Project Spark

Wonder what the 4Ts are? Tools, Treasure, Toys & Trash - an approach that Aanchal Kejriwal and her team at Arrange It All conceptualised in order to help people navigate through their decluttering and organising needs. With the vision of creating happy zones for her clients and allowing them to bring to life their stories and personalities through their homes, Anachal and her team are on a Marie Kondo-like mission!

Stories are all around us - you are either telling them, listening to them or you are simply part of one. And more often than not, they are indeed tools of change, as Janaki calls them.

Janaki Sabesh believes that any story harnesses the power to help create that tiny spark that has the ability to change perspectives in children and adults alike.

"A little bit of magic" is how Sudipta describes the story of her life. Throughout her life, she has had various opportunities to pursue her passion for stories as a career and now at 62, she remains unstoppable where she wouldn't stop telling them stories but continues to harvest them as well.

Sudipta proudly calls herself a storyteller and a story harvester and it all began when her grandmother narrated umpteen stories about Sudipta's father. The first spark came to life when she narrated an adapted version of a tale by Khalil Gibran, and the daisy-turned-sunflower that died happily probably remains a tactile memory for many of those seventh graders!

If something that you do gives you joy, you don't ever feel the pressure to actually "do" it. It just flows naturally and there is no stopping you from progressing in your own terms. This has been Aishwarya Vohra's way of life since she discovered her love illustrating a few years ago.

From sketching baby gods and goddesses to bringing her own "illustrative" self alive through her artwork, Aishwarya is a powerhouse of illustrations that aid in telling the most complex stories to young children and adults alike.

Dhwani's passion for food, cooking and feeding people around her is deep rooted. Having grown up in a household where every single person was involved right from packing her dabba to school, to her dear maternal paati making her famous rasam every afternoon, food and therefore cooking became Dhwani's second nature.

Paati's Rasam is autobiographical as Dhwani calls it, where she decided to pen this down along with her mother to tell the tale of a little girl, Malli, who lost her grandmother and the recipe of her Rasam.

I couldn't think of a more apt season for Dhwani's sparkable as a budding children's book author and someone who wants to share her love for cooking with more people.

Has a piece of art ever stopped you on your tracks and have you stared at it for a while only to realize that it evokes something in you? Something that you may have forgotten about or have hidden away in a safe corner? This is exactly what Anu's painting did to me exactly a year ago.

An intuitive painter, Anu's purpose in life is to create something from scratch that allows people to "feel". Period.

Listen in to Anu's sparkable on how she uses art as therapy for people to process their various emotions while delivering her life's purpose via White Paper Creative.

Having grown in a household where the power balance was equal, becoming a feminist was pretty much the only way to go for Smriti Lamech and it continues till date. As a woman of her word, it was only fair that she decided to kick off a movement that came to life pretty much overnight, with her feminist rag dolls aka bommais as she fondly calls them.

Seeing Wonder Woman crash through the ceiling was enough for her to reiterate her belief that it was important for children to have strong women role models.

Listen in to the episode to know how The Smritsonian has made several of our women role models from around the world, household names.

Nature is at the very core of any living being's survival and the irony of human being ignoring this very component and instead thinking of various other ways to survive leaves Sara pretty perplexed.

A certified early years educator and a professional nature and animal communicator, Sara's purpose in life is to create a silent revolution of compassion. And to do so, she believes that it is important to 'start them young'.

Listen in to this fascinating sparkable of Sara's on how she is working towards raising ecological awareness among children of various age groups via many interventions she is creating via Sara's Stories.

Shivani decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge when her daughter was still an infant and close to two years on, Rashki is a brand with the vision towards building lifestyle products specifically for women. Catering to the women of the age-old multitasking era, the brand's purpose is to ultimately hand over the power to women to truly be themselves at the workplace and in fact, practically anywhere.

Shivani's sparkable on being young parent-entrepreneur is one that each of us need to listen to, only to realize that the sky is the limit.

