From an investment bank to creating children’s books and TV – Jen Wakefield & Chitra Soundar

🎙️ In this episode, Jen is joined by the wonderful Chitra Soundar to discuss about her career from being a computer educator and working in an investment back to becoming a full-time children’s author, storyteller and children’s TV creator and screenwriter.

🏦 Chitra talks about how her work ethic from her corporate life has carried over to her work as an author, the reality of celebrating your creative pursuits when you’re still in the office, and the power of networking.

💡We also reflect on how she will always strive for more, even if it means throwing out the rules and creating your own.

🎥 Chitra Soundar is writer, author, storyteller. Her new animated series ‘Nikhil & Jay’ for CBeebies produced by King Banana TV will be out later this year. To find out more about Chitra, head to her website: https://www.chitrasoundar.com/

#inmypreviouslife #inmypreviouslifepodcast
#careers #risk #careerchange #selfdevelopment

Because of the pace at which Investment Banking works and the work ethic of people who work there um you kind of know that I’m like when I became an author even today people tell me we’ve never seen authors actually reply to emails within a week you reply within 10

Minutes Thursday when she called me to say they said yes and we’re going to publish your book my boss was only guy next to me and I turned around and said hey they’re going to publish my book and shook hands around the corridor with everybody I’m

Like and then what that’s it go back to work welcome to in my previous life I’m Jen Wakefield and I used to be a primary school teacher but I’ve since been a standup comedian presenter and writer in this podcast we give you a chance to hear firsthand from people who have

Changed careers from one concept Pathway to a creative or purpose-led job role this is not where you’ll hear a rags to Rich’s PR story like the ones you find in magazines but a real authentic take on what it’s actually like to change lanes in your adult life I’m so happy

This week to be joined by chitra sander uh chitra what were you in your previous life in my previous life I was a computer educator then turned program manager in an investment bank and now a writer author and a Storyteller my goodness me so you been on a real

Journey from from the beginning so okay so take us back to your first working role chitra um how did that come about well I was among the probably the first bit of generation that moved into computer tech um while all my um peers were studying accounting and other

Engineering um I wanted to study computer science so I did I as soon as I finished my degree uh which was not in computer science uh which was an accountancy and commerce um but I had done my computer course along with my uni um I wanted to go and teach

I always wanted to teach okay um like my when I was six I probably taught my parents sat them down and so I decided I’m going to teach computer science and I taught to adults like in a prop Institute so that was my first job and I

Was younger than students for at least 10 years wow oh my goodness because they were all so computers are new in the workplace at that time right so this is going back to languages like cobal is which is no longer used today yeah um it was a it’s a Mainframe

Language so people who are coming to learn are all already in work or having to adopt computers in their lives or people who are studying along with their degrees Yeah and actually that that’s how it feels now in a way with you know with social media I know that a lot of

The a lot of younger people know a lot more than the adults who are supervising them so it’s not that far away from that narrative but chitra was there somebody who got you into that or was there some a moment where you knew you wanted to

Work with computers yeah so um I think I can’t remember what it’s was called it was that BBC um it was like a small computer home computer that came uhuh and I think our school got like a little demo so they brought about five devices into the

Classroom and I used it for the first time and I said this is what I want to do this is logic and I know how this works and I know I wanted do so then I spent my year eight or year nine I can’t remember a holiday going and learning a

Language called Forin okay which was actually at that time used in NASA oh wow it’s like a maths and science um um computer language okay that was the only one that they were teaching during out of school hours um during term holidays and um I went and studied with other

Engineer scientists who had studying it how did you get that opportunity did your parents take you along like did it was I found out that um somebody like we have a neighbor who was a PhD in geology was in that University in the Science University and he said oh they’re

Running this computer course during the summer holidays but it’s for grownup engineers and I said will they let me in and he went and got exception for me and then my mom used to take me keep me in the class wait outside pick me up take me back so chra how old

Were you and how old were the rest of the the class I was I was in year eight or n so probably would have been 13 14 and they were probably all in their 35s oh my gosh chitra that’s unbelievable that’s that’s such a huge detail but

Also that tells me a lot about you as a personal ready because I feel like that’s someone saying I don’t really care about the rules if I want to do something I’m going to do it and you clearly had that at very young age yeah I don’t think I probably never followed

A rule that I didn’t believe in which was it just a headache if you are a girl growing up in a traditional conservative Indian family yeah in Chennai which is very very Orthodox um and literally broke every rule possible yeah that’s very inspiring and and doesn’t surprise me to hear but

I love that I love this story already I love this story already so okay so you decided to go and do that and then you were in year nine yeah and then we did we so when we had to choose our Majors which is I don’t know what is the

