a lot of coxing they finally met one 85-year-old artist who was lost in the shadow of the digital world of today.
‘I love my quirkiness and the eccentricity that I have and I think that further portrays everything that I do” says Madmood. An emotional at heart, Nida is a true artist who enjoys and finds the mundane things in life more interesting. A reader, a writer, a true Mr. Bachchan fan loves everything with is larger than life yet stops and appreciates the small nothings in her own way. Asked about her vision for the future and she says, “I don’t want to box myself. I have million miles ahead of me to explore and achieve new bigger things and I know I will do it”.
Rags to Rich
But a lot more is there to
change the dots,erase the dots,connect the dots....
The God made Destiny Dots.
1.Tribal girl’s journey to a ‘new world’
It has been a long journey for Durga Mallu Gudilu — from selling clips and needles on Mumbai’s local trains, to representing the country at the World Social Forum in Brazil.
And the lanky 22- year- old has had to overcome the stiffest of odds in her quest for this remarkable turnaround.
An 8x10- foot cubbyhole of a room in the Sanjay Nagar slums, located in Jogeshwari ( East), serves as a home for Durga, her parents and sister Govindi. They belong to the “ nomadic” Vaidu community that has been living in the area for the past 30 years.
The community, now a denotified tribe, still holds panchayats headed by elderly males to decide on law and order. “ Vaidus are relegated to one of the most neglected parts of the expansive slum.
The nearest toilet is 200 metres away; girls stand in serpentine queues at 5 am daily to fill up unhygienic and contaminated water from the nearest tap and most members of the community suffer from tuberculosis,” primary health centre nurse Neelima said.
That’s not all. The men eke out their living by recycling and repairing old steel dabbas . “ More than half of the meagre Rs 30 that they earn are spent on drinking. And wife beating inevitably follows the boozing,” Durga’s 63- year- old mother Anku Bai says.
The family used to struggle to get, even two square meals a day. “ As a child, I had never seen home- cooked food since we used to beg for food in trains and homes,” Durga recalls.
But things underwent a dramatic change ever since Durga became one of the first girls to be educated in the community. Today, she has completed Class XII, imparts basic computer training and runs a coaching centre for 40- odd schoolchildren from her cramped kholi. She also uses the computer to stay in touch with her friends from Peru and USA whom she met during the forum.
Durga remembers how the NGO Yuva had managed to convince her parents to send her to the local municipal school. “ Initially, my sister and I were made to sit separately as we used to be stink,” she says, adding that it was the progress they made in studies and sports that helped them gain acceptance among classmates.
Being lettered had other spin- offs as well. “ Since the girls started going to school, we gained respectability and stopped begging. Their father stopped drinking, too,” Anku Bai says.
“ The journey from those days to the smart and confident woman that Durga has become, is no mean achievement,” Raju Bhise of Yuva points out. “ We gave her the support and guidance; but it was she who has stood out with her leadership skills,” he adds.
Govindi, the older of the two girls, is pursuing a software course from GNIIT. Durga will pursue her graduation only after Govindi finishes her course because one of them has to look after the household.
Forthright and outspoken, Durga has her own viewpoint.
“ The Rs 16 crore announced by the Maharashtra government to create awareness about child labour will not achieve much until parents are helped to get sustainable livelihoods,” she observes. Having performed street plays and participated in poster campaigns as well as in door- to- door mobilisation drives to raise awareness about child labour and other issues, she definitely knows what she is talking about.
2.My Old School Shirt
When little orphan Shanthi, alias La Frida, went to play with ragpicker friends inside a train compartment at Pune station, little did she know it would turn her life upside down. Her life’s journey has taken so many twists, it’s best told in celluloid by Danny Boyle.
Born to a labourer, destiny took her from Pune’s slums to her current stature as a multi-talented artist, painter, sculptor and photographer.Frida lost her father before her birth. Her mother did not survive much longer. One of her aunts took her under her wings. She was always happy-go-lucky, having weathered the vagaries of life from early childhood, of which she has a vague memory. All she remembers is the railway station where trains were brought to clean.
