Yours Consciously Sneha

Tag: lifestyle

  • Wither

    Wither

    Decide what kind of life you actually want, then say NO to everything that isn’t that-BOB PROCTOR

    Hello All, I am taking this opportunity to introduce my brand, Wither. Firstly, today we have completed 1 month on this glorious journey of creating clothes that we love. Secondly, celebrating these cards as I have my name on them as a “Creator” is a BIG deal for me.

    I was raised in Bengaluru city in a conservative family, & currently live in the suburbs. I am in my 30’s, not married (you will know why I am mentioning this in a minute) My educational qualification is BCA, MBA because parents, cousins & their friends thought it had scope. Since I was a little kid, I knew I was an artist & was very clear to pursue my career in Art, Dance & Social Work. Again, these don’t have a scope so I had to study something that had scope. This landed me in a job in Supply Chain, I worked in 3 different corporate companies for 6.3 years.

    I never liked any of these jobs, I was a robot waking up every morning, sitting in front of a computer, get back home, sleep, have fun during weekends. Repeat. I leapt, quit this job in the year 2016. Travelled, freelanced, worked in remote jobs, started a blog, wrote my heart out. But, in India, making money with freelancing isn’t easy. So I took up a fixed job in a remote place. 2018-2020 I worked in a school that educated Tribal children. My creativity started getting wings here. I worked with artists, I enjoyed reading books to children, I invested time in developing my skills with drawing, dancing, writing and reading too. When I was getting close to completing 2 years, I wanted to leave and travel for a bit so I quit in 2020.

    Inevitable happened, Covid happened. I had to return home. Apart from being curious about knowing unknown places while travelling, I was staying away from family because, I was tired of explaining to the family that “getting married” is not the only thing a girl aspires to be, as per them only job a girl can do best is in the kitchen & by marrying someone. The goals, dreams, aspirations of a girl should all go in the drain, first of all, they should not even have them.

    After I returned home, I looked up jobs that would fill my Artistic quench, I barely found any. 2 jobs came my way, both took work from me and never paid. Everything happens for the good they say.

    On Feb 13th 2021, the second job that didn’t pay me bothered me a lot. I couldn’t sleep that night, I was watching videos of @zerowastedaniel over & over, who had inspired me a few years ago from a post I saw through the only friend in Fashion in know @madamtapoool. About 2 years ago, with a help of a colleague whose mother was a tailor, I had designed a skirt using old dupattas and left-overs his mother had from her work. We couldn’t take it forward back then, that kept ringing in my head to take it seriously this time.

    That night, there was some force pushing me to start the same idea. The name “Wither” just came out of nowhere, I named it in Kannada too as “ಉದಿರು”. “If a piece of cloth is withering, doesn’t mean it’s waste, it can have a life too. The next day, I wrote this all down & I knew I had to push it to achieve it. I set a target to launch in April, & now here we are. The fun part was, I kept writing the name Wither on paper every day, one of the day’s I realized “Her” being part of the word.

    It has not been an easy journey for me as a woman to follow “my way”, also not being married adds ghee to fire in a conservative family. It’s a fight every day, it still is. There is hardly any support from the close family members, as they still believe, being an entrepreneur is not for women. I have seen my friends struggle, I have seen married women struggle, while their husbands say what they have to do. This can go on, I will stop here to just say the intention behind the name “Wither” has a strong connection to raise women along with me.

    My mother was a tailor, a passionate one. Neither do I have a professional fashion degree, but have a passionate one. She did go for professional classes but she never took it up as a business. I grew up seeing her stitch clothes to me and for herself, she made use of every single waste piece that was left out to create something else. She always indulged herself by creating masterpieces using wires, gunnysacks, woollen threads. And she had fun dressing me up all the time.

    She had a very big influence on me with my style of dressing and my passion for clothes. Only if society, let her do her work passionately. She would have conquered the world. This also had an impact on me, on how being married will kill your dreams. No woman should stop themselves from achieving their dreams because of societal norms. That’s my goal to communicate through clothes.

