Hey learner, welcome back to our series called “Empowered Women Empowering Women” Today, we have something unique, fun, and interactive. In this blog, we’ll be honoring our women experts at Book A Workshop. We are undoubtedly very grateful to have them on-board.
Sima Raaj
Sima, an actor, artist, performer, fitness lover, and a dreamer of a peaceful world without nuclear weapons. She is truly one of a kind. She believes – voice is an extremely powerful tool to express our thoughts and feelings. It applies to everyone, be it an actor, orator, voice artist, or a common man. She is a graduate of the National School of Drama with a major in acting. Her rich experience includes work in theatre, cinema, television, and singing.
Sima Raaj conducted a workshop with the subject “Explore Your Original Voice: Voice Acting” Her most significant work includes Ek Hasina Thi (Sriram Raghvan), Chandni Bar (Madhur Bhandarkar), The Scavenger’s daughter in a title role (Ritesh Menon) on Zee5.
Her workshop was a guide to learn voice, character voices, significance of breath, sound production techniques, how to break the inhibitions of our voice, and the whole concept of dubbing.
Our expert, Sima Raaj, has been in this field since she was 4 years old. It is beautiful to find out that all of these skills like singing, performing, and acting exceptionally instinctively come naturally to her. She has always been attracted to all these.
What Keeps You Motivated To Improve?
Our expert is motivated to keep learning to keep herself authentic as an artist and to keep teaching in order to guide the new talent.
Our expert believes in giving hope to everyone around her through her art which is honestly so inspirational. Well, that’s about our first expert Sima Raaj, a staunch believer of spiritual contribution and the power of voice.
THE BUBBER TWINS
Moving ahead, let us talk about the really cool expert duo, Aanchal, and Sanjana Bubber. Both of them are artists, painters and designers, and travel enthusiasts. They run a couture brand that is over a decade old and well renowned, based in Mumbai. We believe that their brand has become one of the most famous brands in South Bombay. The Bubber Couture has become a favorite of more than a hundred satisfied customers and more honestly.
In talks with the Bubber twins, we found a lot about their paths, their interests, and how they came so far. They planned to start something like this because they had always been exposed to art, creativity, and design. This pretty much made them attracted to color, form, and aesthetics. This made them intrigued and interested in pursuing a career in something like this. After completing their education in Fashion Apparel and Design and a two-year apprenticeship under a renowned menswear designer, they decided to launch their own venture.
Bubber Couture launched in April 2011. It’s been about 10 years, and has grown with them as individuals. The journey has been ever creative, highly challenging, and extremely rewarding for them. They are celebrating their 10-year mark with a new e-commerce website and a new online brand catered to the masses.
Bubber Couture is known for its unique inspirations that range from art, history, and archaeology, as well as its bespoke services.
They hosted a workshop on Book A Workshop about “how to create and sustain a fashion brand” Our experts have dressed umpteen celebrities such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Arjun Kapoor, and many more.
What Keeps You Motivated To Improve?
“The ambition to achieve our chalked out dreams is was motivates us to constantly upgrade, improve and evaluate. No brand or strategy is ever perfect. There is always scope to learn, improve and grow.”
So that’s about our expert. Let us now move ahead.
Lubna Yusuf
Lubna is an experienced expert in copyrights and legal contracts in the media and film industry. In her workshops, you learn about protecting creative work under the copyright laws, protecting and applying the copyright laws, and a lot more about the legal formalities that come under it.
She is an award-winning lawyer, author, and noted documentary filmmaker based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She is also the founder of the media law firm The La Legal and the co-founder of Fish Eye Box. To add to her glorious achievements is the book she co-authored on Artificial Intelligence. In conversation with our expert, we dived into her early life and how she made this prospect her career. So let’s get into it.
Our expert Lubna has been in the legal profession for about 10 years, with her media law practice covering just under 10 years. Apart from law, she also makes films and writes, which is her passion. She took up her Creative Writing course from Oxford University and a professional photography course from the Institute of London.
Why Did You Choose This Field?
“I grew up in a very academically inclined and culturally rich atmosphere in Calcutta. My grandfather was a judge, so I was drawn to legal books from a young age. I also loved the legal language and would read a lot.”
Her intention before entering this field was to fight the world and its problems with knowledge. “As an adult, I know the world is more complex than that. But we all have a part to play in the way it functions, and that is a responsibility to remember every day.”
What Keeps You Motivated To Improve?
“I love being happy. My motivation has always been in my journey. How far can we go if we keep trying and rewiring our thoughts. Being real to myself is my key strength.”
She has also worked as an assistant director on the feature film Dedh Ishqiya and has traveled to more than 20 international film festivals. We indeed are super inspired by our expert, a powerhouse of knowledge.
Mohona Bhadra
An artist, illustrator, and art educator, Mohona, recently conducted a “Learn rose wreath illustration” workshop with us. Participants were taught how to create a beautiful floral composition using the simplest of material and fascinating techniques.
From the very basics to advanced tricks, this workshop was perfect for everyone from beginners, hobbyists to more intermediate-level artists from the very basics to advanced tricks. While speaking to her, we found out so much more about her life and journey in general. So let’s get into it.
What Made You Choose This Field And Why Did You Choose It?
“It was my love of art that made me choose art and illustration as a career.”
“I grew up loving two things more than others: art and literature. I’ve loved reading and making art for as long as I can remember. My love of reading translated into me taking up English in college; I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s in the subject, but around 2016, when I was almost done with my postgraduate course, I realized that even though I still loved literature with all my heart, I did not want to pursue it any further. Academics was not for me, and neither were 9 to 5 jobs. So I decided to channel my energy towards art and try to make something of it. And so here I am.”
What Keeps You Motivated To Improve?
