PRIYANKA VARMA
Priyanka quickly realised that her B.Tech degree and her six year IT career hardly defined her. She always dreamt of turning into an entrepreneur and one day she decided that this was not where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.
Her explorations started with volunteering, heading NGO’s working with children in orphanages and enabling visually-challenged children and HIV care centres. She thrived when she was around kids.
Explorations continued nonetheless, which brought forth her love for travel, blogging, food discoveries in different communities and research on tribal communities and their food. She began a project on the Apatani Tribe of Ziro with the plan to work for PARI (People’s Archival of Rural India).
With her husband and a close friend, she started “KhulaManch”, an open platform that encouraged and opened discussion on issues which required mainstream attention through screening documentaries around these issues.
The universe, though, had a different plan for her. Her life took a U-turn with an intense health crisis at the age of thirty-one. Always the one to listen to and learn from her life experiences, this intense life-changing and challenging event opened the windows and doors towards learning and experiencing the wonders of the body and her many relationships with herself, her family, her community and mature.
It was her openness and her determination which led her to take on this pathbreaking journey. She went with the flow and gracefully accepted all as it came. This only deepened her understanding of natural laws and the body’s symptoms and signals. She experienced being a caregiver to many, including her family and the community. All of this brought more clarity to her passion and mission of taking forward Dr. Venkat’s and THAC’s mission of upholding natural laws as a parampara (tradition).
Her husband and she worked with Dr. Venkat to foster the Community in Bangalore. Together they created a base with three-day workshops in 2015. Through this she realised that this is what made her thrive – basking in the light of support, love and care.
She went on to become a THAC Buddy and the Program Coordinator for the Three-day Workshops in different cities.
Today Priyanka is THAC’s health facilitator, follow-up counsellor and the core team member at the helm of THAC TALKS – its steadily evolving online wing. Currently she shuttles between Pune and Mumbai, to fulfil her roles at THAC.
Her experience is what has been her strength. Dr. Venkat also once said to her “Remember the solid foundation you have put through your experience. You have moved ahead by 1000’s of years with this one experience.”
She and her husband intend and aspire to move towards living sustainably, simply, and closer to nature.
