I have never really had just one profession.

I have been a teacher, a theatre practitioner, a facilitator, a storyteller, a communications professional and an artist. And somewhere along the way, I realised that they were never really different things. They were simply different ways of doing what I have always loved — connecting with people through stories.

I started teaching when I was 21.

I was teaching young children, and very quickly learnt that a textbook could only take you so far. If you wanted a child to truly understand something, you had to turn it into a story. An anecdote. An experience. Something they could see, feel and relate to.

That lesson stayed with me.

At 26, I moved into behavioural learning and began designing and facilitating programmes for adults. I found myself using theatre, literature, psychology and the arts to help people understand themselves and each other better.

In 2005, I co-founded Join the Dots with Rahul.

Our philosophy was simple: making theatre work for you.

We used theatre not just as performance, but as a way of learning, exploring and communicating. I designed learning modules and conducted corporate workshops on behavioural skills. I wrote plays, directed them, produced them and performed. I worked with children, created workshops for adults and built spaces where people who loved theatre could actually experience it.

Theatre became my laboratory for understanding people.

It taught me about human behaviour, empathy, conflict, communication and the incredible power of a well-told story.

My journey then took me into the world of communications and marketing, eventually leading me to head Marcom. From a classroom at 21, to behavioural learning at 26, to leading communications at 37 — every chapter added another layer to the storyteller I was becoming.

And then there is art.

Art has been part of my life since I was nine or ten. My mother was an artist, so I grew up surrounded by paintings, colours and creativity.

Many years ago, my mother and I started Aakar — initially to showcase and sell our work and to create a platform for art. What began as a passion project has stayed that way.

Today, through Aakar, I also sell art for a cause, using it to raise funds for cancer patients. It is my way of bringing together something I have inherited, something I love and something I believe in.

Looking back, my journey may seem like a collection of unlikely dots.

Teacher. Theatre-maker. Facilitator. Communicator. Artist. Storyteller.
But perhaps I was always just joining the dots.

Because whether I was teaching a child, facilitating a room full of executives, directing a play, building a communication campaign or holding a paintbrush, I was doing essentially the same thing:

Taking an idea and finding a way to make another person see it, feel it and understand it.

That is what storytelling means to me.

It is not just about telling stories.

It is about making people care.