(SHE STOKED author Sandhya Menon)
“When I take something up, I am pretty committed to it,” says Chinmayi Sripaada. For those following the playback singer, multi-lingual dubbing artiste, entrepreneur, translator and activist on social media, that would be stating the obvious.
In October of 2018, she was at the vanguard of the second wave of the #MeToo movement in India. Besides bearing witness to her own experience of sexual harassment at the hands of a man widely lauded and deeply influential in the Tamil film industry, she also became the voice for others who were too scared to take on men in positions of power. Her fight against sexual harassment at work continues, despite the repercussions. She has had to pay a heavy professional price for taking on people more powerful and influential.
The South Indian Cine, Television Artistes and Dubbing Artistes Union banned her citing non-payment of subscription fees, which she challenged in court stating that she is a lifetime member, and got a stay on. Helming the body was another powerful man, whose name also cropped up in the #MeToo movement. Her fight continues. But in the meantime, both singing and dubbing assignments have dried up.
Someone else might have been broken, but not Chinmayi. It hurt because it was something she loved doing with all her heart. But, luckily for her, she wasn’t dependent on dubbing work to pay her bills. There is a lesson here for women -- to diversify. And have something of their own that pays their bills and builds them the nest egg in the face of adversity.
Starting Young, Staying Agile
Chinmayi was raised by a single mother, a life circumstance that changes a lot of children into adults quickly.
“I started The Blue Elephant when I was 19 years old,” says Chinmayi, who was adept at German before she graduated school. Blue Elephant is a translation and subtitling service that pays Chinmayi’s bills ‘spectacularly’. It has a pool of over 3,000 linguistic professionals that are experts in specific technical fields. “I started it when a friend’s mother suggested I do translations to add to the household income. I realised I needed to have something that was sustainable and profitable when I understood that playback singing would not always pay my bills,” she says.
There’s even more to Chinmayi than her voice and the business she started as a teenager that has matured with her. In the last few months, she has thrown herself in a considered, committed manner into things that matter to her -- as an artiste, entrepreneur, influencer and activist.
If you’ve seen Chinmayi, you will know you can’t find a better model for healthy, glowing skin. On Instagram, she repeatedly got queries about the skin care products that she used. Tired of answering the same questions repeatedly, she decided to take her makeup talk to her YouTube channel, which recently reached over a lakh subscribers.
That led her to her latest avatar as a distributor and stockist for Korean beauty products.
“I got into Korean beauty products just like a lot of us do; while hunting the website of one or the other product that we love. In my case, it was a website selling handbags that took me down the rabbit hole of K-beauty (as it is known popularly) products. K-beauty focuses on healthy, glowing skin in order to avoid makeup that covers and masks skin. I ordered my first kit from Korea and was hooked. I realised it was expensive because of customs charges and thought about a way that I could make this more accessible to Indian women,” she says.
“I realised I needed to have something that was sustainable and profitable when I understood that playback singing would not always pay my bills.”
It’s been a long-winded process to get the licenses and permissions necessary to deal in K-beauty products but now it’s done. She hopes to launch in a couple of weeks. Yet another entrepreneurial avenue that she has committed herself to.
Staying True to Who You Are
Chinmayi has figured out one of the secrets to entrepreneurial success is to build something from what you know. Her felicity with German gave birth to her translation service, and her experience with K-beauty products have led to her bringing into India the line of skin care products she knows well. Chinmayi can vouch for, with integrity and honesty, what she’s offering to buyers.
At this point, one can’t help but ask how she manages all that she does in the same time the rest of us seem to have. Does she have unproductive days? Does she take breaks to recharge?
“I have days when I don’t do anything. But I don’t feel guilty about those. Because when I work hard, I work very hard. When I have finished working hard on something, I sleep, which I enjoy very much, without guilt or worry. I suppose it helps that I do not have kids yet (although her four dogs pretty much make up for that). A clean conscience and giving my day my best helps,” she responds.
What about vacations? “I don’t think I have ever taken a holiday where I have separated it completely from work. Perhaps the last time was when I got married and we took a honeymoon. Even then, I had a concert in London, and from there we went on the Scotland,” she says.
“I have days when I don’t do anything. But I don’t feel guilty about those. Because when I work hard, I work very hard.”
Whenever she thinks about a holiday, she wonders if it is wise to spend that much money on an indulgence. A rarity in an age of “have money, will spend”. It is perhaps Chinmayi’s common sense and fastidiousness that makes her an authentic voice that draws fans and critics alike.
Speaking Out, Against All Odds
The last year, she says, has changed her life drastically. Having been the lone, scorchingly bright voice from an industry where sexual harassment is said to be an open secret, Chinmayi’s commitment to bringing about change has been unwavering. She continues to make court appearances for her petition to challenge the ban on her work.
She has enough reason to be disappointed. “This past year I have seen a side to the media that I hadn’t been fully aware of. Vicious, judgemental, one-sided: I was shamed regularly, pictures of me in perfectly normal clothes were captioned in a way that tended towards the vulgar; a complete lack of support from quarters that would benefit from my having spoken.”
None of this stops her. In Hyderabad and Bengaluru, she continues to find support from NGOs and individuals who have committed themselves to the cause of sexual misconduct and harassment.
“With people like the Red Elephant Foundation and Kirthi Jayakumar, I have found other ways to address the issue of sexual harassment. When I am invited as a chief guest at a school or a college, I barter it for a session on sexual harassment, or good touch and bad touch, depending on the age group,” she says. In doing so, she is an exemplar of how power can be used responsibly.
“It doesn’t always work. Even progressive schools in Chennai are hesitant to talk about this because they don’t want to ‘plant ideas in the minds of innocent children’. It is scary to see educational institutes not recognising something as basic as the need for awareness and what it does towards safety.”
We spoke about her dogs, and whether she considers herself a successful entrepreneur. “I don’t know,” says the woman who has won more than a couple of awards for entrepreneurship. What the activist in her does know, and wants other women to know, is that they need to talk about money and owning assets unabashedly.
“We shy away from this often because we don’t want to be seen as greedy or selfish. But if a man puts money away, do we think that of him? Even when a woman puts money away, she usually ends up spending it on her family. But I strongly advise women to buy a small piece of land, or property, and work towards saving for it. Life is unpredictable for the best of us, particularly so for women who are not taught how to provide for themselves,” surmises Chinmayi.