Equivalent called for us it’s the 11 and 12 which is before you pass out of school before uni you have to choose your major subjects and I wanted Commerce with with computer science cuz I thought business Computing is what I wanted to do I was not a physics person

I’m not a maths person although you have to study maths until you finish school um and they no no school in Chennai at that point had Commerce with computer science they had 5 years later okay um so I did my computer uh I did my Commerce and accounting majors and then

Got myself a evening College which is like you go at 2:00 and finish at 6:00 7:00 in the evening okay um then I found myself a computer course that I wanted to do the diploma in the morning um which at that time was very new there were only like two companies

Doing this and um it cost 7,000 Indian rupees for the course which was probably three times three month salary for my Dad wow and I was was like okay I I really need to do this course and my dad said okay if I take my loan

Out um you might have to pay it back because he was working for a personal bank and he could take loans out without interest right oh that’s so he gave me a loan okay um then I went and did the course in the morning so I have to be at

The class at 7:00 so I’ll go on my bike for 10 km on the bike um go to class be there until about 1:00 okay so we do the CL and then we’ll do practicals um it’s literally after that it’s like a free- for- all so if you can

Stand in line and get extra computer time you can do that so I’ll do that until I have to really literally go to college wow and then take my cycle go to my college finish college and then cycle back home in the night gosh CH so already you’ve got someone who’s knows

Has got tenacity knows what they one happy to break the rules to do it and loves learning clearly you love you love learning right you’re learning sounds like you’re learning addi I still learn I have a BBC Master membership and I’ll be I like to go and learn stuff yeah

Okay well yeah I can see I can see where this is how this is leading into the chitra we have today but that’s kind of astonishing for such a young person as well I mean did you feel like there was anyone else like you when you were your

Age no not really I think the biggest Advantage was my parents absolutely loved supporting our learning as long as you know we were not trying to do other things and we were just wanting to learn and it’s almost like my mom didn’t care if he broke the rules as long as it was

Good things they got a lot of flack for it um for letting us be whoever we wanted to be like in what way what kind um I think my mom got told off quite a lot by her family that you’re not she’s just going off at 7: in the morning

Coming back at 7:00 do you know what she’s doing like she’s studying really hard so she basically asked everybody to step away from it good on your mom for putting that boundary in place and saying look this is how I’m choosing to raise my family you know yeah and I

Think all through school all through uni my dad pretty much didn’t buy anything for himself like wow he saved up all the money for Education yeah um and I was Che ing um other kids right from when I was probably 11 or 12 so I never I don’t

Know what happened to that money I’ll just give it to my mom I never hardly ever um but it was all useful in the skill that I always wanted to teach was there in my head all the time but that’s that’s so you know so unique in that you

The age at which you realized that was so mature and clearly your dad and mom valuing education was very clear as a kind of route through for you as well yeah I think education is the only way out of our situation like we were I think

When my dad grew up very poor um but not working close that’s the problem right when you’re like super poor but you’re not in manual labor but you are yeah in one like you’re a clerk or you are um you know my grand my granddad was a social work

Homeopathic doctor so he did not take any money which means his children had to grow up with nothing and looked after by all sorts of people so for him it was always education is your path out of yeah the situation yeah um and my mom was not allowed to go to

School after she was 15 so for her it was like you go how long you want to go to school yeah she really wanted to make sure you had that so um so chitra take me through to your first job then um when you first started

In your role were again were you were you someone who was maybe the youngest one of the only women was that was that true or not neily no I think computer education had Fairly enough women in it um I got this job to teach computer

Science I went and they ask you to teach a demo lesson MH I got through that um and then they had another session after I joined and I completely froze oh no and I couldn’t talk and they went but you did the demo lesson really

Well and I think by then I was so worried about the expectation and then eventually I relaxed into it um this was the best part so I go in probably a week in um teach the lesson that’s all fine because you know the subject really well and after that then they came and

Dumped like this printed progress report kind of report card cards in front of everybody in the staff room and then they said um oh we have to mark attendance for every student because at this time computer education was so expensive in India so parents really wanted to know what their kids were

Doing in this place because we don’t know whether they’ll get jobs even so we have to mark attendance we have to mark their lab hours in it and then we have to send it and I said how and they said by hand so you refer to the registers and you

Fill this in for all these students and they were Stacks and stacks of stuff and I said but we teach computer science and they said yeah but we do manual work oh my goodness so you were doing all of these by hand even though you’re

I did not I refused to so I said that is Count kind of counterintuitive and they said what do you suggest we’ve always been doing it like this said that is not a good excuse to keep doing it so I said I can very very quickly make this all

