People Wear Many Hats

It was only the second week of February and summer seemed to be beginning faster than most Kochiites expected. By 11 o’clock everyone has a beaded sweat moustache. But Vishnu is unbothered by it. “I’m surrounded by art; and there’s so much storytelling here. This is my workplace, what more can I ask for!” He works through the afternoon heat with the same passion he brings to the office every morning. His enthusiasm is contagious—enough to make one forget the discomfort brought on by the heat.

Vishnu Mohandas works as an art mediator for this season of the Kochi Muziris Biennale. Narrating the story, the cultural and historic significance, and the artist behind each work of art, comes naturally to him. He loves the constant rotation of new artists as it introduces him to many new concepts and forms of art. It almost feels like he can’t get enough of it. It’s easy to believe this because Vishnu is a multi-hyphenate professional. He’s done a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and continues to find ways to monetise his interests—not skills—which is a rather unconventional way of being financially independent.

“Moving from Kochi to Pune for higher education pushed me out of my comfort zone. It helped nurture some of my interests—travel, meeting people, gathering stories, and documenting these experiences.” Through the years, Vishnu began exploring how to monetise these interests. His journey isn’t linear; which makes him easy to be mistaken for someone who doesn’t “stick” at a job. Or someone who isn’t “focused”. But truthfully, he just wants to taste everything that life offers him professionally. 

Vishnu never really expected his career to pan out this way—switching between industries and sectors—but he’s carried forward the skills he’s picked up from each of his stints onto the next. As a sales associate, he learned how to sell. From his creative marketing roles, he learned how to sell using purpose and storytelling. In theatre, he channelled selling a story through words, expression and movement. As a filmmaker, he’s mastering how to capture all these elements while tinkering around with light, shadows, and composition. He’s found a rhythm in letting his interests and skills work for him. The same rhythm one feels as he conducts immersive walkthroughs of warehouse-turned-art galleries at the Biennale. “How do I stay rooted through all of this? The credit goes to my family and school friends. I actually count myself lucky to still be able to stick with friends who wore the same school uniform as I did. They don’t judge even when I hit a wall and have to start all over again.” Changing routes isn’t easy. Every time Vishnu took up a new stint, he faced a similar set of challenges; starting from scratch again; being in an unfamiliar territory, learning a new skill, keeping up with work and industry trends, pitching yourself multiple times for new opportunities, managing different schedules while switching between different gigs, staying calm through invoice-chasing email threads—the list is long.

Some 1,430 km away from Vishnu, Nikitha Warrier shares the same professional “fate” that comes with being a freelance writer, author, and dance choreographer. “My biggest learning through my freelance journey is that I can be flexible with changing the nature of the role I take up. For instance, when I realised that I could monetise my dancing for wedding choreographies, it was the admin and operations part of the role I ultimately found joy in.” It’s only been a couple of months since Nikitha has stepped into choreographing dances for weddings, events and workshops. The idea came to her when she was practising for her brother’s wedding, and had a few inquiries from acquaintances. “My aim was never to compete with well-established and bigger names in this field because I found a gap in the market for the kind of dance services I could offer.” And so Dancing Warriers was formed, headed by Nikitha and supported by her equally talented cousins. “What got me really excited about this new journey was all the preliminary calls, ideation, and creating a playlist before the choreography began. I’m a yapper so talking with people and learning about themselves, how they met, their love language, the kind of music they love, helps me create a playlist that reflects who they are as a couple. Once I’m done with this process, I hand over the choreography to my cousins to manage.”

Nikitha has transitioned from being a software engineer to a freelance content writer—a transition that’s taken about five years. “I was that typical class-topper, school headgirl type. So when I was asked to take up Science in college, it was the safest and most obvious bet. It didn’t take long though to realise this wasn’t meant to be. I was creative inherently but had no idea about the kind of roles I should be looking out for. I wanted to write but didn’t know where to start.”

It has taken Nikitha about five years to find her sweet spot as a freelance writer. “Despite being a fulltime writer for only 1–2 years, it was becoming clearer that freelancing was giving me better growth—I was working on a wider range of subjects, different formats, some really impactful projects, and of course meeting a diverse set of people. But I was very cautious about going independent completely.” She goes on to explain how she set financial goals every six months and if they weren’t met, she would switch back to being an employee. Even though it has been years since then, she still follows this method as a way to keep herself grounded and meet her financial goals. “There have been months when I’ve earned double, and there have been low months. One way of circumventing these low months was seriously considering if I should launch Dancing Warriers. Other times, I apply for opportunities way out of my league to understand how I need to improve in pitching myself, and also wade through the job market as a safety net.”

When asked about a piece of advice she’d like to share for those considering the freelancer route she said, “Everyone has a different journey; some would want to jump all in, some would want to test waters—both methods work when mindfully done.” A version of ‘what-works-for-one-may-not-work-for-another’ school of thought is how Nikitha monetises her skills, as Vishnu does with his interests—two different approaches with a similar outcome.

Yet both Nikitha and Vishnu share the same opinion that one should always stay realistic when going independent. Working from the mountains or featuring in big productions isn’t the poster-face of this lifestyle. It’s knowing when to give up, when to push forward, when to diversify, and more importantly, always doing one’s homework before trying something new. It’s not so easy to know early on which hat suits you best, or how many, but trial and error definitely helps. And that’s how people begin to wear many hats.