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Hi, my name is George Abraham and welcome to Eyeway Conversations. My guest today is Anandi Viswanathan from Bangalore. She is an entrepreneur, actor, researcher, pranic healer and a mother. Hi Anandi welcome!
Hi, George.
So Anandi, let's begin by hearing what this Kaveri Angadi is all about?
So, Kaveri Angadi is an organic retail store. So we started three years back, just before the lockdown. So we didn't know the lockdown was coming, basically. So we started that time. And the idea was that, you know, like, my husband and I, Venkatesh and I noticed that, you know, we, we started moving towards organic products, we were using organic products for our daily consumption. And we noticed that there were no organic stores nearby us when we thought we were source getting things from multiple places, and then we thought it was a good thing for people, if we could get these things in a nearby location where everything can be accessed from a single point. So right, so that's how we started. Yeah,
So what are the kinds of products to keep here?
So we have the entire household, range of household products, so all the groceries and your oils and your your milk, dairy products, and your home products, personal care products, everything that someone would need for themselves and for their home. And we also have a range of snacks, like, although that's also like, you know, homemade resources from local people. So just to keep them so that is so support to the local industries. And, and it's all we ensure that they are good, the quality is good, and you know, it's that those thing that taken care of their chemical free, they are unadulterated products, those things we ensure.
So how would you kind of ensure all this?
So we speak to the people who supply. If they are manufacturers, we even visit their units, if it is physically possible for us to do that. Otherwise, we talk to them and try to understand how they do the whole process of manufacturing or how they farm. So we have we're also franchisees of a particular brand called Gramarajya and that brand ensures that you know they get all their all their farm produce you know rice and grains and all the everything that comes into your kitchen, so they ensure that all of these are organically farmed and organically everything is packed right from farming to packaging, everything is done properly.
So honestly, you being visually impaired what's your role in this whole operation?
So the store was to begin with it was my idea I look I told Venkatesh like no why don't we do something like this so that's how it got started. And so, what I do with this what we do in I do in the store is like we have people working in the shop to manage the everyday running of the store you know when customers come in and they give them the products into the building and stuff so we have people to do that work. But right from talking to them or not training them how to speak to the customers day telling them what is their day to day work, setting them in routine and then you know sometimes vendor vendor communication running the accounts, managing the you know the being a part of the decision making team the ideating for the next development, all these things I am a part of all these things.
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So Anandi the you also have had an interest in theatre and you call it the playback theatre. Can you tell us a little bit about what this playback theatre is and what is your stake in it?
Playback Theatre is a form of an improvisational interactive kind of a theatre. It's been around since 1975. It was started in the US. So this form of a theatre is like where, you know, as I said, it's improvisation interactive. So we we speak to the audience. So there is no story or a script. When we start the play. It's basically we listen to the stories and stories from the audience members. And when it's their personal story, then after listening to them, the actors, we played back to them, like, you know, on the spot, we perform their stories back to them. So that's the playback theatre. And I'm one of the actors I've been, I'm a part of a theatre company called First Drop. And so I've been with them for about three years now. So First Drop has been around for quite some time. So as was a team, which was like their online team, we started in the, during the lockdown. So we connected from different parts of the country. And this team is also special, because most of us are with people with disabilities. And so we started rehearsing learning online, and we have been having online performances for almost two, three years now. And personally, for me, like I was being a part of an international group a couple of years back. So we, we trained as a part of an international group, and we had about four international shows.
I also understand that you have a love for storytelling. Tell me a little bit about that.
For me, it's been a passion all along. You know, it's an interest that I've kind of been doing for a very long time. Telling, relating stories or making stories out of incidents, like dramatising it a bit and things. And I, I've been doing, I mean, all the children in my family have, like, many of them, like all my juniors have grown up listening to stories from me. So that was something that I've done like that informally in my family, and after my daughter came along, so it became like a more routine thing for me. And now I do it outside also for other children. So it's just like, you know, like, I take them together, let's sit together. And then we, I tell like stories and you know, talk to them. And it's something like that. It's a very informal casual kind of a thing, but I love it a lot.
In fact, when the last time we had interacted, you were working with a place called the Centre for Internet Studies, and you've done some research work. Yeah, it was about your research work, you've done, you've collaborated internationally as well on this platform research.
