It was while interning for Global Shapers Community (GSC) in 2021 that Arundhathi Krishna had the chance to visit Switzerland. The trip was just meant to be for 2-3 days. Arundhathi decided to make the most of her trip and extended it for a week longer. Little did she know then, that she would have a life-changing experience in a traveller’s hostel. No, really. Arundhathi stayed at Lauterbrunnen Valley Hostel during her trip.
There, she got talking to her bunkmate, Cassie, a psychotherapist from Spain. That is how Arundhathi, then 21, found her life's purpose.
“For the first time in my life, I looked closer at the many aspects of who I am,” she says. “I was finding bits and pieces of the real me. I got the chance to better understand what motivated me to do the things that I was doing in life, and why.”
Arundhathi speaks with a kind of disarming clarity that I didn’t expect from someone so young. But then again, as someone who has lived a pretty sheltered life, I had a late awareness of the disparity that exists in the world. For those like Arundhathi, these are realisations they come to because of their lived experience. This experience in Switzerland was one where she felt heard and had the chance to self-reflect. It also gave her the space to address repressed trauma.
“While I had gone through some harrowing experiences in my early teens, I only addressed it during my conversation with the psychotherapist in Switzerland. She was the first proper listener I had, who told me that these experiences that had happened over 10 years ago are affecting me in other ways. But all through this experience, what I thought of was how so many women would’ve gone through similar experiences like me, and don’t have the privilege that I did in finding someone to talk to,” she says.
Incidentally, Arundhathi counts as her best listener the second person she has shared her stories with. “My partner came with a maturity and attitude I didn't expect towards me and women in general. It has kept me at ease during occasional anxiety peaks,” she explains.
The birth of Urmi
In her hope of passing on the help she got, she started Urmi, which aims to be Kerala's largest women’s networking community. As far as someone who has an aptitude for building communities goes, a few minutes with Arundhathi is enough to prove her mettle for the role. She immediately puts you at ease in a conversation, and is resolute in her thoughts and clear in her conviction.
Arundhathi’s social impact projects since her transformative trip have focused on the causes of women. Even before she started Urmi, Arundhathi had always been driven towards doing social impact work. But, she confesses, she might not have been doing it for the right reasons. While doing her B.Tech, she interned in different fields, which ranged from AI/ML to event management.
Hailing from a family of academics, she felt expectations from a young age to excel. “My father is a scientist who works with the central government, and my mother was a lecturer,” she explains. “So I always felt that I had to be the best, especially with a younger sister who looked up to me.” As a passionate volunteer, she worked with a whole host of organisations, but she also mentioned how she did a lot of it to prove her excellence.
“I felt like I had to keep doing something or the other to stand out from the crowd and make a name for myself, more than anything–even doing five internships at the same time–which I wouldn’t recommend to anybody if we’re being honest,” she says. But things fell into place when her trip to Switzerland led her to the path that she is currently on.
After college, she started working with a product based start-up in a sales role. But soon enough, she realised that the part of her role that she loved was talking to people. ‘I liked helping people with solving challenges, more than the sales part," she says, with a little chuckle. Whether it was fate or serendipity, she soon moved on to the learning-based non-profit Tinkerhub in Kochi. This was one of the few organisations in Kerala whose ethos she resonated with. Tinkerhub also gave her the flexibility to pursue her personal projects.
While the bigger vision for Urmi is to be Kerala’s largest women’s networking community, it started as a venture that helps women return to work after a career break. For this purpose, Arundhathi selects 7 participants annually, with six months going into setting them up with five mentors each and helping them train. This is supplemented with the chance to work on projects and networking with the apt communities like GSC, IEEE and the like.
The mentors work with the women to address concerns and obstacles they are battling in returning to the workforce. From the innate female experience of maternal guilt to dealing with the prevalent bias toward women and mothers in workplaces, the team equips the participants to reenter the workforce at the top of their game.
Currently, Urmi also hosts events, meetups, and workshops, and provides necessary resources to these women. This includes everything from mental health support to professional guidance, and even the chance to travel together. As someone who discovered her very purpose in life while travelling, it is befitting that Arundhathi is big on the power of solo travel.
Arundhathi is currently taking a well-deserved hiatus with Urmi. As is her nature, even in trying to take a break, she is involved in impactful projects like the panel discussion for SAAGA by IEEE Kerala that is focused on women empowerment and opportunities. For both Urmi and Arundhathi, the driving force is the same: to empower women to find their calling and help them go places, both physically and metaphorically.
Arundhathi would love to help changemakers with thoughts and ideas around building community and with building women’s leadership. You can connect with Arundhathi here.