Automated um do you want to have a go and they said okay um you go write the program the others will fill in manually this month and then by next month we’ll see whether you can get it done and I ultimated it and people just have to do

Data entry of the attendance and it’ll all print it out and she were they like thank you chitra they you made our life so much easier they were quite impressed that within the first week I was even brave enough to say what you’re doing is stupid so

And they didn’t know me but but CH even though so for you it’s not a surprise for you to behave in this way but did you notice how other people would react to you throughout your as you started your working life when you would speak up about things

Or yeah I I I don’t think people ever were immediately oh great this is fantastic yeah there’s always reticence right but it I think it’s a question of logically explaining why yeah which eventually happened to me at home as well right yeah because when they asked

Me to get married I said I can’t logically understand why I should yeah and then had a long argument about it yeah so it it’s that for me it’s like it doesn’t make sense to me so I’m not sure I’m going to do this yeah but then we

Did that Automation and then I think I joined April May and then in India you get a bonus for diali oh wow if uh because like here you get an end of year bonus they’ll give you a Dali bonus and they gave me a they gave me a

Bonus and a hike and I went back home and this was like I was making one tenth of what my dad was making then but probably 0.1% of what I’m making now but it was like a huge jump suddenly you the it’s the first job and I told my dad well I

Changed all their procedures oh my goodness and they think I can rum this place and blah blah blah and then yeah so I was always changing things that was that was eventually that was useful because that’s what my job became but yeah absolutely but I feel like that

Essence of that person has been there since you were young and so so you okay so you’ve you’ve got this you’ve got this job teaching computer science let’s move into how did that kind of graduate into where you then were working at an investment bank so um I moved from that company to

Another company which um were resellers of cbase and C++ which is was a soft very big software then okay okay um but we were also teaching and then I was teaching and then I moved into um again I completely restructured their placement program um and then I run out of things

To do I got a national role and I did the national role and I had run out of things to do um but at the same time I was I think I was about 27 by then okay I was way past my cell by date according to my

Aunts so they were like this is getting ridiculous she should get married and I was fighting a really hard battle every day yeah that sounds hard to keep it away yeah um because that was one thing my parents couldn’t deal with because it was like we have done everything you

Wanted us to do yeah now this is one thing we want you to do yeah and you’re not listening and I said but what you want me to do for you is my entire life absolutely so that’s not a proportionate response yeah so I refused and it was

Getting really hot I used to go to work at 700 came back at 11: most days simply because I couldn’t deal with it wow um and then I was completely chance I was coming the five floors up and down coming down the stairs when one of the

Guys who had quit and gone to a Investment Bank in Singapore was coming up the stairs and he said hey um my team back in Singapore is looking for programmers um you’re good at cbas and C++ and I said yeah and he said you want to apply and I had not even thought

About it so I had I said yeah sure so I emailed my CV to him um and then they said they want interview so I took the interview in somebody else’s house because you didn’t want to I just didn’t want no I didn’t want to create Panic

Before there was a cost to panic right because it wasn’t something that you don’t know whether it’s going to materialize or not so I took the interview somewhere else and then they had three qu there were two people eventually I worked with two senior managers they had since

Questions and first two was fine and then they asked a third question in sbas which is database question and I gave an answer and this guy was so um chockful of himself and he said no that’s not the answer and this is and he explained it and I said but if your

Answer is right the result of that data would be this but that’s not what you asked and this is what you asked and therefore the answer should be this there was silence on that side and his boss came on the line and then he asked a few questions and he

Became one of my best friends eventually wow but and then they said um yes we want to hire you uh how soon can you come wow and then there was a lot of weer related stuff but I left the country in 10 days 10 days and so did

You when you were having the interview CH did you know at that point did you have any feelings in your Tommy where you were like if this happens I really want this did that become apparent quite quickly yeah I think it was more an where to leave right because I knew if I

I needed that distance I’ve never lived away from home yeah I’ve never had my own room right and I’m 27 years old and I needed at that point I think everything was very fraught and there was the only way was to leave and I used to before that I used to literally live

With a suitcase under my bed wow because what if they forc me to get married how quickly can I walk away from this yeah um but to their credit eventually my parents understood um that’s that’s that’s a that’s a challenging thing to live with where you’re exactly right you

Know it sounds like it’s one thing you have to bargain away but really that will impact your whole life and you you you sound like a wholehearted person you put your everything into your things so it’s very difficult to imagine at this stage in your career where you’re kind

Of at your you’re really rising up to suddenly put like a plug in that and put it on hold for something that isn’t even what in your eyes will make you happy yeah I I I didn’t I didn’t think especially Indian arranged marriages it’s really hard to find the right person by matching