So I was working with a place called the Centre for Internet and Society. It's a Bangalore based think tank. And I was with them for a project on accessibility, where we were putting together a compendium of laws, policies and programmes that were from the Government of India, particularly for people with disabilities. And the other one that you're talking about is the project with the University of Michigan. So I reached out to one of their professors, about you know, I had a project idea, like I wanted to do some accessibility research on mobile phones. And that's when we were we were the visually impaired community was switching over from using those keypads you know, those feature phones to smartphones? Yeah. So. So there was a lot of doubt and confusion, and, you know, fear and so many things in everybody's minds, you know, because many were unwilling to switch because, you know, there was a fear about how we would be able to use the smart technology. And at the same time, there was a compulsion, because the feature phones were no longer available, you know, so it was like a force to shift. It wasn't like we were we had the choice to say yes or no about it. And we wrote about three papers and international papers and presented them in international symposiums.
You've also had an innings in public relations.
That's where I began my career so as to say. I was in Bombay, but then I grew up in Bombay. So yeah, so I wanted to, I mean, I always wanted to work and I don't want to, you know, I didn't want to let blindness, kind of stop me. So I felt that I had this thing in me. I felt I was a good communicator. And somehow I felt I would fit into that profession.
Whom did you work for Anandi?
Yeah. So I worked for a company called Genesis Burson Marsteller.
That's quite a well known well known place here.
Yeah. So the good thing the very happy thing for me was that they selected me for my meritocracy, as they call it, you know, they do not select does not have, you know, like does not like just taking a personal disability, you know, not not, not like that. It was like, they felt I had it in me to do it. And I was always treated well there, you know, like, I got the project and I never felt like a disabled person. As long as I was there in that organisation.
You also mentioned that you have a great interest in reading. So the time you were growing up and the initial part of your careers, I'm sure, reading would have been a bit of a challenge.
So I I'm a bookworm, if you think that's a good term to use, I, if I said if I would start a book, I wouldn't go away until I finished it. Right. That's how I used to read. So earlier in my life, when I was able to read directly from a book, that's how it used to be. And I base I would, I would read anything like I have, I'm interested in almost all the subjects, you could say, like, you know, at least I want to know what the book says it's more of more or less like that. So whatever books were there in my parents homes, you know, like, it was both English and Tamil, so I would have read all the books that were at home, but at the time, when I lost my sight, that was very difficult, because that used to be my oxygen. At that time, my family was very loving, and very, I mean, they're still, they were, they used to spend time for me, you know, like reading out stuff, reading books to me, because they could feel that, you know, like, I really wanted to read it. So whenever they would have time, they would read out books to me. So, in fact, my brother and I read Harry Potter that way, he read out the entire Harry Potter series to me. So that was a good time we had and we also like it, I think we I mean, that's how it was for me. And then later on, I got introduced to screen readers. And once I got access to screen readers, and then it was like, good, because I had, again, the whole world of reading opening opened up to me again.
You know, you are also kind of qualified or you're passionate about pranic healing? How did you get involved with pranic healing and what tell us a little bit about the Pranic Healing you do?
Okay, so, my dad got introduced to Pranic Healing first from our family, we were school going children then. So I don't know if you're heard of Pranic Healing before, but it's a energy based healing science, which uses these, the energies in our own bodies to heal us there are, we use the concept of, you know, the, the inner being an energy body, a pranic body, which is interconnected with our own physical body and the concept of goes like, you know, you buy healing the energy body or the pranic body, we all heal the ailments, the physical and psychological ailments of a person. So, so my father got started with that. And we got introduced to it when we were in school. So when we would have a headache or stomach ache, or, or pretending to have a headache or a stomach ache, so we couldn't go to school, and then my father would be like, no, no, I'll take care of that. But you can't cut school. So that's how we got introduced, introduced to that. And later on, when we grew up, because my dad used to do it, and people, people used to come home to get healed. So we have seen that. And so we've always been interested in that me and my brother, so. So we really got a chance to learn, we learnt it, I was already I was already blind, but at the time when I learned it, I so for me, the whole understanding has been like a non physical thing. I didn't have to look at anything, I grasped it without having to look at the screens or anything. And there are people helping me with the movements. How do you know how to do a particular action or whatever? So apart from that, yeah, so I learned without seeing it, and then I've been long. So it's, I've been practising for almost 20 odd years now. So So I used to do it professionally for, but point of time, I used to, like, you know, patients days to take patients and heal them on a regular basis. But now it's become more like, it's a family thing. So I take care of my family and anybody else like in my circle, if they need healing? They asked me, I don't know. It's not a full time thing anymore. But I continue to do it. In any case.
