Living The Change

It has been almost a year since NaVaRaSa came into being. Many many experiments, failures and successes later. I think I've manged to find the right balance between business and creativity. But challenges are never far away. The questions the participants of the NaVaRaSa community often raised was the next challenge for me. 

‘When you start your own enterprise, you need to be hands-on over everything’ is a lesson you learn each day. Although I thought I was prepared, there were always newer revelations.

We had been getting feedback since the winter holidays in Dec ’09 that NaVaRaSa needs to have camps for various activities like a summer/winter camp. We missed the winter bus and started planning the ‘summer camp’ for April & May 2010 with gusto. We tried to understand what really happens in the camps, explored various options, came out with more of our own.

I had major plans of kick-starting NaVaRaSa’s activities during Navaratri with a demo and interactive session on each of the nine days. It seemed like a miraculous coincidence that all 9s were falling together – ‘NaVa’RaSa, ‘Nava’ratri, September the 9th month of 2009 and quitting my job after exactly 9 years!! Although I was never into numerology or astrology, it just felt surreal, like nothing but great things can come off it.

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.