That day, as the kids played hide and seek, the train started moving. All friends managed to jump down, except Frida. Next thing she knew, she was in Mumbai. Not knowing what to do, she looked around with fearful eyes. “I saw a few children who got paid for collecting empty plastic water bottles, and followed them, searching every bogie of a train that would halt there. One day while doing this, that train started moving. This time, I landed in Bangalore,’’ she says, nonchalantly.
If Mumbai was bad, this was worse—she couldn’t even speak Kannada. “All I knew was Hindi and Marathi. A woman who spoke in Hindi and promised me a job, handed me over to another stranger. He took me to Salem, and put me to work in a silk yarn factory,’’ she adds.
At the factory, Frida was given a huge vessel, full of silkworms. “I was asked to stir the vessel to boil the silkworms. The liquid would be very hot and would often spatter, leaving me with blisters all over,’’ she said. After a workday that stretched from morning to midnight, she and her co-workers would get their only meal. “We went hungry quite often. They gave us stale rice,’’ she says.
With little money, she ran away from the place and boarded a bus. The bus driver took the money and left her back to Bangalore. Again, she was duped by another stranger who placed her as a domestic help. “I was very young and not used to doing housework. My employer would scald my hands and legs if I did not work properly. One day, I just ran away,’’ she explains.
And so, once again, she landed up in Bangalore railway station. Here she met volunteers of Bosco, an NGO for street children. “They brought me over to Navajeeva, a residential hostel for rescued street children, and sent me to school” she says. While studying, she learnt about a special workshop organised by Bornfree Art School.
“I learnt the basics of painting and photography there. After a one-and-a-half month workshop, I was back in school, but my interest in photography remained,’’ says Frida. The school took six of them on a tour of Tamil Nadu, led by mentors John Devaraj and Mioi Nakayama. “We were given a digital camera and told to capture pictures of child labourers, and collect their details,’’ she adds. As a child labourer herself, Frida wanted to do something for the community.“I chose photography because it captures reality.The difficulties faced by labouring children can be captured as is. Whenever I see kids working, I try to take their pictures,’’ she says.Today she is a part of Bornfree, where she conducts workshops for deprived children. Her photography exhibition on World Anti Child Labour Day was a hit, revealing a talent for sensitive compositions. “I hope one day she will look after the school,’’ says Devaraj about his favorite pupil.
This year, the theme of the World Anti-Child Labour Day may be hazardous child labour, but here is a girl who actually suffered as a child labourer working in a hazardous industry and has now turned a photographer all set to exhibit her first photography exhibition on Sunday.
La Frida Shanthi who hails from Pune says that she lost her parents when she was too young to remember. “I was roaming on the streets and one fine day, I moved to Bangalore in a train,” she tells. Later, she was duped by a stranger who took her to Tamil Nadu where she was pushed to work in silk yarn industry.
Frida explains that she was told to boil silkworms. “There was a huge vessel full of silkworms. I was told to stir and boil those worms. Many times, the boiling water used to spill and it burnt my hands.
There are many instances where my hands got blisters because of this,” she remembers her tragic past. All she used to get is one meal which was not sufficient.
She was not given any money.
Frida ran away from the place as she thought she could not work there anymore.
She then came to Bangalore and one day, saw the Bornfree van. Bornfree was then organising painting, clay model making and photography workshop for street children. “I just joined and found interesting,” she said.
Later, Frida choose photography and now she is all set to exhibit her photography skills on Sunday. Her photography which focuses on child labour will be exhibited at K H Kalasowdha, Hanumanthanagar.
A photo exhibition by Mioi Nakayama from Bornfree Art School will be showcased as well.
3.Wahid's Mobile Bookstore
Amidst the smog and blaring horns of Mumbai, 9 year old Wahid sells books to support his family. Unable to read, yet dreaming of becoming a doctor, his story paints a moving picture of India today.Recommending and selling foreign books while dexterously evading the frantic pace of Mumbais traffic ensures that a Mobile Bookseller is probably the most dangerous paper-route in the world. Yet Wahid's character shines through the hustle and bustle; an admirer of Obama, Wahid: wants to do good for everyone and become a doctor for villagers normally given fake medicines. Says as much about modern India as mans insatiable thirst for knowledge.
know more: Click Here
4.Four Legged Library
Deep in the Colombian countryside years of conflict have left the people without books, let alone the internet. But one man and his donkey are bringing books to children and healing a wounded nation.