Horoscopes right and if you do find that person you’re marrying the whole family and it’s it’s really hard that you’ll get along with such a lot of people but you don’t know them before but the worst part is you can’t walk away from it after that right you’re stuck and so

For me that was too big a gamble to take on somebody else’s judgment 100% And and also like you said you’re quite logical the logic didn’t make sense to you so for me it was a logic it was like no this doesn’t work yeah so this was a

Great way to a boost your career and have this exciting career experience get some experience living on your own and also to kind of burn that that uh flame of that was kind of sizzling away where it is this you know to do something yeah definitely was a good thing because um

Singapore was my dad’s dream destination oh okay so when I got the job and I went and told them um they’re asking me to come they’re doing the Visa paperwork with for 10 within 10 days my dad was like Singapore great you can go that’s brilliant so you’re so smart chitra you

Knew you had to pick somewhere that your dad would approve of it all happened by chance but I did not expect that response either but it I would have gone anyway I feel like I would have gone anyway um and had no idea of what was

Coming didn’t know how to dress for an investment bank right you dress differently well how did that happen you know did you go in and just have a good look around and then do a big shop one day or no it was really weird because you know India so

Singapore has got taml culture in it so 25% of the population is Tamil so we know food device will be okay um the the the agency which was going to do the paperwork had a place where we there was like a uh they had rented an apartment

For people who were they were so they were basically body Shoppers okay right right so they had a place already so we know where we’re going um but nothing else was obvious at that time and they only organized the tourist visa so you have to go there and wait out your

Employment visa to happen um while learning and getting used to the place and it was very um we made lots of weird assumptions how to wear a suit and how to get a suit made and um and all sorts of things like that but none of that

Eventually was needed but you you don’t know right you’re going from this quite small South Indian city yeah into suddenly and and I did speak to somebody who was working there who was oddly also called chitra um and I had a chat with her and things like that she helped like

Orientate you and like she told because she was here in chenai she had come for holiday when I was leaving okay um and weirdly all the important days in my life happened to be September the 11th wo I landed on September the 11th oh that’s interesting

Um which is really and a pattern that’s continued on has it yeah and then after that couple of other things have happened on the same day like so so chitra so you’re okay let’s let’s bring it to you being in Singapore now so uh how many years were you in this role in

Singapore um I was there only this is the best part um I was there for three four years I can’t remember um when did I come back yeah four 3 and a half years and again I had done really well right I got started really bumpy start um Bad

Bosses and all of that uhuh but eventually I was doing four different projects I was coding in different languages and then I did this amazing project and everything was fine and then they were going to they said do you want to become um not represented by the

Agency do you want to work for the bank itself they offered you got in and then they they would not promote me to the level I deserve because um I had done more projects than anybody else and there only two contractors who are becoming employees right and they gave

The guy the promotion and not me and I went and had a chat and I said this sounds odd because he’s literally written one program that didn’t even work and I had to fix it and I’ve done all of these projects what is going on

And they said well he’s a man who needs the money you’re single oh my goodness I’ve never heard that one before wow it was a longterm ago and I was what I said what and I said that’s not fair and and I worked really hard weekends on this

And things like that and he said hey just wait it out it’ll happen eventually right and I I said I’m and they were Indian bosses actually they were all experts right I said okay you’re not going to and and they needed me to work for the rest of the Saturdays until

Certain Peri I said but then you’re not paying me for that as well and they said well that’s just conditional on you accepting becoming an employee and I just I said okay fine you can have that free because your bank is so poor um and I quit here is your

Notice right my employment my Visa is dependent on that employment right but I literally just quit and packed my things and then and left I came back to India um thinking I’m going to write so okay this is the this is this is the shift now I did I yeah I was

Published in I got my I did my first book in Singapore then by that time okay so this is something that I want to ask about in terms of the shift between um because obviously some people will jump from one thing to another some people will start something whilst they’re

Still in their you know their main breadwinning job or main career trajectory so how did that happen for you in Singapore did you just write as a hobby or did you take a class like how did that begin for you I always wanted to write so I wrote through school um I

Was known as a writer in school um I wrote at Uni um I won some prices throughout and then and was always always fiction um not really I think I wrote poetry I wrote um non-fiction essays okay um didn’t write a lot of fiction but I was an oldal Storyteller

Right so um we grew up my mom is a improv playright uh and my grandparents we had a join family so we lived together for until I was um in year 9 or 10 my grandparents were with us like my mom grandom my uncle my aunt my so they