You mentioned that you had retenitis pigmentosa and it wasn't. Your blindness is not from the from birth, but it came in somewhere when you were already up and running in life. So when exactly did you lose your eyesight? And what was your life? Like before you went blind? And did you have to make any serious adjustments? And did your plants get affected in any way? Once you lost your eyesight?
Hmm. So I didn't have I didn't even know I was having I'd had this condition until I was 18 or 19. So what happened with me was like, you know, I was missing things like because with retinitis pigmentosa, the scope of the vision starts reducing gradually. In my case, it was coming down from the outside to the centre. So I started missing things like you know, missing a foot on the pavement or missing an overhanging branch or like like that, when I see someone who's out a hand to shake my hand, I wouldn't be able to see their hand. So that's when we started noticing that something is like something's not right with the sight. And the diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa did not happen immediately. But it was but at least I understood there was a condition with my retina. That's all I mean, that's how we understood at the beginning and I was about 80 As I said about 1918 at that And when these things started happening, but in my case, by the time I was 23, I was totally blind. The progress was very, very, very quick. So I hadn't, in a way, it was good for me, because I had been able to see a sighted world for a long time, so many things I can understand, because I've seen those things. And, and then it wasn't like, since I was just in my early 20s, you know, I had, I was studying chemistry, it's my, that was something that I wanted to do. But I had to drop out of university at that time, because I couldn't continue that particular field. I couldn't continue any more. And, but still, as I said, No, I was lucky enough that it was not in the big does not like somewhere in the middle of my career, this is the beginning of the career. So I could change tracks, and I could redo a lot of things. So another thing that happened to me at that time was like, you know, how do I say this? Okay, we lost, I mean, we lost her mother, she was struggling with cancer. And so it happened almost at the same time. So it didn't, maybe because of that I didn't have too much time to, to think about myself, you know, because our family as a unit was going through a lot. And so we all had to be there for each other. So, so that was that was supporting in a way, like I didn't sit down and mope for a long time about myself, I had to look, you know, like, get up and be a part of that group, which was going together. So I learned so at that time, like. So I learned to cook and I learned to do these things. And then I also thought, like, you know, I don't want to, I do not want to sit at home, you know, all my friends. But as I said, we all were just beginning our lives and careers, everyone had a job, and people are moving around. And I didn't want this vision loss to stop me. So I kept asking, like, you know, how do I want to how do I do? What do I do? Like? How do I cope with it? Because medically, I knew there was no solution, there was no cure. So the whole thing was like, How do I cope with it. So it took me about a couple of years to find people who could guide me. And so then I learned about a place where they were teaching company where there was a computer course, where we could learn how to use this with screen readers. And I got some of and when I went there, I met a lot of blind people. And they taught me how to use a white cane and how to move about. And so once I got my mobility, and I understood how to use technology, then I was able to, I was able to even finish my I was able to graduate and do I mean go further. And then I got a job, I was able to do all the things that I wanted to do.
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How did Venkatesh meet Anandi and how did that evolve?
Okay. So we met online, we met online. And we liked each other the first time we spoke to each other. So, so my idea of, of, of a person who would be right for me. Okay, so was that someone who would? Who would not see my blindness if you get it? You know, because most people look at me and they see a blind person. But to me, I'm not a blind person to me, I'm a person. And I am a living person. I have my own things and my successes and my failures and me as a person is full, complete person. Okay, yeah, I'm not I don't see myself as blind. So I wanted to, I thought a person who would be right for me would be someone who would see me beyond the blindness. And that was the only thing only criteria I had, like, the person I would probably consider would be someone who would not see the blindness. And he happened to be the person he when I told him, you know, like, I hope you're aware that I you know, I can't see and he said, Yeah, that's on the outside, but on the inside, I'm sure you are a full person. So how does outside matter so much? And so it's like, Yeah, this guy understands me. You know, he knows what I think. And then we clicked. That's how it happened.
So what were the two of you doing when you actually got married? Meaning professionally? What were you guys where were you?