    The creator side

    I am learning Bharatanatyam, I practice sketching sometimes, I love writing (now you know why my posts are long) and reading, I am a foodie & I love to cook. A nature lover can trade anything in life to live in a forest(future goals), I can watch birds, animals, sky, stars for hours without talking. I am keen to know what’s beyond our planet, the infinite space. I love constellations, and love watching movies and documentaries related to space. I love researching, that helps me learn something new every day from something old (Did you know series? This is why) I am a movie buff, lately I have been drawn towards documentaries. If not for Covid, I had big plans to work in the movie industry. The launch video was conceptualised & directed by me (a show-off) I have extreme levels of OCD, that I am taking advantage of to get my work to be perfect. As a person, I push myself to be a better person than I was yesterday. As a brand, I have the same principles to bring in the best quality.

    The card says “Creator” and not “Founder” because I have found my passion, all I have to do is to “Create”.

    Thank you all for supporting this journey so far, we have a long long long way to go.

    Lastly, These are “Seed paper cards” made by @dopolgy. Thank you for making these cards & also for being a part of this journey. 

    Follow @_wither_wither_ on Instagram to see more of my creations.

    Blooming…

    Wild Flower

  • Dark & Lovely!

    Dark & Lovely!

    Look anywhere and everywhere, there are blatant and subtle reinforcements that only fair is lovely. The men have also joined the race with an equal number of fairness products. Such pressure and so little public debate around it-Nandita Das

    Makeup

    As a kid, makeup to me was applying face cream, powder, and bindi. That’s how my mother did to herself and me. This routine was in the morning after bath and evening after school, after a few years I started following this routine myself. We all follow our parents’ impressions, don’t we? To be specific on what we used, It was Vicco Turmeric face cream, Lakme compact powder. You can now imagine this scenario in the ’90s, where there were barely any cosmetic brands and even a colour TV in a middle-class household to show the difference between a dark skin tone and a fair skin tone.

    This was my favourite time in front of the mirror, these 5 minutes I would grin and kiss myself until the mirror broke (okay, not really). The smell of Vicco Turmeric on my skin was my savoury, my energy booster. Until Vicco Turmeric and Black and White TV were in my life, I didn’t know I was of darker skin tone. (As per societal standards)

    Colours

    And then, our house had to be lit up with colours and a box of sweets to distribute to the neighbours, as we welcomed our BPL colour TV. It’s all about colours now, like a beautiful rainbow in a dark sky. A smaller version of me welcomed the Colour TV and the cable TV with the enthusiasm of watching colourful shows. What I loved the most about Colour TV was the Advertisements. I would diligently watch the Ad’s with the same interest as I would watch a movie/tv show.

    Ask any 90’s kid in India, they will know all the ad’s by heart. If you are one of them reading this, I can hear you humming Washing Powder Nirma, Washing Powder Nirma 😀 However, somewhere between these Nirma’s and Liril’s, the fairness cream ad’s had an impact on me. Also, Unknowingly Colour TV’s contributed to colourism on a much larger scale.

    Fair & Famous

    In this specific Ad, where Actress Genelia is dreaming to be a cricket commentator, she will not be able to grow in her career. She gets fair and lovely in her hand and she becomes a commentator, the fame follows her. So as a kid, what seeded deep in me was, to be famous, I need to be fair. The switch from Vicco Turmeric to Fair & Lovely happened in no time, I was obsessed with this idea of becoming “Fair & Famous (Probably their product name should have been this). Every time the face cream gets empty, I made a rule in my house, that it should only be me who goes to buy a new one.

    Teenage! What a beautiful age that we all cherish, the memories we make at this age will stay with us forever. Only if everyone remembers that probably there will not be any bullies at all. I was humiliated multiple times for my colour, I don’t remember feeling bad for it because you know I had my Fair & Famous Lovely in my hand. I knew one day I will be Fair & Famous (this time I mean it), and that day I will take my revenge on these bullies.