Were all with us and we grew up with oral storytelling so I was always storytelling to my cousins and all of that um then I went to Singapore I had suddenly Saturday Sundays off in India you don’t get Saturday Sundays off so you get six and a half day weeks so you

Work five five and a half some days you’d work six days so it’s works out to a day and a half or off then you have to do chores because you live with your family right so I suddenly had time off and my sister said how about writing all

The stories down that you used to tell us but I also even today this is a problem like I like to write everything I want to write everything so I went and wrote tried to write everything I got my story published I F I found a writers

Meeting which was run by the guy who set up the Press Club in Singapore okay Indian guy Indian Singaporean um and he ran this small writers thing in his room imagine a strange you’re going into a strange person’s house you don’t know anybody right he just said somebody said there’s

A writers club and you just land in somebody’s house so I met lots of big writers there and one of them was the editor of the Singapore Airline magazine and he said do you write short stories and I said yes and I don’t know

How I wrote in I didn’t know I just said yes so um then I sent him a story he published it in the alline magazine okay and a poem and was that your first published piece in like apart from when you were studying cool I probably yeah I

Probably think so from a yeah I think it was probably the first one and then I um then they one of the people who came to that meeting was a publisher um and then they said we’re running this conference kind of thing they want to come and then I went there

And I met this lady and she publishes folktales and so uh she said look I don’t publish normal fiction and stuff but if you are willing to retell folktales I can um we can have a discussion so while I said I grew up on folktales I’m very happy to retell

Stories um so and I decided to read all stories um I I think it was 30 stories and she had so they’re all like one page ones right um and then she said well we can’t just publish Indian stories because our population Indian population is only 25% okay right so

We’re going to pair you up with another Chinese um writer in- house writer we have she’s going to write 30 Chinese stories and then we’re going to put together together both I said great and we’re still friends like last time I went to Singapore was it last year I

Went um I met with her um and I was I had no idea right 30 stories I told her I can write it in 30 days wow and I had a job which had 16 hour shifts that’s a big Target CH treasury I was so yeah

That so the the Bliss of ignorance right so but if you have that mindset you think I’ve got all this time off this is how I’m going to use it that’s what I I sat in my weekend literally did not go anywhere just wrote and wrote and wrote

And wrote and wrote were you enjoying it though yeah it was I was literally retelling all the stories I had heard or read but they were all folk tales trickster tales and I wrote them down um I finished uh and I was like yes I finished the book it’s and then it came

On and said now I’m a WR I can quit my job and then when this guy said you’re not getting promoted I said here is your notice yeah you have that Sassy film moment slow motion handing back your your past card I yeah I literally banged the door on him and walked out

And and it was in hindsight probably a very rash decision because suddenly I had say my my Visa will run out literally the day after my not is end so to get everything ready and leave um and so much things I gave away my mom is always like you always decide

Like this and throw away so much stuff was a decision were you were you quite Resolute though and you know in that moment yeah I wasn’t willing to work for him anymore after that because I knew it was going to be like that like you can

See that how they’re going to treat you and had had the writing you were doing the writing for a little while so was that a thought in your mind before this had happened no I I think I knew I could write but I I don’t think I would have

Ever been able to support myself with it but what I thought was I can go back to India find a job there and write or decide I did I don’t think I had a proper plan right I just knew I wasn’t going to work for him yeah but

Eventually when I went back to India and then I called my previous boss who was a good friend of this guy who I left um and he said um they shouldn’t have let you go because they had to replace you with four people wow you know your worth chitra though you knew

Your worth so so chitra we we’re at this stage now where this there is a shift because whether you planned it or not you had been writing it sounds like this part of you has been coming through and maybe I don’t know if it’s a part of

You that you know because you suddenly had some time to dedicate to this as well was coming through you quit your job let’s let’s look at we’re going to start looking now at this pathway that you took to becoming more of a writer so

How did that happen I mean was it was it a case of working part-time or did you take another job for a while no I went so I went back to India and all of the wedding things came back oh that’s horrible I’m tough and I quickly

Realized I can’t live here but I did um I did try yeah so I applied for a um sub editor’s job in one of the national daili okay so you this is a job in working in publishing in Chennai in chenai so I thought I’ll do it because

I’m going to stay with my parents right yeah yeah so I went and they said why are you applying for this job you don’t have any journalistic experience I said I can write and I showed them cuz I had published in a few newspaper I have done

A lot written a lot of newspaper opinions in um Singapore and they got published yeah um and I was writing for children’s magazines and for some reason they gave it to me right and my first job I went in and it was at your shift starts at

300 p.m. wow so different finishes at midnight my goodness I did only one day I came back and the next day I rang them and said I’m so sorry I can’t do this job because I’m a morning person I can’t stay awake I couldn’t even get up