“People. The people who believe in me and in what I do”
Mohona has been in this field of art since childhood, but since 2018 it is that she took art professionally. We are nothing but grateful to have worked with her.
Tarveen Kaur
Our next expert Tarveen Kaur is an explorer. What we mean by this is that she is always looking for the next thing, if and how I can bring it to her work. She does this in her position as the Founder of Personify and an Internationally recognized Image, Etiquette, and Brand expert.
She is an Internationally Certified Image Consultant from Image Style Academy, Manhattan.
A lot of things motivate her. There is no greater gift than to do what you love and to make a difference in a meaningful way.
Her proudest moment in life, she shared, is when she recognized the relationship she shares with people. In her work, it is so important to have the trust and love for the people who work with you. It’s like she has this privilege to be more than just an educator, but a mentor, a confidant, and a friend. She does more than just teach. Her work gives me the freedom to do things and create an impact that extends far beyond the classroom.
She said she gets an immense sense of gratification when through her work that is her service which draws significant outcome as she can support people to achieve their own goals, or facilitate them to learn a new skill or improvise on the existing one or simply come up with new and creative ways to help them grow inspires her every single day.
Oorvazi Irani
Our next expert is a filmmaker, an actor, and an educationalist at Whistling Woods International.
We made our expert answer some questions, and honestly, it was so much fun. She gave us insights into the varied areas of expertise involved in the professional roles she plays as an independent filmmaker & actor, film & acting educationalist, and film critic, and each role has a beautiful give and take relationship with each other.
She believes what unites them all is the medium of ‘film’ and ‘creativity’ as a human endeavor. She firmly believes that films, while being a young medium of expression, have the potential to encompass all the older art forms, it is in alignment with the future.
Her father, Sorab Irani is a filmmaker, and as a child, she has been on shoots and exposed to the medium, thus was naturally attracted to it. But she further developed a deeper taste for cinema after she got involved in teaching it. She continued teaching as she found it to be a satisfying process, while being able to nurture young talents, hence making a difference in her own small, humble way. As a teacher, even with the same material, she keeps learning new and different dimensions each time.
The USP of our expert, I feel as an educationalist, is that she likes to teach in a way where she is not preaching but allowing the student to discover their truth from her knowledge and help them find value beyond limited facts and experiential learning.
She says, “The joy of teaching is attained if you can help sincere students to self-actualize.”
So that was about our expert from Whistling Woods.
Her journey is honestly beautiful and inspiring.
Poonam Salian
She is a psychologist turned Digital Marketer, a complete food and fashion junkie, and also the CEO and co-founder at DAB Digital Marketing.
She hosted a workshop with us on the topic “Leverage social media to build relations and scale up your business.” In this, the audience had a great time learning about social media experience, strategic framework, building brand awareness, and business growth through social media.
Similarly, when we spoke to her, she gave us information about how digital marketing is a very dynamic field that is a perfect blend of both technology and creativity. Our expert, Poonam Salian, was always intrigued about how people use simple combinations, like the right pictures with apt text, and convert them into sales. I mean, it’s so cool, honestly.
She also spoke about how working in the digital marketing field has aided her in learning about the many different ways she can help businesses and individuals reach a global audience and maximize sales. She also mentioned the constant evolution of this field through new and updated technology techniques for making the optimum use of all the channels available.
What Keeps You Motivated To Improve?
Her greatest motivation, she said, is the perpetual willingness to learn about something new every day and the innovations as well. She is always excited to try new ideas and help her clients- which is honestly very inspiring. Her 5 years long experience in this field is a powerhouse of great knowledge. So that was about her.
Nisha Chanda
Our next expert, Nisha Chanda is a Fashion evangelist, educationist, and influencer serving the industry for the last 15 years. She is a Post Graduate in Fashion Retail Management, Mumbai and a dual degree holder in Commerce and Fashion.
Having expertise in conceptualisation and business of Fashion, Nisha has worked and has been associated with national and international Fashion companies, brands and designers in almost every sector of Fashion. To mention a few Shorouk, Darya London, Swarovski, Siyarams, Kaysons, Sun Style Design Studio, Delna Poonawalla, Ecole International De Pari, Sia jewelers, Allen Solly, Peter England, Neeta Lulla, Gavin Miguel, and Kareena Laungani.
She acts as the Associate Director for ISDI- DICE School of Fashion, Lifestyle, and Luxury, where she looks into the academy’s overall academic and business growth. She believes in the international quality of academic exposure in academics and promotes entrepreneurial development in her students.
We asked her to answer a few questions for us, where we found out about her journey and experiences. Her expertise is in this field of fashion and business for the last 15 years now. She believes her USP is her eye for both business and fashion, and this dual nature of hers is such great strength. She also connects with people super easily, and we love that about her.
Poonam Wankhede
Our next expert, Poonam Wankhede aka Natasha, is an Engineer, a fashion stylist, and an artist.
Art had always been her calling so she turned it into a full-time engagement. She believes “art is all about experimentation.”
Nature has been her biggest inspiration, and loves to paint landscapes and animals. After trying out practically all available mediums in art she stumbled upon this new form of art back then in 2017 during an international art exhibition in Mumbai.
She is a professional resin artist, who started practising with this material nearly three years ago, at a time when art resin was not easily available nor were there any guidelines on how to work with it. As a beginner, she worked with smaller and easily achievable projects and then leapt into bigger projects. She also started her venture “The Colour Wheel” after she had considerable experience with all the art forms. This venture meant that she could reach out to the beginners and newbies who wanted to learn the art forms.
So that’s about our women experts at Book A Workshop. They are all equally inspiring, motivating and the best in their own fields. We are eternally grateful to have them as a part of our community. We hope you liked reading about their experience, journey and learnt new things through this because isn’t that exactly what Book A Workshop is about.