    At that age we will not even know it’s bullying, we assume there is something wrong in us, something wrong with the way we are born and we try to make that Wrong->Right. That’s when, Fair & Lovely turned to me as a friend, that pink tube with a smell that changes your life overnight. I had dreams every time I held the cream in my hand & looked at the mirror. I had dreams of being an Air hostess, of being a TV host, of being an actress, of being a model, and I knew none of this is possible until I turn “fair”.

    Fair & Lovely was a huge hit, every household I knew had a tube, it turned out like a need as much as drinking water. It didn’t stop there, the success made them branch out to launch different flavours of it like Icecreams. One of my favourites was, Fair & Lovely Ayurveda, that’s when my hopes went even higher. You know, how important Ayurveda is in every Indian house, they touched my heart as they imbibed the core strength of India-Ayurveda.

    I started earning, I invested in buying fairness kits, few “Upper-middle-class brands” and I even took a step ahead of getting facials done in the salon. A salon is a place where they will make sure to put your self-esteem down as much as they can, to increase their profits. You go to shape your eyebrows, they say things like we have this special facial that will turn your face like a full moon.

    The switch

    The switch gradually happened, I can’t remember anything in particular that changed my thinking. I stopped using fairness creams, I switched to conscious brands like The Body Shop, I was using BB/CC creams. At this point, I did not have any goal to turn fair; I just needed healthy skin. Around this time, I stumbled upon the campaign by Nandita Das-“Dark & Beautiful” on Facebook. That poster I saw is still edged in front of my eyes when I think of it, it gave me hope that if an actress is promoting a darker colour, so why cant I feel good about what I am born with.

    I quit my job and started travelling, I met travellers from all across the world, mostly Europeans and a few Americans. They were all complaining about how much they hate their colour, and how jealous they are of my colour. Even while typing this, I smiled because that boosted my self-esteem that day and the thought of it does, even now.

    I also had very little money so I could not afford any products, worked out even better as I started indulging in using products available at home. That’s what our Ayurveda is about, we never had the idea of cream, powder or soap. We have always used the ingredients available in the backyard of our house, turmeric for the face and curry leaves for hair. The beauty is, they need not even be applied externally.

    To be fair

    In all fairness, guess what I didn’t turn fair (I am ROFL as I typed this sentence), I didn’t turn fair for good. I didn’t turn fair even though I contributed to the biggest scam, I didn’t turn fair although I made these MNC’s turn into billionaires. To be fair, I didn’t turn fair!

    All thanks to social media and the exposure of women who are standing tall, strong and proud, whatsoever colour they are. I read lots of stories about how deeply our society is obsessed with the idea of the colour white on our skin. The only colour they can accept on the skin is “White”. I am happy with the changes happening currently in the world, with the communities formed supporting all colours.

    We still have a long way to go, just last month; while having dinner with few friends. A friend pointed out at another friend and said, “her colour has increased” (that’s the closest translation I could do of this statement in Kannada) If I would have turned darker, that would have not even been a part of the discussion because Black is not referred as a colour! (Only with skin)

    There are lots of factors behind this, which may need another post. Most of the times, these conversations are not even intentional, it’s a conditioned conversation is that I would like to call. If we would like to change the conditioning, we will have to stop ourselves, think before we talk. That’s how we put a break, that’s how our kids learn, that’s how we pave way for our younger generation to accept how they are.

    I would like to share 2 instances that have stuck in my head and affected me on a negative note, I want to put it down here so that I can put this to the grave at last. Those situations and words can’t be reversed but can be forgotten!

    1. During my MBA days, we were on a field trip. All of us were out in the sun, I was applying sunscreen. A classmate of mine, in front of everyone, said: “Sneha, how much ever sunscreen you apply, you won’t turn fair” and started laughing out loud.
    2. At that right age of marriage, that’s defined by society. You know arranged marriage proposals start coming in. I denied getting married to all those proposals that came in. In front of my mother, this aunt (my mother’s sister) said to me. You are not good looking, how do we find boys for you if you keep denying them!! I remember my mother, feeling insulted about this more than myself.