As a graphic designer by qualification, Sudipta Basu, over the years has found her niche of how she can bring in her love for design and art to life with Due To Hue. Her spark to bring this to life on multiple surfaces while experimenting with different textures took over and thus, Due To Hue was born. But the twist to the post comes in where she believes it is pertinent that everything she does today has to have an artisan's touch. Marrying their craftsmanship to her design was what I saw in the form of a rug that a friend had purchased on Instagram and Sudipta's just begun this journey.

Sudipta's mission is to be able to create a directory of artisans from across India as a dedication to the melting pot of culture that our country is, with the single-minded purpose of making every artisan rich and getting them the attention they rightfully deserve.

When Amritha's dad father decided it was time to have one of his daughters take on the reigns of Hindustan Trading Company, Amritha made sure it was important for her to learn on-the-job as she did when she first started counting cash at the age of 11. There's been no looking back ever since. HTC--as residents of Chennai call it fondly till date--is at the core of the art scene in India; from creating access to the best and the finest of art supplies from across the world, to bringing together artists from across the country for people to learn from, Amritha's passion and gumption is a force to reckon with.

Subadra discovered her love for art and colours about 8 years ago when she was actively looking for a hobby. Having found a niche in giving Indian art forms her own twist with a bit of her personality, Subadra today sees colours everywhere and is constantly wondering how that palette can translate to a canvas. Her relationship with art is slow but steady, something that gives her joy, something that she will never take the joy away from. Her mantra is to not pressurise herself to churn out piece after piece, and definitely not wait to perfect it!

Mathangi Kumar was all of 7 years old when she started cooking in the kitchen with her mother. Fast forward to today, that's where she gets her energy from. Having graduated from Le Cordon Bleu at the age of 23 and starting That Madras Place less than a year later, this formidable chef was hardly spending any time in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. She was now not a chef, but a business owner that had its own set of reality checks that did not give her any joy.

Mathangi made a choice one fine day, to go back to the kitchen and do what she loves the most - change the way people look at food; there's been no looking back ever since.

As two scientists by training, Gayatri and Sanjana felt it was important to provide the right kind of information to women--specifically about midlife health--in the light of COVID. Women have always been curious about their health but don't know where to look for this information and thus, Miyara Women was set up to address this gap. However, as we all know, old habits are hard to change, and thus Miyara Women is all about empowering women with a community-led approach to address their needs.

Women's health needs to become a mainstream conversation and not an afterthought according to both, Gayatri Muthukrishnan, Ph.D and Sanjana Rao, Ph.D, Co-founders of Miyara Women.

In this unfiltered conversation with Abirami Dusshyanth, Founder of HonestPad, we've dwelled deep into a subject that unfortunately still needs to be spoken about - period stigma. One one hand, HonestPad is all about being 100% safe and transparent about what goes in making each and every pad which is INR 2 more than a Whisper pad and on the other, Abirami's larger vision of creating access to information and products via Project Shakti is truly commendable. 500+ women from the grassroots are now part of this mission towards creating access to a 100% safe and healthy tomorrow.

Hailing from Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, Nikhat Sheikh decided it was important for her to respect her parents' wishes and decided to build her business from home. Seven years on (and counting), Nikhat is one of the few successful surface pattern designers in the country today. While she runs an extremely successful business, nothing has stopped her from sharing her purpose-filled passion with those who aspire to be surface pattern designers. Talk about passion, resilience and persistence, all jam-packed in this 26-odd minute episode!

Jayashree Ratan never imagined that she would be able to gather 400+ crocheting and knitting enthusiasts from different parts of the world to come together for one collective purpose - to help women who have been through mastectomies to regain a sense of self with the help of their huggable knockers. As of February 2023, this wonderful group has knitted and crocheted and knitted over 10,000 knockers for over 5000 beneficiaries and over 1200 beanies for several paediatric cancer patients around the country. 

With hardly any awareness around the availability of a breast prosthesis that made of a special type of cotton yarn, Saaisha India's primary goal has been to create awareness about their knockers amongst doctors and potential beneficiaries who cannot afford the more expensive alternatives that are available in the market today. 

