"We have glorified the hustle of hard work in a big city" - Shruti Chaturvedi

"We have glorified the hustle of hard work in a big city.

I am from Ahmedabad. I founded chaaipani in 2015 as a one year project and shifted base to Mumbai in 2016. The reader base flourished within a couple of years and it became an intriguing media platform to discover, share and act on positively inspiring stories of people around us.

Soon, I was leading a team of 23 young, single and dynamic people, most of them from outside of Mumbai - Ranchi, Baroda, etc . All of them slowly started to feel the frustration of the hustle of the big city. They started sharing with me a desire to shift back to their hometown. My team was most precious to me and I was ready to do whatever it took to keep it intact. It was probably the time to make a wild decision - to move away from Mumbai as a team.

Our top option was shifting to Navi Mumbai. But clearly, that didn't excite anyone too much! :) It was around the same time that I was in Goa for attending a summit and one of the government officials gave me this idea of relocating to Goa.  That idea really excited me. I put this forward to my team and to my sheer happiness, the entire team, except for two who lived in Mumbai, agreed to shift to Goa and start work from here. And that’s how Chaaipani moved to Goa. We have been here since 2018. Since then, we have even hired 12-13 young people from Goa itself!

My lifestyle, from the very beginning, has been questioned by my parents. ‘Why are you not settling down at one place and keep on hopping cities’? So they were really aghast at my decision of moving to Goa. Initially, I even had to hide it from them. I told them I was going to Goa just for 5-6 months for a project. Eventually they just understood.

I believe that putting yourself first is not being selfish. It's self care. We make boundaries in our own head. I try everything that I wish to. At max, I will fail. But I want to try. Being bold and empathetic is my personal approach in life that highly reflects in my team and in Chaaipani as a company. It takes strength to be wild, but for some of us that’s what makes us happy."

- Shruti Chaturvedi, Goa

Follow Shruti on - Instagram and Twitter

 

 

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