So I was in Bombay. I was in my public relations job and he was in Bangalore. He is an engineer by training and he's an engineer by I mean, by education and by training. Yeah, so he was in Bangalore. And so we met I mean, we met through Bharat Matrimony, and then we thought it was a choice between who was going to shift so my company had a had a branch in Bangalore. And so I thought, you know, like, why not? So it was a huge decision at that point, because I was so familiar and comfortable with Bombay and I had grown up in Bombay all my life. Yeah, but then I thought, you know, like, I wanted to explore and experiment. So chalo, I'll shift and I'll come over. So that's how he moved to Bangalore.
Now this Kaveri Angadi. Is this something both of you kind of put full time into it? Or you're doing it as a second profession?
No, no, we both of us entirely into Kaveri Angadi now. Okay. So we took a decision, like, there was a point when we had to decide because, because Bangalore, you know, the traffic is too much. And so we thought, like, you know, you're spending a lot of time on the road. And we thought like, that, by the time the baby is already at will be with us. And we were like, No, now, you know, we shouldn't be. It's just not fair to be outside the house all the time. So we thought, like, we will do something. And that's how we, we, I mean, I had quite some time back. And then he also quit. And then we started doing, we started doing a lot of things. And then that's how I Kaveri Angadi thought, idea initiative. Like, why don't we do this, and this, and we both are passionate about top organic. And so it was not like something that we had to kind of create, you know, it was already inside us this whole drive to do this. But doing it as a shop and things that came at that time. And we were considering other options for ourselves.
You have a daughter, who's seven at the moment. What do you call her and what is it like to be a mother?
Heer name is Vinduja, Vinduja with a V. So it's a beautiful thing to be a mother from. I put my, for a long time, I was dedicated only to being a mother, until she came to this point where I can let her you know, she's able to independently look after herself. So and because of that, and because it was also a lockdown period. So one of us only could be at the store and the other person had to be at home because there was a lot of risk of exposure. So I, you know, I spent a lot of time with her well, in her growing years, and it's very, in a very, very sweet way that children are very much more inclusive than adults. They understand a thing because they distinction their hearts with their own, you know, like so. So my daughter has been very proactively inclusive. So when she was a very small child, and if she had to tell me something, if so, if she had to point out something, she realised that if she pointed with her finger, you know, I was not able to see and this was, which was very small, way too small. And when that she wants to turn then she realised that the one easy way to point things to me was to take my hand and point you know, so I would know exactly where the fingers pointing at. So when she would leave things lying around the house, and she saw a couple of times, I stepped on something and it hurt my feet. And then, as I said, a very tiny baby, but she would when she would see me going and she knows on the way that she has dropped things she'd run ahead of me and move those things, you know, so. So as a children, she was very proactively inclusive. She knew how to do it. And yeah, and I've learned as a parent, it's, it's been a good journey.
Anandi, you've been the president of the Rotary Club for quite a while and this is a unique Rotary Club. Why don't you talk about it?
Okay. So Rotary Bangalore Abilities. It's a Club, which was started in Bangalore, we call it District 3190. In Rotary. So this is the first club in the whole world where people with disabilities came together to to start a club. Probably in 2018, I think, right. So, so this club, like, we don't, we don't have a condition where it's only exclusively people with disability, that's an open club, but still, majorly, the people have a disability. So most people have a disability. So I was the president of the club between for the year 2019-20. So in Rotary, it's like, you know, it's a one year presidential. So that was my year of presidential. We are we did a lot of projects around people with disabilities. And because this is a club which as you know many people with disability, so we had a lot of collaboration, you know, between districts and within our own district where people came together and collaborated with us different rotary clubs to organise projects, so around people with disabilities.
And so what are some of the projects that you collaborated on?
So we do this project, it's a flagship project called, where we award. It's a disability award. We call it the Unsung Hero Award. We give it we do it on the day of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. So we recognise talent people with disabilities who are professionally who have or professional achievers, right, and who have not been solicited elsewhere. So we, it's a it's a nationwide thing we invite applications and this is our we have been doing this every year I think since our inception. And every year to year the project has just become bigger with more and more collaborations more and more money coming in. And initially it was just within the state of Karnataka, but now we do it across India. So this is one major project we do apart from that. So where we also do this event around Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Yeah, a couple of these projects like this.
Well, Anandi it's wonderful speaking with you and you had a very wet life with a lot of variety. And you've been enjoying enjoying life. Wish the very best, wish you and Venkatesh and Vinduja a great life together and a great future. Take care.
Thank you George.
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