Looking at Luis Soriano's donkey one wonders how he manages the six hour journey every day. Since Luis discovered his school's pupils didn't have any books he has been loading up his poor donkey. "The imagination of these kids is very damaged." Luis knew, that children who had witnessed the horrors of conflict needed books to recover. For his efforts Luis is well-loved in his community, "Everyone likes him, he's a person who solves a lot of our problems."
Looking at Luis Soriano's donkey one wonders how he manages the six hour journey every day. Since Luis discovered his school's pupils didn't have any books he has been loading up his poor donkey. "The imagination of these kids is very damaged." Luis knew, that children who had witnessed the horrors of conflict needed books to recover. For his efforts Luis is well-loved in his community, "Everyone likes him, he's a person who solves a lot of our problems."
5.Operation:"Challenge"....
Focus is all you need to achieve: Nida Mahmood
She is a fashion designer, a woman with a cause, a painter but she insists that she is an artist at heart to begin with. “I was science student, studying to become a doctor, I mean everyone in my family is a doctor so deviating from that path was not an option. But being the person that I am, I always knew what I did not want to do; becoming a doctor was definitely not it. I always knew I wanted to do something that involved art in any form” she says.
So after completing school, Nida Mahmood decided to get herself enrolled in NIFT for a formal training in fashion. Her first job took Nida to Mumbai and worked under fashion biggies like Hemant Trivedi, Manish Malhotra and Aki Narula as a men’s wear designer. Reason I asked and she says “Well at that time I didn’t think I had the correct know how of men’s fashion too well, so this opportunity presented me with a chance to learn everything thing about men’s wear from the best”. After her stint in Mumbai, The designer shifted back to Delhi and worked with the likes of Rana Gill and Kavita Bhartiya (Ogaan) designing for women’s wear .
Going Solo
The Challenges
Nida further adds that “now that I am established, there is a world of difference and I don’t get unprofessional attitude from people that I used you about five years back. But I guess this is what I am learning. However, I did not budge from what I wanted and how I want to get those things. You see I never let off focus and that I think has been my biggest strength”.
The talented designer says that her driving force in life was to make her life worthwhile. It was not about becoming famous, but it was about adding value to her life. And Nida says she was always committed to her goals of doing something with her life. Focus is all one needs to achieve what you desire most.
Reviving Art
One thing led to another and Nida along with her business partner Raul Chandra gave birth to the New India Bioscope Co, dedicated to reviving the lost art of poster making. She now has a team of 4 to 5 poster making artists who have only been given a platform to revive their talent and art but to earn a decent lively hood. Nida through this platform want to make available both premium and affordable art. She feels that art is such a beautiful thing that it is not fair that only a few have the purchasing power for it and hence she has tried to create two sections of art so it can reach each and every home. But have they stopped just at posters, no. The art is present in all forms such as hand-painted garments, t-shirts, note books and much, much more. Nida through the help of the New India Bioscope co. wants to promote the dying art. She further adds that we want to create a corpus where we can attract people to learn this art which will be a real achievement for us”.
A true nomadic at heart
6.I did not want to wait till 40 to be a CEO'
“Even when I was in college I was sitting with the new business idea every week, so the thought of doing something on my own was never out of the question” says this economic graduate who completed her MBA from IMT and is now founder and CEO of e-commerce giant 99labels.com
Leap of Faith
The brilliant entrepreneur was soon spotted by Cadbury’s soon after her MBA completed. After a three-and-a-half year stint with Cadbury, where she handled the brand management of both the confectionary division and Cadbury’s Dollops ice-cream Ishita was itching to do something on her own. Reason, there was nothing left to learn, and Ishita liked the learning curve’s upwardly movement more. So she quit Cadbury’s and teamed up with a school time friend to start up her first company called the Orion Dialogue which was going to be instrumental in the ITES sector in India and one of the first to focus solely on the Indian market.
“We did our research before jumping to the business bandwagon. Back in the 1994-95 the BPO industry was just starting out and it was a good time to venture into the same. We did our research and with as good as no money in our pockets and no backing we took a big leap of faith and founded what we called the Orion Dialogue private limited company” she tells proudly.