The next morning I was like so distro like I’ve done the wrong thing oh wow and I was so upset with myself for being overconfident and doing something that I shouldn’t have and not being able to fulfill the obligations were you extra hard on yourself because because of that

High achievement that you had in your life you think yeah I don’t think I like to walk away from things I like to finish it and I felt like maybe I would have gotten used to this shift um I’m like but my mom said look

If you don’t want to go don’t go who’s asking you to go that probably helped getting that from your mom and say you know thinking okay if she feels this I’ve got one person’s got my back who knows me yeah I I don’t think my they would have worried

Because it’s convenient if I’m at home right so to get me married off so she was like anything to keep CH so then I realized I needed a job back then I spoke to um two people um the guy who had hired me like the contracting company

Which had gave me the who had set me up in the original job um and uh and a friend of my sisters and um I so I got interviews with both one was back in Singapore and the other was in UK oh okay and the one in

Singapore was exactly the same skill set I needed at the First Bank it was a different bank and the one in the UK was coding in Microsoft Word which I can do to an extent because I could code um Excel and access so I know I can code it

And so they said interview I did the interview on both sides the first one was a shin um the second one I did the interview I didn’t know the answer to a couple of questions they were like oh okay but we do want to meet you again

And then we did the second interview they all on the phone and then I said why didn’t I know that answer so I went and looked it up I was like oh this is what it is anyway left it didn’t think they were going to call back they called back and then they

Asked the same question again mhm and I said oh yeah I didn’t answer this last time but I did look it up and this is what it is and I know I can do this and I went oh my God that exactly tells is what kind of person you are and we

Definitely want you oh wow chitra that’s so interesting but I didn’t want to come to the UK at that time um one because Singapore was familiar with the job was familiar it was Banking and this was like a contract job coding in word in different places and I was like I think

I’m better off going back to Investment Banking um because I can build on that skill set rather than having disparate yes um uh CV yeah so you you wanted to you knew that you needed to do something you you’d learned something about what kind of person you are in terms of

Morning person I need to be doing a job that feels familiar again and so you thought I’m going to continue with the skills that I’ve got and and built on that so so chitra take us on a little bit of a two-minute tour now if you can

From this this role this second time around in Singapore can you sort of take us through uh a little succession of how that led you to becoming more of a writer so when I got the Singapore job and went back the first thing I told H

Guy when I met him was hey I’m a writer I have to write on the job I have to write on the side um so is there a policy against me publishing anything and he said as long as you’re not writing about the bank no children stories about banking

Please um we don’t care what you do in your free time um and you can make as much money as you want on it that’s up to you and the tax guy we don’t care okay so great I was writing with this public particular publisher who

Published me I have done couple of books with them by then and then I was doing lots of books with them I was also writing regular columns in their school magazines they published School two School magazines and I was publishing with lots and lots of US magazines

Australia and New Zealand so I was writing for all the children’s magazines I me you say I was doing this and I was doing that but that is quite enormous doing all of that as well as your full-time job you know were you feeling that

That um the first job I the first role I took in the new bank was so easy oh okay well I never heard it was like I went there yeah I said why did you hire me for this you could have just paid me money I would have done it from that

Kind of job it was like it was done right I went there in a week it was done and I was like okay now they’re going to fire me right I’m sitting on my hands I’m not doing anything and I’m bored out of my mind and I said can I do anything

Else please because just tell me you must have worked somewhere yeah and then they said oh this other guy is working on this it’s very hard for you to learn I said show it to me and then I learned that I did that and then um slowly I

Picked everything up and within I think I went there in 3 months the manager said um can we make you permanent do you want to come on board not uh through a contractor but permanently working for us I said great if you think you can use

Me you wanted to use more of your time you you clear because I went and took more work that they had not expected a contractor to do I was like I can’t sit quietly just staring into my computer for a whole day out of Interest CH why

Was there any part of you that thought I can use this time to write or was it because you were in the office so there were I kept one clear policy um because of the way your employment contracts are structure whatever you create at work belongs to them okay okay yeah so it’s

Not like you can work from home and squirrel away on the you can have another laptop and be typing but that would be too obvious right of course um and it yeah I I didn’t want to write right there because I pretty much everything I was writing was speculative

Right I didn’t have a writing contract I had these writing jobs with this publisher but I wasn’t writing um my novel or anything like that um so yeah I didn’t I didn’t write on the job it was more like you go there your 95 is stuck there yeah of course

And you have to you have to do something there were guys who were just sitting around talking about I didn’t realize for a long time I thought they were discussing their families because they were talking about oh she said that and she said that and then one day I just