    Whoever is reading this, who could relate or not, who was part of these kinds of situation. Just know, that the moon has dark patches too. Still glows, and still beautiful.

    Photos clicked by a dear friend Baishaki Mehatori.

    Blooming…

    Wildflower

  • Favourite Chapter…

    Favourite Chapter…

    Live like a child every day, you will never regret that you did. – Sneha Marappa 😉

    Smile 1

    Every morning there are two times I come out of my room before I get to work:
    1) To brush my teeth & stare at this specific tree in the front and a hill on my right.
    2) To drink milk/coffee, that’s when the first school bus arrives.

    The bus moves a little ahead closer to my room to take the U-turn, the children when they see me, few of them wave and few throw a smile and the other few scream, Snehaaaa akkkaaaa + wave.

    This happens every day, every damn day; it’s like they are seeing me after many years, the excitement remains constant and every day is a brand new day. A few times which are unlucky days, the timing doesn’t match so this scene doesn’t happen but when it happens that’s the first smile that they bring on my face for the day-Smile 1.

    Smile 2

    Morning assembly happens at 9 am, everyone’s quiet-it’s a rare moment, like take out your camera and seize the moment kind of a rare moment-a Kodak moment. It is difficult to stay quiet for me too, our Director inclusive; one day she comes close to me and whispers, “Oh! A new saree. Oh yeah! She is that cool, not at all trying to flatter her-true story!

    Sometimes I reach a little early, that’s when the Smile 2 begins. Akka, don’t tie your hair bun that way, I feel like laughing at you; Akka, you look like a Maid; Akka, Is it your birthday? (The most asked question, at least one child every day). Somehow all of this sounds better in Tamizh when they say it-Smile 2.

    When Smile 1 + Smile 2 happens, the whole day lightens up, even if it is just one of them, I can live with it the whole day grinning, just like them.

    Now look at a cobweb in that corner of your house, if there is none, imagine one. Flashback tone begins.

    2 Years ago & so on!

    1
    Then!

    On this day, I arrived here in my track pants and a Blue T-shirt; anxious, sweaty & exhausted. The train was delayed for 3 hours in Bengaluru, hence the exhaustion & lack of sleep. Carrying 4 bags and running behind a train that stops for 3 minutes with doors closed from inside, Sigh! That story deserves another blog post.

    So where was I? The job, yes! The job was not much to do with children, maybe a little. Well, I had no idea, I just came here, did not think much, about my goals or aspirations, about my writings or blog. All I had on my mind was a simple life with less noise (Point to be noted), a life amidst mountains, & there you go, I got one.

    I came here during summer holidays, hardly any (0) In-house teachers and absolutely no children. So there was no noise and there was life with mountains. Just like I desired, a breeze of applaud in my head goes on.

    But I had a tiny fear, what happens when the school starts. How will I cope with the noise? I was perplexed, twitching my fingers every day when the noisy thoughts arrive. I was asked to take care of the library as well, who would not want to be around books. A library is a place for silence, nobody talks which mean part of my job will be in silence and I do not have to talk to people. Hurray!

    Hold that grin on your face, right there! What I am going to say next might change that expression because the day arrived. The day that I was anxious about, the children, the people and the noise.

    The first class in Library, I am sitting in a corner with a book and I see these kids gazing at me. I can feel those cute little eyes all over me. After a few minutes, the silence is broken with pulling & pushing, screaming & screeching, shouting & hitting. I take a deep breath, while I am breathing out, the noise hits the roof and is on the way to a space station. I would scream at them, on top of my voice, and now there is radio silence. And then the noise begins again. This continues, this exact format-all the time, in every class.

    Days passed and so did months and years, I still shout at them sometimes and burst out laughing the next second. I am on their side now, we make noise, we draw, we sing and dance. I sit and hear their elephant stories, although most of the time they make up their own stories I feel, but they love it when I believe them and respond to what they say. They are good storytellers I must say, the tone, the pitch, the story crafting and most importantly they know how to trap the reader-they deserve an award.