“Fortunately for us, the business was soon spotted by a leading international bank who wanted us to do this for them” she tells. Ishita says that they were well equipped with the expertise on the field and were lucky that the profits started rolling in much sooner than expected but it was not all as hunky dory as it sounds” she adds
There were many times when she and her business partner would approach investors with a business plan and they would turn her away asking her to get her father and then they would discuss things further or would simply not take them seriously enough.
However, in the 11-year-run that Orion Dialogue had, Ishita and her partner now were operating out of three offices from different cities in India which was quite an achievement she tells.
After leading the company to great heights she was bought out by to Aegis BPO in 2006 leaving Swarup to achieve even greater heights. While she was deciding her next venture, Ishita also helped setting up businesses but consulting other women entrepreneurs.
99labels.com
Ishita tells us that as tough as it may seem to start an e-commerce business, her creative experience at Rediff and Yahoo helped her immensely. In spite of her corporate accomplishments she opted to become an entrepreneur and eventually launched 99labels.com.
The idea of 99labels.com says Ishita made a lot of sense as a consumer. She says, 99labels offers an exclusive chance for people to buy credible, branded items from a reliable source at discounted prices and from the privacy and convenience of their own home. So from a consumer’s point of view it was a win-win situation. Swarup further adds that the timing of entering the market seemed perfect too. E-commerce was big abroad and people in India had started to accept the idea and hence there was huge potential for a site like 99lables.com here.
On being a woman entrepreneur
Ishita says that she always wanted to do something of her won. “You see I never wanted to wait till I was forty-years-old to become a CEO. I became a CEO at the age of 25, when the rest of my friends or ex-colleagues were cribbing about their unsatisfying jobs.
Ishita personally feels that being an entrepreneur itself empowers a person, and if a woman wants to build a career as an entrepreneur there is nothing that is more satisfying. She even feels that being a woman entrepreneur has more advantages than otherwise.
“Being an entrepreneur gives women the freedom to work the way she wants to, when she wants to and how she wants to. A woman sometimes struggles more in the corporate world than when she works on her own terms” she quips. As an entrepreneur gets to explore more and push her limits which is not really possible when it comes to working in a structured atmosphere. She even says that now is the time to start your own ventures, when the market is ready, investors is ready and when the mindsets too are ready to accept women who run their own show.
Leap of Faith
The brilliant entrepreneur was soon spotted by Cadbury’s soon after her MBA completed. After a three-and-a-half year stint with Cadbury, where she handled the brand management of both the confectionary division and Cadbury’s Dollops ice-cream Ishita was itching to do something on her own. Reason, there was nothing left to learn, and Ishita liked the learning curve’s upwardly movement more. So she quit Cadbury’s and teamed up with a school time friend to start up her first company called the Orion Dialogue which was going to be instrumental in the ITES sector in India and one of the first to focus solely on the Indian market.
“We did our research before jumping to the business bandwagon. Back in the 1994-95 the BPO industry was just starting out and it was a good time to venture into the same. We did our research and with as good as no money in our pockets and no backing we took a big leap of faith and founded what we called the Orion Dialogue private limited company” she tells proudly.
“Fortunately for us, the business was soon spotted by a leading international bank who wanted us to do this for them” she tells. Ishita says that they were well equipped with the expertise on the field and were lucky that the profits started rolling in much sooner than expected but it was not all as hunky dory as it sounds” she adds
There were many times when she and her business partner would approach investors with a business plan and they would turn her away asking her to get her father and then they would discuss things further or would simply not take them seriously enough.
However, in the 11-year-run that Orion Dialogue had, Ishita and her partner now were operating out of three offices from different cities in India which was quite an achievement she tells.
After leading the company to great heights she was bought out by to Aegis BPO in 2006 leaving Swarup to achieve even greater heights. While she was deciding her next venture, Ishita also helped setting up businesses but consulting other women entrepreneurs.
99labels.com
Ishita tells us that as tough as it may seem to start an e-commerce business, her creative experience at Rediff and Yahoo helped her immensely. In spite of her corporate accomplishments she opted to become an entrepreneur and eventually launched 99labels.com.
