I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -Maya Angelou
I’m Madhulika Kapilavayi, brought up in Bangalore, settled in Madras. With a Bachelors degree in Visual Communication, I had a pretty normal life well within my comfort zone, until I decided to give shape to my big dream in life. My brainchild Margazhi is a reflection of my character.
Like any other girl I was clueless about what I wanted out of life, confused and all over the place. I was reporting long hours at corporate jobs, which I never fitted in, but also never stopped performing. I did the best I could and tried to excel in tasks to polish my unfamiliar skills, which was a great learning experience. Every firm I’ve worked thus far, I made sure I learnt something and made my presence visible. You can’t arrive at your best version over-night, can you? It took time and I learnt to sustain through those hard experiences to find a better version of myself. I took my work seriously and be held total responsible towards both my failures and success.
I’m extremely devoted in what I believe and I set very high standards to myself towards achieving my goals because in secret I am a very competitive person, in competition with myself. Being a woman, I completely embrace the independence I’ve earned and that’s my success- myself, a stronger and bolder version of myself each day. Women don’t realize that they mask themselves to “fit” into to this “society” ,in process killing their true essence. Social media in my opinion influences our “boundaries” and block ourselves from accessing our core true self. Many of us go through a state of public facade without realizing how distant we move away from our true self. This realization helped me assess my core strengths and answer questions within me about myself better.
Then the ‘this is what I want’ transition happened.
I started Margazhi out of the faith I begun to have in myself, albeit with a few doubts. My thought bubble was exploding with questions and answers, and suggestions within myself and from others. One questions I have always gotten asked from the very beginning is why I don’t use actual models for my shoots. Somewhere amidst all the chaos, I knew I wanted to connect with other wonderful women with similar dreams. I didn’t want an unreal image of my vision of what I created. I challenged myself to deliver the essence of my dream, one that’s imperfect yet colorful in my head and looks beautiful to me. I believe we are what we are and there is no such thing as looking perfect, it is merely a state of mind. I think to be real is what we need more as a society. People begun to accept my work, started seeing their own reflections through my photographs, and the pace begun to pick up, one follower at a time.
To sum up my journey, it has been a slow learning curve for a long time. I am sure this will continue to be one, because there’s so much to learn, share amongst ourselves and give back to our fellow entrepreneurs as we grow. I emphasize on being true to oneself and giving it an honest shot. With Margazhi, it has been a satisfying journey thus far – from the toil during the starting days, discovering the fight within me to survive, the love and support of so many lovely people around me, it has been an humbling experience.
To make every woman feel comfortable and beautiful in their own skin defines Margazhi. After all it is about how you feel.