    Somewhere in that war between silence that I craved & noise that I disliked, Noise won!

    I still have complications in dealing with people(adults), I am working on it but it is going to take time. So I am usually isolated, all by myself with myself but the loneliness does get on to me on a few days. These kids are the only source for me to drift away from that abyss, they are the only friends I can look up to, they are the only home that I can rest in.

    Every day is unique here, all because of them, only because of them. I like it when they are concerned when I am not dressed, Akka are you not well? I like it when they ask about me while I am on leave, I like it that they exist, right there just for that moment.

    Remember 2 years ago, I had this fear about coping with noise and now it was about how am I going to live ever without that noise after I leave this job. How often can I re telecast these memories in my head to keep that grin on my face? How am I going to live without elephant stories? Will they remember me if I come to visit them after a few years?

    Nightmares, these were the nightmares that kept me away from sleep. Mostly after I decided to leave! But Life always has a different answer, not the one that you want. This time the answer came in the form of a Virus-Corona/COVID-19!

    Today

    2
    Now!

    All that silence I prayed for 2 years ago, I have been blessed with it now, unfortunately. It’s been 2 months since I have seen all those grinning faces; as much as the silence engulfed everywhere, their grinned faces and screechy voice is engulfed all over my head.

    The home they built for me in themselves is all empty, filled with only taunting memories.

    The home that I could not even bid goodbye to!

    And now I am slowly drifting to the abyss again.

    And now…
    The swings are heavier.
    Merry go round isn’t merrier.
    Playground’s turned bizarre.
    The library looks spookier.

    Blooming…

    Wild Flower

  • 5 years…

    5 years…

    Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time-J. R. R. Tolkien

    Time flies they say, it indeed does. It’s been 5 long years since I published my first blog post. I read it again today, I remember how emotional I was that day when I clicked on that publish button. I received calls from friends that night giving a virtual hug. I was in my corporate job, I was travelling on and off following all the travel bloggers I admired. I was also keen on starting a fashion blog, I was following a few fashion bloggers who set an inspiration. In this dilemma, I thought let me just give it a shot with blogging; whatever it may be. It kind of started as a fashion blog, more than the fashion I fell in love with writing.

    5 years

    Through a common friend, I found a photographer/friend who agreed to do photography. We clicked well, every time I would get an idea, we would discuss and select a theme, go ahead with the photography. So the writing always came first, everything else revolved around it. Unknowingly, it was not even a fashion blog anymore; I do not know if there should be any categorization even, but it went well. I was elated every time I would share a blog post.

    A few months later, I decided to quit my job and travel. That was one of the fiery statements on social media 5 years ago. Don’t believe me? Just type “I quit my job to travel” and you will be startled to see how many blog posts you would find. I was one of the sheep too who followed that herd of “I quit my job to travel”. It was all rosy in the initial days until the money got over. You know, not everyone would share the hardships they go through, its only the smooth sailing they talk about.

    As a reader and an “Aspiring blogger”, I fell for it, royally. The days got tougher, I was doing remote jobs for a few months and travelling. I would be mostly exhausted on thinking of jobs on how to make money. It is close to impossible to make money with freelancing, the freelancing write-ups I did, the money would come somewhere between 4-6 months after the article gets published. So until then, consider that I am broke, no job, no travels, no writing, no life.

    All that I aspired to be, went in vain. My writing got slower, I was doing very minimal freelance work, rather I was getting minimal freelance work. I volunteered with a few NGO’s and attended some friend’s weddings. That’s how my travels were. Somewhere I had forgotten the purpose of my existence, the reason why I quit my job, the reason why I didn’t want to live the city life. And Sometimes I feel if I just gave up too easily.