The idea of 99labels.com says Ishita made a lot of sense as a consumer. She says, 99labels offers an exclusive chance for people to buy credible, branded items from a reliable source at discounted prices and from the privacy and convenience of their own home. So from a consumer’s point of view it was a win-win situation. Swarup further adds that the timing of entering the market seemed perfect too. E-commerce was big abroad and people in India had started to accept the idea and hence there was huge potential for a site like 99lables.com here.
On being a woman entrepreneur
Ishita says that she always wanted to do something of her won. “You see I never wanted to wait till I was forty-years-old to become a CEO. I became a CEO at the age of 25, when the rest of my friends or ex-colleagues were cribbing about their unsatisfying jobs.
Ishita personally feels that being an entrepreneur itself empowers a person, and if a woman wants to build a career as an entrepreneur there is nothing that is more satisfying. She even feels that being a woman entrepreneur has more advantages than otherwise.
“Being an entrepreneur gives women the freedom to work the way she wants to, when she wants to and how she wants to. A woman sometimes struggles more in the corporate world than when she works on her own terms” she quips. As an entrepreneur gets to explore more and push her limits which is not really possible when it comes to working in a structured atmosphere. She even says that now is the time to start your own ventures, when the market is ready, investors is ready and when the mindsets too are ready to accept women who run their own show.
7.The free Spirited Advaita Kala
She is a hippie at heart. A true happy-go-lucky kinda gal who does not believe in taking the trodden path in life, ‘Everything in my life has been organic, nothing that has ever happened was actually planned’ she tells me.
Advaita who before the release of her first book “Almost single” was working in the hospitality industry says when she was writing Almost Single she didn’t really think it was ever going to be a book. “I started writing because my mom said, you love writing and reading so much, why don’t you try and do something about it” she tells me. “So here I was penning down my characters and reading incessantly during my night shifts in the hotels. Once it was over, I wanted to send my draft to a good publishing house but I had no idea where and how to start the process of getting my book published”.
She further informs “After submitting my drafted copy to one of the leading publishing houses, it was a crucial wait for three long months after which I finally got a call from the publishers who wanted to publish my book, I was just happy with that”. What Advaita did not foresee was the crazy response that she got for her book. In fact the book was such a hit that publishers in America wanted auctioned to buy rights for her book. This was when she realized she had arrived. Ask her if the protagonist was even slightly close to her life and she quips back with a simple no, not at all. She even got many offers to make Almost Single into a movie, but the author had other plans.But the protagonist of her book “Almost Single” Aisha Bhatia is a new age girl. In her late 20s Aisha Bhatia, the protagonist is happily single, with no qualms about her being so and has a life. Advaita is quick to say that she too was excited about how so many women in India identified with Aisha, does that mean she is trying to create a statement, no. “I have just written a book and it is up to my readers to take whatever they want from it. Of course I would not deny that my book or the characters are definitely defined by what happens in various situations” she says.But the author with many talents does feel that women today definitely have a voice and are making themselves heard. They are making their choices visibly and loudly. Books or the cinema are just mainstream platforms that adapt these changes and depict issues the same way that they happen.
Dabbling with Bollywood
After the success of the first literary attempt “Almost Single’ became the biggest surprise of her life, the kind that she never thought of. A call from Siddharth Anand of ‘Salaam Namaste’ fame, which according to Advaita was something she never expected.
“I got a call from Siddharth one day saying that he read my book and wanted to discuss the possibilities of writing a script for his upcoming movie and took it up, another example of how unpredictable my life can be”. The experience of writing for such a huge platform was quite enriching for Advaita. “I felt that when opportunities come your way you need to value them and make use of them fully otherwise there’s no point” she explains.
Even though Anjaana Anjaani did not get the kind of success that was expected what it did for Advaitawas to open a huge platform for possibilities for her and her next attempt was to write a script for another movie ‘Kahani’ which is soon to be released starring none other than the talented Vidya Balan. The script was written keeping Vidya in mind she said and we were fortunate enough that she agreed to do the movie.
The trend setter that Advaita is she wants to take out the novel “Kahani” but this will happen after the release of the movie.
Her Influence
“I was always a very free spirited child and boundaries or restrictions do not go down well with me so I have learned to make my own ways” she tells. Advaita grew up in a Diplomat family and tasted global exposure at a very early age. She absolutely loved Nepal and cycling back and forth from school is something she remembers vividly. She studied both on Welhams Girls School, where she said she usually tried to scale the walls to run from the structure that Welhams drilled in each and everyone. DPS Mathura Road was more her thing and an experience that turned her into a true Dilliwala.
