Living The Change

By admin on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 19:30

Being an entrepreneur does not just mean having an idea and making it work. It takes more than that. It is a life choice one makes. One chooses a 24 hour enterprise over a 9 to 5 job. One chooses to forgo salaries for erratic (at least in the initial phase) profits. One chooses to run the show instead of being just a cog in the large corporate wheel. Shridevi B M chose such life with NaVaRaSa. She shares her journey with the readers of JF through her blog Living The Change.

NaVaRaSa is a learning space that came to be in October 2009 during the festival of Navaratri. Though that was when the physical entity was born I now know that NaVaRaSa had existed in my mind since my childhood at various stages.

The seeds of NaVaRaSa were unknowingly sown many years ago, when I found solace in my non academic indulgences. I never mastered any of my creative pursuits, but I was the happiest doing what I was doing. I continued to do pursue my “interests” throughout my working life of 9 years as a software professional. Something most of my colleagues could not understand. I was labeled frivolous by over achieving ‘well wishers’ who kept warning me that not focusing on pure academics or the job at hand would lead to failures. But what confused me most was their definition of success. It never seemed to gel with mine. Money, promotions and professional growth were important. But were they the success factors that should drive everyone? Mine seemed to be defined closer to “My net worth is what I have left after I lose all my money” - something I had read and felt a strong connection to.

I was definitely doing my job pretty well at my workplace and the growth seemed relative to that. It didn’t seem so bad. Money was important, but there were many times that I didn’t even clearly remember what I really made. The discussions over coffee about how much I should have been making really for the work I do, didn’t seem to register. I was just really doing my job along with my ‘other’ life of dance, theatre, traveling etc. The supposed professional growth didn’t excite. Changing jobs didn’t help either. There was always a sense of restlessness that came from wanting to create something on my own. And I very well knew that the ‘something on my own’ couldn’t be just a business for the sake of being an entrepreneur, but something I was passionate about, and would continue to be for a long time.

Learning! Seemed to be the only answer. Be it performing arts, crafts, languages, pure sciences, cultures…just about anything. And the actual idea of creating a space where learning was fun, a true joy and an inspiration started to take shape.

 You can know more about NaVaRasa @ http://navarasa.co.in