#OneOfUs Blog
A collection of anecdotes by individuals, just like us, doing what they love
Candid Interview: Saiba Singh on her complementary careers at Sugar Rush by Saiba and Google26/2/2016
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An actor in Disney India's latest theatre production, Nisa Shetty talks about her journey on stage1/2/2016 "I should start by thanking my stars that I was born in such a wonderful, artistic family. My grandmother, Jalabala Vaidya, is a stage actress and one of the most amazing women i have met. She performed The Ramayana solo on Broadway playing all 22 characters herself and my grandfather, Gopal Sharman, a brilliant playwright and musician, was the genius behind the script that took this play across the world. My mom, Anasuya Vaidya, did lights and technicals on Broadway when she was 14 and my dad, Ajay Shetty, is a cinematographer. I have grown up with these legends! They've taught me all I know about music and acting. My grandfather built the Akshara Theater in Delhi where I have been learning and performing my entire life."
"The first memory I have of really knowing what I wanted to do in life is after watching ‘The Wedding Planner’ in 2001, at the age of 11. I have always been a hopeless romantic and believed in “happily ever after”; so as soon as I graduated from college, I spent a couple of years working for event planning and wedding décor companies. In April 2013, I took up my first independent project as a freelance wedding planner.
"My journey as a musician began at a very young age and ever since I was in the 8th grade, I knew I'd become a singer. Little did I know, however, that I would end up dabbling in almost every aspect of music ranging from vocals to composition and finally music production.
It was never easy. It still is not. I moved to Bombay because I wanted something more as a musician and because I had always loved this city. When I did move, almost two and a half years ago, I had to struggle not even to meet ends but to just get one job in a month. I persisted and went on and on trying to find work. It finally started coming in when I put double the effort and let whatever little ego I had, out the window. "Baking was not a part of my agenda and I knew nothing about it till 3 years back. I unknowingly took it up during a rough/lonely phase in my life and it just stuck. The feeling of spreading joy through good food, that you make, is unparalleled to anything I’ve experienced in my life. From once a week it slowly became an almost daily thing for me. I spent more and more hours learning, reading and practicing. I felt like a child again. Now comes the important question – make your passion your job?
"By the time I was 14 I had lived in 7 different cities. My family was always moving and my sibling and I had very little time to form deep friendships. Therefore my escape was reading. Till the end of my English bachelors I desired to write. I joined Jamia Mass communication with an aspiration that it will give me an opportunity to write and very little information about what the school actually taught. We started learning photography. This led to our first project, telling a 3 min story through still images. By doing it I realized I extremely enjoy telling stories. By continuously pursuing the visual medium I discovered I was a much better visual storyteller.
"When you are brought up in a family which discusses food in 9/10 conversations and are lucky to grow up on 5-star global cuisine due to your mother’s job, a passion for food and cooking will inevitably stick. It was in the Young India Fellowship that I got the idea to open a college café. While city restaurants are always innovating, the college cafes is a format that hasn’t witnessed any overhaul. To feel up to the challenge both skill-wise and financially, I gained experience in a core operations role which honed me in skills like negotiation, people management, data analytics, costing, and finance and supply chain.
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