“Growing up in a toxic household, it was hard to ignore the hatred my parents held for each other. It was evident in the way they fought and each and every incident of those remains entrenched in my mind. But the silver lining among this was the love and the care my parents held for me and my brother. I floated through my school and was quite relieved to leave my hometown for pursuing my graduation in Journalism in Chennai.
Owing to the void my childhood left in me, I fell head over heels in love with a boy who happened to show me some affection. But the high didn’t last long as he left me for some other person within a short time we knew each other. It was a hard blow and I had to also deal with the rumours he sent around.
Determined, I decided to turn my life around and put all my work into growing myself. I started to hold positions of responsibility in the college and interned in various media houses while also learning to news-read professionally. My hard work paid off and I got placed in a company in Bangalore, one of the first ones to be placed in the college. But deep down, my interest was always in fashion design so consulting with my family, I went ahead to complete a course with the support of my family.
When the pandemic flew in, we were all back home at Neyveli each of us doing our own thing. I had just asked my dad to invest a certain amount in my company and he agreed readily but that day instantly turned into something straight out of a nightmare. My dad was one of the victims of the boiler blast incident at Neyveli and suffering from intense burns, he passed away.
Life as we knew changed for the worse on that day and we as a family, went through an extreme depressive phase. But in order to sustain myself and my family, I moved to Chennai to take a job and send the money back home. In the meantime, I started all my research for my business which I named ‘Aranya Designs’ after every member of our family. What started as a small hobby in the rented space of my brothers, eventually found its own place in a house I rented and moved into. My mother moved in with me and we are currently here, trying to make ends meet in however a small way we can. My business has just begun and that coupled with my work, I am running these days in a mad race hoping for the light at the end of this long tunnel.”