Listen in and if you believe you know of someone who may benefit from this, please redirect them to this registration form (or better, help them fill this up) - https://bit.ly/3YjGcJa 

And if you are a crocheter or a knitter, please sign up to become a volunteer at Saaisha India here - https://bit.ly/3yiw1tC 

Unless you learned swimming voluntarily, it is almost a fair assumption to make that you did not enjoy the experience. For an activity that results in a life skill, a good learning experience should be a bare minimum right? That is all Nirala wanted to bring to the pool. A way to get kids to love water and willingly put their heads in and swim even before they learned to walk! And after working with over 900 kids now, she has some really interesting bits of wisdom to share with co-host, Pooja Sriram and we hope this episode ignites that spark in you to also take a simple problem and solve it with all your passion. Dive in!! 

After having founded Arture Designs back in 2015 which is now pretty much on auto pilot mode, Shivani decided it was time to pick up that brush again and paint because she enjoyed doing so. The pandemic was pretty much a turning point for her where she tapped into that natural instinct of wanting to dabble with yet another medium and this time, it was Gouache. The rest is pretty much history. 

From working on maybe 1 to 2 paintings a year, to painting every single day, Shivani is now actively working towards spreading the word about what it takes to become a creative entrepreneur. While mastering a medium takes a different level of commitment, turning your skill or craft or art into a business is a whole new level of commitment and this is exactly what Shivani is helping aspiring creative entrepreneurs navigate through. And all this while she's busy building her brand, currently as a Gouache artist. 

Sukanya, a photographer from Chennai is a storyteller whose purpose is to make people fall in themselves all over again just by showing them what she sees through her window of happiness. As someone who believes that storytelling is possible only when you are being honest with yourself as the storyteller on one hand, while you get the protagonist to be honest on the other hand, Listen in as our co-host, Smriti, takes Sukanya down her little memory lane to the day her first camera arrived home and how there's been no stopping this girl ever since. 

What do you think of when you listen to the word 'Instagram Influencer'? Someone who has thousands of followers, who collaborates with the biggest brands and hardly responds to comments? 😅

Now, meet Dhanya Srinath, an Instagram Influencer who is very different from 'that definition' of an influencer. Her authenticity is her USP and her love for community building is her strength. You can binge watch her cooking vlogs on @dh6nya and tune into this episode where she speaks to Project Spark's co-host Pooja  about her love for social media, food and people - something that both of them bond over! 

"Motherhood is tough."

"You lose your sense of self and somewhere you're looking for your old self, ending up frustrated."

"You got to do what you love because you have another person to inspire now." 

These are a few standouts for us amongst other things that Nrithya and I spoke about in this episode. 

A song-writer, a singer, a toddler mum and the co-founder of Love, Baby Rose, Nrithya decided to find comfort in music early on in her life. Getting the lyrics right was her first and foremost task as opposed to adding music to the lyrics. But all of this changed when she became a mum. Coping with the fact that her creative process had been torn into a "hundred million pieces" left her feeling frustrated but she didn't give up. What would have taken her two days, took her almost a year instead, to write and produce a song. But what instead she decided to do was to break it down into micro-mini baby steps and voila, she realised that there was method to the madness after all. 

Nrithya's beautiful little girl is now 3.5 years old and is busy creating her own songs on bubbles while Nrithya decided that it was time to experience the joy of creating all over again. And this time it was with children's clothing. 

Love, Baby Rose was co-founded by Nrithya, her mum and her 3.5-year-old back in 2022 with the purpose of creating a small, happy, safe community. 

Listen in as we speak about everything, from motherhood, to LBR's unique business model and above all, what it takes to put yourself out there no matter what. Because, very baby step counts.

