Uncommon Transitions Manohar

Shruti Reddy started working as a developer in the IT industry in 2006. But after about a decade in what she describes as “hard-core techie” roles, she quit and started a funeral services company. That’s right, a company that offers services “assisting you in your loved ones last journey”. I must confess I was a bit nervous about how this episode would turn out. That’s because while the subject matter was fascinating, I wondered if the conversation would live upto the expectations this t...

I chose the name ‘Uncommon Transitions’ in the plural to showcase the plurality of transitions across a group of people, not a single person. And the trend so far has been exactly that: each person has had one major transition. But my guest in this episode breaks that trend, and how! Over a career spanning sixteen years, Malini Gowrishankar has been through multiple transitions spanning very different fields. She started in IT, then became a Voice-Over artist, dabbled in between as a Radio Jo...

This episode is a long, meandering conversation, the sort you would have with an artist who thinks deeply about art and life. Girija Hariharan spent a decade and a half in the IT industry before taking up painting full-time in 2015. She began her art career as a muralist, painting walls at the homes of friends willing to let her experiment, but these days she uses any medium that catches her fancy, including cardboard from discarded boxes. Her art conveys an intriguing mix of mythology and an...

Sindu Verma is someone who has worn – and still wears – different hats. She’s a mother, an entrepreneur, and a manager. She spent over a decade in the BPO industry in Mumbai and Bangalore before deciding to call it quits. The challenge she faced was one that’s common to most working women today. Which is, how to find a balance between your desire to work and grow at work and your desire to care for and spend time with your children? Sindu found a unique solution to this challenge, and we talk...

Chandrajith Belliappa grew up in a small town in Karnataka. As a child he wanted to be an actor first, and later a director. This in itself isn’t unusual – we’ve all had our share of childhood dreams. But Chandrajith kept his interest alive through school, college, and during his years as a software engineer. He read spy novels, wrote scripts, made short films with a friend, and when he got an opportunity to move full-time into the Kannada film industry, he didn’t hesitate. In his ...

My guest today is someone who chose to become a Social Entrepreneur after about a decade in the IT industry. Rathish Balakrishnan started his career as a researcher at INSEAD in France. After a couple of years he returned to India and joined the software company SAP in Bangalore, where he worked for over a decade before co-founding Sattva, a consulting firm focussed on the social sector.Rathish and I have known each other since his days at SAP, where we were colleagues. In this conversa...