Turned around and asked are you guys discussing your families these were grown men and they were discussing a soap opera like East Enders but in Tam I mean people love stories you know on screen and off screen yeah I wasn’t expecting no you’re right right I mean

Clearly again you know you want to be learning you want to be useful and I think this brings it nicely into talking about this ethic from your your work ethic is very strong and so now let’s bring it into now um what you’re doing so you’ve you’ve moved through the these

Roles and you’re you you are now a full-time author and you’re a producer CH yeah and screenwriter and creator of of One’s Own show based on one’s own books which is amazing um and and so how do you approach this work in terms of what you learned from your previous Work I think this work defin two ways right one my work at the bank right throughout was always very creative I had to solve problems I had to finish projects but finish finishing projects in a very big International Bank means you have to pull people together find innovative solutions get

Favors yeah trade favors all sorts of people skills right um it also because of the pace at which Investment Banking works and the work ethic of people who work there um you kind of know that I’m like when I became an author even today people tell me we’ve never seen authors

Actually reply to emails within a week you reply within 10 minutes yeah so I brought all of that work EIC and and planning and looking forward strategizing all of that with me I think and it’s also hugely useful to I’ve shifted careers three times and it’s super hard to shift into something like

Screenwriting or being an author after you’re 40 because people like you can’t go and do internships yeah people don’t think you are eligible like it’s you have to be out of college to do internships you can’t just go and say I would like to start as a traine for may even if they

Let you do it it I don’t think I can keep my sh mouth shut when somebody 10 years younger to me or 20 years younger to me say something that won’t work and I’ll say that won’t work and that’ll get into a situation right yeah yeah but I

Did I I was telling you the other day um I I started I came to the UK 2006 I my job transferred me so that I wanted to come to London because my sister was living here and and Publishing in children’s there are only two big capitals in the world London and New

York and my bosses were based in London our division was headquartered in London and they wanted me to come here so I came here and I was writing throughout but I wasn’t getting published um the first book I got published I got picked up in 2008 and I came out in 2010 when

You say you weren’t getting published you mean in the UK yeah had you been published in in Singapore in Singapore and India by there but I had I hadn’t published in India did I I got my first book out in India 2008 um so when I came to the UK I

Wasn’t published in the UK I was published in Singapore with this one single publisher and that was a double-edged sword so you are not a new writer M you’re not a young writer either but but your whatever you’ve already published is not UK quality so you so agents don’t want to

Because you’re not their new find because you already been writing for seven years Publishers don’t think of you as a published author because what the UK publishing has a huge um thing about other books not they don’t value everything the same way right so it wasn’t valued for a long

Time but I found my lovely publisher um editor at walk books I met her at a event um and that is the other thing I was always volunteering with the writing organization so I was a volunteer with scbwi Society of children’s book writers and illustrators when I was in Singapore

I ran the Singapore chapter it a sub chapter and and then I came here and the first thing I did was get in touch and say I want to volunteer so I I always had the network as in meeting people knowing other writers and then that’s

How this event happened and we met the editor and I pitched I showed her something she said whatever you submitted I don’t like but I like the writing they want to come and talk and then we had the first book out oh wow um that must have how did that feel like it

Was a big deal yeah and also you’re living alone big deal is a very relative thing what you’re going to jump on your own the house but I got the call at work I was at work and she called to say I really like the text I’m taking into

Acquisitions and we’ll know so I said okay great maybe you’ll take I didn’t know it take a couple of months she said oh no no we’ll tell you on Thursday oh wow that’s quite quick for publishing it feels like days so the acquisition yeah it took a while to get to Acquisitions

But my point was you could have just called me on Thursday why did you tell me today now I have to wait until Thursday um and Thursday when she called me to say they said yes and we’re going to publish your book my boss was the only guy next to me

And I turned around and said hey they’re going to publish my book and took hands around the corridor with everybody I’m like and then what that’s it go back to work such a strange thing but I know I’ve definitely had experience of things happening when I’m I remember when I

Heard about getting it was like a some it was a a nomination for something and I was at school teaching and um I was on my own in this big big Hall and I was I was eating a wrap they have like you know how the children have snacks and I

Hadn’t had any breakfast I thought I’ll just have a wrap for my breakfast and I got this email and I was just like and I didn’t know I just didn’t have anyone to tell it’s it’s funny when you’re in your other workplace when something happens but chra we’ve got literally got like

Two or three minutes now and so I’ve enjoyed hearing you know so far about this journey that you’ve been on and seeing these patterns of chitra and how this is carried through you know through your life and also how your work ethic has influenced how you approach your