With the sole purpose of bringing to the fore the 'she' perspective in how brands communicate to women consumers, Heetal and Shweta decided to leave behind their agency life and instead start Nine Yards Communications Consultancy back in 2020. Having seen how brands have evolved over the years but yet speak about themselves instead of addressing the "why" of their existence has been a pet peeve for the co-founders and they're working towards changing this in their own way via their work while enabling brands to be unapologetically themselves. Listen in to this 45-minute conversation (we promise you that every minute is worth it) as we delve deeper into why its important to have a fair representation of women in every aspect of our lives today what its going to take to get there. 

With everyone's New Year Resolution including a travel segment for 2023, this episode is one that digs into behind-the-scenes of organizing travel plans from a professional lens. Bhawana Rao has started 4 travel companies focusing on different aspects of travel - Travel Mocha, Stratos Lifestyle, Encompass & The Picnic Company and has tonnes to share from her own experience of visiting 43 countries and enabling travel for many others. 

Join Project Spark's co-host Pooja Sriram as she unearths the motivation of traveling and how Bhawana's unwavering passion and confidence shaped her career, in this episode. 

Varsha Adusumilli was in for a surprise when she realised that she had never paid attention to the fact that she was part of a minority cohort of women who have had the chance to carve out their  growth trajectory in their own terms. This reality check turned out to be a book called Wonder Girls, that is a collection of 15 stories of people who dared to do things their way. In other words, they were  role models for young children, especially young girls could relate to.

Listen in to this episode as Varsha and Smriti reflect on the need for role models, more importantly, relatable role models who can help change aspirations and outcomes in ways that one can never imagine. 

As 2022 comes to an end, Project Spark's co-hosts, Pooja and Smriti reflect on the learnings they've encountered in the last four months. From showing up, to developing a routine that suits you best and setting yourself up for success by your own terms amongst many other nuggets, the journey so far has been nothing short of amazing. Listen in to this wrap-up episode as Project Spark is all set to take things to the next level in 2023. 

As a bio-tech graduate who was in the middle of her PG degree, Prasun decided one day that none of this was making any sense and headed back home to her parents to follow her passion for art. As a self-taught mandala artist, illustrator, educator and entrepreneur, Prasun has organically and painstakingly built her brand "Prasun Fine Arts" via Instagram that resonates with people from across the world. As also an art teacher for many across age groups, Prasun's mantra has always been the fact that there is no right or wrong - you simply need to have the drive to move to the next level. 

As the founder of her second venture, Gul Meripehchan, Lavanya has always listened to her heart when it's come to bringing her ideas to life. Having worked on building SkillMarathon from scratch to live her passion towards training, Lavanya has now embarked on this exciting journey on how jewellery can become part of your identity. 

"On the days that I don't feel like it, I don't show up because I believe that as leaders, it is important for us to show up with the right frame of mind for our teams" was our biggest takeaway from our conversation with Chaitali Pishay Roy of CPR Consultants. Listen in to this sparkable on Chaitali's journey as a communications professional and how she's living her purpose of providing access to good communication professionals, location no bar. 

Married young and into a joint family kept Soujanya busy for 7 years and she enjoyed all the challenges motherhood threw at her. At a time when many women sit back and tick all the boxes of life, she wanted to go out and still do something for herself. So she started her career from scratch. We hope this story inspires many other women sailing in the same boat! 

In this episode on Project Spark, co-host Pooja digs deep into why Soujanya looked for a career, and why she finds joy in what she does and they laugh together about some fun stories from pre-school! Tune in, go down memory lane and join the fun. 

The second part of Prasannavika's sparkable is all about how she managed to keep the ember that her art teacher from seventh grade alive and to have finally taken the plunge to make a business out of it. And to her, success is all about how she engages with her customers face-to-face at every opportunity she gets, resulting in a community of people who have become her cheerleaders over the years. Having consciously taken the decision to not over-market Sundarakala and herself, Prasannavika believes that every minute would rather be spent in engaging with her community and creating art that would eventually bring joy into the lives of people. 

In this two-part series with Prasannavika Raghavan, illustrator, Madhubani artist and founder of Sundarakala, we do a deep-dive on various aspects of art and how it serves as a medium of expression both, for the artist and the buyer. Having left a full-time job behind to start Sundarakala and pursue her passion for art and specifically, Madhubani, Prasannavika's journey has been about creating art for people and fill their homes with joy. 