    Blogging industry was booming and so was social media, there were/are millions of bloggers and influencers. Every time I am on my computer, I would see these posts saying “20 things to do/see/eat before you turn 20” and I would thank all the billion gods that blogging didn’t work out for me. Every blogger out there has a USP which they try to sell, say for example “Being Vegan”, most of their posts would revolve around it.

    It was not interesting to me anymore, I was glad I didn’t take up travel blogging seriously. We weren’t syncing well so I decided to take up a full-time job 2 years ago. In another 2 days, I would hit 2 years mark of working here; longest I have ever stayed after quitting my “Corporate job”. Writing didn’t happen much here, but I did lots of drawing/sketching and dancing. But, I did miss writing and when I did, I would write on Instagram and share a post. Once in a few months, I would write a poem to fill the void.

    This whole journey of blogging seems so erratic, it’s been 5 years since I started but I have probably lived in it for 2.5 to 3 years maybe. I am back on track with writing again, neither fashion nor travel. It’s called, “I will write what I want to write”.

    Come, read along?

    Blooming…

    Wild Flower

  • Dark Moon Shines

    Dark Moon Shines

    Hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon-Edward Lear

    It was the day after my birthday, September 2nd 2019; the bus was ripping through the mountains to reach Anaikatti. On this trail, for few kilometres phone network gets suspended. At this stretch, I rest my head on the window & count the number of mountains I see; sometimes with music on. Clouds were set for a shower, the silence of the mountains took over the noise of the bus’s engine. It started to drizzle, so I didn’t let music distract my solace with mountains. When the network resumed, I opened YouTube; the first song that appeared was “Nila Kaigirathu” by Sid Sriram; hesitantly I played the song. I got down from the bus, listened to the song as I walked to school. The chords of the song hit straight to the heart & ripped a smile on my face.

    1

    I heard it the second time, third time and about 1000th time (No exaggeration). When I hear an unplugged version of a song that I have never heard before, I look for the original version. I searched for it, listened to it on loop and this time the chords hit straight to the heart & to my legs & to my hands & to my eyes. I listened to this song on repeat, all the time. I would sit & dance imagining choreography in my head. As my understanding of Tamizh, is minimal; I looked for the translation of the lyrics.

    Not being able to be a dancer is the biggest void in my life, there are days I have spent looking at the mirror-posing as a dancer with drenched eyes. This song, ignited a spark to fill that void.

    2

    A week later, plans for Children’s Day was setting in. Prema Akka & Vaidehi Akka told me, they have been wanting to do a Dance-Drama for many years. The universe conspired I thought but I had my own self-doubts. I was not sure if I would be able to do justice to the song. I skipped this song, looked for other songs but I was hardly convinced.

    As it was for Children’s Day I was looking for a song sung by a child artist and this song happened to be sung by Ms Harini when she was 15 years old. I shared this song with Prema Akka & Vaidehi Akka, they loved it. Every day I would listen to the song, for me to get engulfed in it. As there was a language barrier, I had to prepare myself a lot more than required. Word by word translation is what I needed, all thanks to the internet.

    Once I understood the lyrics, the choreography was the next step. I am not a trained dancer, I have learnt Bharatnatyam from a few teachers but it was just to fulfil my void. I lacked the confidence to choreograph or even dance, I watched a few videos of dancers performing for this song; this inspired me. Whenever I had time, I would listen to the song and choreograph steps in my head; be it during lunch or even when I am conversing with someone. The song kept ringing in my head, non-stop!

    10 days prior to Children’s Day, we started our practice. I have no dreams to be a performer, neither did I anticipate that I will be performing someday in front of my lovely children.

    The first few steps and act was a bit challenging to communicate exactly how I had imagined. The first day was satisfactory but not as much as I expected it to be, I was still under-confident. The second day it all appeared like magic, dance flew through our nerves and showed up on our face.

    3

    This song will always remain as a song that let a dancer out of me, a performer out of me, a choreographer out of me, an artist out of me.

    There it still rings in my head, “Atho pogindrathu aasai megam…” There it is where it grooves my heartbeats.

    Blooming…

    Wild Flower