Work now so um what is your how is your dat how is your life different now to how it was then if you could sort of sum it up o I’m I’m My Own Boss yeah do you like that yeah I I think um

I I still write I get up at 4:00 and I’m at my desk by 6 oh my gosh you really are a morning person oh my goodness right and then I write until 11 I’ll do so with the TV show happening it’s slightly different to how it was a

Couple of years ago but um yeah I’m still I like to get on top of things and right so it’s very different I don’t miss my other life at all right I I would not want to go back to getting up at 9:00 and going and working

For someone else to do something else yeah um and this is even though it was a creative work this is completely different like somebody actually gives you money for your words about things you made up that’s really liberating I think though yeah I never thought I’ll make I’ll make money out of

Um writing um or or at least stabilizing Le like I I always thought okay right I will see for how long I can survive and if I can’t I can always go back it’s not like don’t want me back on the job like I still got people calling me to say do

You want to come back and no and this is what’s great about having that skill set chitra chra before we sort of wrap up I want to always like to talk about you know finances and how people have funded their Journey because that’s a tricky part and something I’ve had to tread in

And out of different jobs or go back to my old teaching job and things like that so how did you make it work for yourself did you did you phase out your full-time job yeah so I um um I wanted to quit a few years ago and then my department

Head said do you want to quit now or do you want to take part time um and then stabilize yourself before you quit and I said okay that’s a good idea so I went part-time 3 days a week at the bank and then started doing school

Visits which was the key thing for me to be a working author was to be able to do school visits I wanted to connect because I live alone I want to connect with kids and I’m very I love being with kids so I did that but by that time I

Had chosen to do that IID paid off the mortgage which is the advantage of working in a bank um so I paid off the mgate so I that was my key key criteria and I had worked out how much money I need per month um and multiplied that by 60

Months and saved the up before I decided to quit and so those months were you did you find that you were just really focused on making sure you got that saving like you know or were you able to still live quite well arounded no I did

All of that before I quit right so then I eventually quit and then I was still I still had book deals and stuff going on I had school visits I’m I’m a very popular School visit author so I still get loads and loads of school visits so I quit 2018 fulltime okay

Stopped and then the year 2018 to 2019 I was literally on the road W I had books come out I was so busy I did festivals I did probably every major Festival in the UK it was so such a busy time but You’ completely swapped hats by then and so

But it was yeah but from a from a finance perspective from 2018 onwards I had taken a 95% pay cut wow okay right so I I was prepared to live on the savings if I needed to for 5 years but don’t I’ve been touched it um

At the same time I did cut down like I sto my cleaner anyone why because I’m at home now I can do my own cleaning I had to get the cleaner back at some point because I couldn’t clean I was always going you’re so busy all the time chitra

Um I also know I I know that you someone as well who’ll always speak up for and make sure and and you speak up for others speak up for what you think is right and um you run colorful connections so you run um I mean you run

Am I right that you’ve run group groups before supporting people of uh of color as well yeah we did for books um I have set up something called colorful bookshelf which promotes UK based UK born um British authors of color and we ran lots of monthly surgeries for authors to come in

And ask questions um and then when I came into TV and I got the first TV show and everything and I realized there was no existing group I could just join and I had assumed TV was better organized um so I set one up last year during um

CMC um children’s media conference so yeah now it’s a work running group we have people regularly attending and and it’s it’s amazing to have someone who is like you in the world that we take for granted that is the person who sets these things up and is the person who

Speaks up as well and I think that’s a fantastic thing so thank thank you for being that person as well you have to hold the ladder for the person to walk up right you can’t pull the ladder away but it’s also at 100% but it’s also

Something I I can see has perhaps always been in new chitra and before before we wrap up I want to ask you final question which is is there anything from your whole journey of going from working you know uh in computers to working in the bank to now being an author and and

Creator TV producer um anything you would have done differently oh I have no idea maybe that’s your answer then yeah I I think there’s no point as well looking back that time is gone yeah yeah right um for me it’s always okay learn from it and then you

Can try your best not to make that mistake again or do what you want to do but yeah um you’re a Forward Thinking person ideally yeah otherwise when you live alone it gets very dark yeah true right so you just have to go okay I made that mistake maybe I could have handled

A few things better when I didn’t want to get married or when I did this or did that but you know what that’s part of the growing up that’s hindsight yeah is always you know whatever hindsight’s a wonderful thing yeah but I like that CH chitra you know always look forward is a

Good philosophy to to hold and yeah by doing so you’re inspiring others on the way so thank you for being you chitra oh thank you for having me and make see you can’t shut me up no it’s wonderful having you on and hearing about your journey and thank you thank you