Sucré was started by Shraddha during the pandemic but the idea of wanting to become a pastry chef was seeded back in the day when she heard a chef at the pastry kitchen in Taj, Goa tell her that women did not have what it takes to stand long hours and endure long hours of labor in the kitchen. There's been no turning back ever since and Shraddha has so much more in store for Sucré and herself in the next few years. 

As someone who believes in surrounding herself with authentic people who add value in her life and where she can be of value too, Shraddha is someone who's believed that it is first important to take care of yourself to be able to show up for others day in and day out. 

This sparkable is filled with many such golden nuggets that you're going to want to listen to it more than once. 

Your home is no more a utilitarian space; it's a place that makes the smallest and the biggest moments special, and that’s where Nestasia fits in like a glove. With the mission of bringing design and trends to one’s home, this three-year old startup was started as a side hustle that swiftly became a full-time business in no time. Listen in as we do a deep-dive with Nestasia's co-founder, Aditi Agarwal, on her love for home decor since her early years, how she kept that ember alive through the years and what the next couple of years look like for the brand. 

Anjali started learning music at the age of 6 and stayed focused by practicing at 5:30 AM every single day...when many of us are just finding our next favorite toy. This is a story of practice, patience and perseverance - the 3 P's that Anjali swears by. 

Tune in to listen to Vidushi Anjali Sriram speak to co-host Pooja Sriram about her journey, how she found her 'home' in Carnatic music, what pushes her to practice every single day and some words of wisdom for all of us. Of course, the highlight of the episode is her lovely rendition of a song at the end. 

A full-time marketer and home cook whose love for food is palpable (and contagious), Sreya has kept this spark alive for over two decades now. From replicating recipes to experimenting with unusual combinations (read miso spaghetti) and now curating her own recipes, she is working towards her cook book, titled "Table For One".  

Enduring a divorce is one, but living through the stigma that the society puts you through is another. Destigmatizing divorce and the various labels that comes along is what Shasvathi has been working hard towards banishing for over 3 years now. Moreover, extending support that not just addresses the right resources required for one to go through the immediate and mid-term after-effects of divorce, but also the fact that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that it is okay for one to thrive in a post-divorce life is Shasvathi's mantra with the support group that she is actively building. 

It takes patience and perseverance to be successful in a business even if you have all the talent. This episode of Project Spark digs into the story of Preethi Sriram who found her Ikigai in New Bord Photography. As a mother, a founder, a business woman and an artist, she tells our co-host and her sister, Pooja Sriram, how she does it all with a smile. 

This is a Children's Day Special Episode, where listeners get to win something interesting by answering a question at the end of the episode. Listen in! 

From doodling on rough paper, to printing her first bunch of christmas cards and to now working on a 2023 calendar, Rehna Abdul Kareem, the founder of Paper Planes Doodles is working towards becoming a children’s book illustrator. As a former journalist, she’s always had a knack of putting some pretty powerful stories out there with very few words and now with Paper Planes Doodles. 

Listen in as Smriti speaks to Rehna on her journey as a self-taught illustrator who is now working super hard towards her goal of becoming a children’s book illustrator, while she continues to invest in herself (and significantly cutting down some expletives, which makes me truly, madly, deeply sad truth be told). 

Project Spark unearths interesting stories where people share a small snippet of their journey with us. In this episode, Anjali talks about her love for food and how she ended up becoming the co-founder of a Home bake Shop, The Breadheads even though she had never really stepped into a kitchen until the pandemic 2 years ago. She can surely inspire you in these 20 minutes. 

This is the second part to our conversation with Kavita Arvind, where she delves deep into how she deals with emotional labour of being a mentor for a variety of cohorts. She also speaks about a specific routine that works well for her and gives her the energy to show up every single day. Most of all, she touches upon how she manages to keep the motivation going day in day out. 

Listen in to this 20-minute episode on how Kavita has been sharing her love for visual storytelling by empowering many more to hone that skill in their own way.

