“Have a plan!”, says entrepreneur and cancer survivor Chhaya Dabas. She was diagnosed with cancer at the tender age of 13 and already knows more about life than most of us ever will. And when she says, “ poetry made my disease a little more human”, we have to believe her.
Chhaya has always had a penchant for stories. Her father is an avid reader and her grandfather is a linguist. So her childhood was Panchatantra and Jatakas and Akbar-Birbal. So, when she used that as a coping mechanism and wrote poetry for the doctor who was treating her cancer, she realized that words have a lot of power.
Baatein, her community, started as a blog and has now become a fulfilling business model, all due to the hustle of Chhaya. She started her business with a lot of clarity and honesty, something that she had learned from those childhood tales. She was clear that any monetary backing she would get, would not be from her family. Self-respect and ambition- that is what kickstarted her journey.
Her first event was a huge success, but what she remembers is her tear-filled eyes when she spotted herself on billboards across Delhi. That feeling of pride on her mother’s face is something Chhaya will cherish for a lifetime. Listen to this 24-year-old King’s degree holder, entrepreneur, businesswoman, story-teller and cancer survivor, share her life with all of us. It is stories like hers which make us get up and create our own story.