Advaita after finishing school chose to study philosophy and went to America on a scholarship to study for a year. By the time her scholarship ended she enrolled herself in a work-study programme in the USA and worked three jobs at the same time to support her studies. Now money was not the concern for her to work three jobs, it was the freedom of studying what she wanted to allowed her to take this decision.
After returning from the US, Advaita joined the hospitality industry because her mother thought that it would be the best decision since she waited tables back in the USA, but one thing led to another and rest as they say is history.
8.The River Flows
Last year, I learnt that my metastatic cervical cancer, detected in 2009, was untreatable. My mind was a rush of emotions: an initial disbelief turned into grief, anger and finally, acceptance. I knew I had to be strong for my three kids (12, 17 and 19). I knew it was going to be tough breaking the news to them. My youngest girl burst into tears-even the warmest hug couldn't soothe her. The thought of how they would cope without their mom worried me then, as it does now. I took stock and decided to make use of the little time I had, not let cancer dictate it. Most people have a lifetime to reach their goals. But I have realised the value of time- earlier I'd brood over a setback for months, but now I spend just a couple of hours thinking about it. Yes, impending death can really speed things up for you.
Pilgrimage and charity were two things on my list- saved for my grey years. But I didn't know that I was going to be combining the two so soon, and how. I've always been a bit of an adventurer; I've been a canoe and kayak guide and rescue swimmer. I learnt to paddleboard in August, and it was then that the idea visited me. The holy Ganga whispered it in my sleep. So here was the plan: a fund-raising water trek across the Ganga from Rishikesh to Varanasi-stand-up paddling about 1000 km-to spread awareness about the number one killer cancer among Indian women. My mind was, of course, fighting battles-I was afraid of leaving my kids behind, knowing I might not return, but I wanted to do something so other kids do not lose their moms early, at least to cervical cancer! When I searched the Internet and found that no woman had ever attempted this trip before and saw everything falling into place (the Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer agreed to my proposal and we found sponsors for the expedition), I knew it was ordained. A final yes from my little girl who wrote me a message on my foldable tent, and I was ready to go. I embarked upon the journey on October 17, accompanied by my friend, navigator and cameraman Nat Stone. For the next 25 days, here's what my typical day looked like: we started paddling around 8 am for about four hours.
Then I would rest for an hour floating and having lunch. Then we paddled again, making about 40 km each day. We made several stops along the river, interacting with the local people and clearing misconceptions they had about cervical cancer. I would feel lucky if I was able to make even a little difference by sharing the wisdom on the disease. We camped on white sandbars on the coast almost every night. Falling asleep under the starry sky to the howls of jackals and the faint sounds of chanting and prayers wafting out of ashrams afar was an amazing experience. The journey was emotional, spiritual and symbolic, all at once. The rapids near Rishikesh were incredible. The water was clear and the waves were breaking in all directions-I actually got to surf, which was lovely.
Along the way, I attended the funeral of a woman who had died during childbirth; it was an intensely emotional experience. She had left behind four kids. I immediately thought about my impending death and my three kids and was filled with greater resolve to fight the disease. I remember being filled with terror when I saw floating corpses in the river. But the Ganga accepts everybody, we must too. I realised that living and dying and the inevitability of this cycle was something Indians are familiar with, but Westerners shy away from. The Ganga spoke and I listened. The river is a symbol of life. It's always moving, always present, it gives and it takes away, it changes course but it never dies. It teaches you to go with the flow of life. Paddling on the river kept me alive-and moving. It was healing as well. I felt no pain when I was paddling. But the pain would come back with a vengeance when I stopped. I wanted to be able to continue paddling, but I simply didn't have the energy. I felt no pain in the first week, but I cried myself to sleep in pain through the last. During the course of my expedition, I also had a nasty cut on my foot, but healed miraculously in a day. I didn't have to give up. And that I managed to complete the journey I undertook and am back home in New Mexico with my kids now is no less a miracle. My health is failing me now, but I'm happy that I have been able to leave behind a vision for my daughters as well as the women of India.