This is the first part of our conversation with Kavita Arvind on her journey towards becoming a children's book illustrator, a design educator, an artist and so much more with that one common thread - her love for what she does and why she decided to share that with other people. Kavita goes on to speaking about how one can tap into that creative energy pool by doing the things you ultimately love and continue nurturing and kindling that side of you that you never knew existed. 

This #WorldVeganDay, former vegan, Smriti, speaks to Namita Satheesh on her vegan journeys an animal lover and as a chef. Someone who has decided to share her love for plant-based and vegan food, Namita also dons the hat of a nutritionist and breaks down several myths about going vegan. 

No the earth will never get overpopulated with animals if we don't eat them and there is not research (as yet) that plants indeed have a nervous system to supposedly feel pain. 

Listen in to this episode as Smriti and Namita get candid about their own vegan journeys. 

This episode is Smriti's conversation with Preet Bhatti, co-founder at Mynd, and her sparkable on how she serves as the gatekeeper for suicide prevention on one hand, while working relentlessly towards creating basic awareness about mental health on the other hand via Mynd.

Preet touches upon why organizations need to account for mental healthcare provision as a critical component in their annual budgets and moreover, why they should focus on democratizing access to mental healthcare by creating several touchpoints. With HR as a minor in college, Preet has been able to bring in some interesting perspectives to Mynd where they are in the middle of a transformative journey towards solving for access to therapy by identifying communities in need.

In this episode of Project Spark, Pratiksha talks about her love for art and how she went beyond odds to keep that spark alive within her and even made a business out of it. Listen in as Project Spark's co-host, Pooja unearths the challenges in Pratiksha's journey and celebrates her learnings that are sure to inspire many others! 

Defining a persona has been at the heart of every marketing and communications strategy. “Target and re-target till you get it right” is every marketer’s mantra but this needs to be backed by data as per Varnika Hathi. 

As the co-founder of Mynd, a two-year-old mental health startup, Varnika has shifted her focus towards curating a strategy that addresses every cohort with a subtle difference in the messaging. Listen in as she breaks down her personal journey in changing her specialisation to consumer behaviour and how marketing psychology has been her calling in the last couple of years. 

Brinda Miller discovered early on that she was drawn to art as a subject; while it remained a passion for years, she decided to pursue it with all seriousness once she quit her job at at textile mill, although textile as a medium is something she continues to work with even today. 

With a world view of how the art scene has evolved over the last few decades, Ms. Miller has always believed that art is meant to be consumed by everyone which is why the window of opportunity at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival has proven to be nothing short of magical. 

Listen in as Ms. Miller takes us through her most pivotal moments and how she has served as the spark not just for her two daughters but for many around the world. 

Mynd was started in 2020 with the singular objective of destigmatizing access to therapy while psycho-educating the public, specifically the Gen-Z and millennial cohorts, on the importance of mental health. With over 900 individuals booking their therapy sessions via Mynd, the startup's therapist network is now 25 members strong from across the globe. Listen in as Aayushi, one of the three co-founders speaks about her personal goal of creating a community that openly speaks about mental health. 

This is the first of the three episodes in this special edition for World Mental Health Day. 

27-year-old Indu was heartbroken when her fairytale marriage was subjected to the fate of domestic violence and an ugly divorce. BUT, instead of giving up hope she fought through and along with her built an army of women who have gone through a similar situation to stand up for each other. Today, Project Kintsugi helps many out there to deal with the trauma of divorce & domestic violence. Listen in as Project Spark's co-host, Pooja discovers what gives Indu the strength to change her own fate and create something so beautifully meaningful in this episode. 

In this special episode, co-hosts Pooja Sriram and Smriti Raghunandan share anecdotes from their roles as mothers, caregivers and professionals who love what they do for a living. They recall some interesting bits from the conversations with their guests in the last few weeks and relate to them in their own ways. 

Doing what you love while ensuring that you--by your own standards--are doing the best you can is really the mantra to find that sweet spot.