Priya Chetty-Rajagopal has a solid reputation for working in the field of animal rescue. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Priya Chetty-Rajagopal can’t understand why I want to write about her. I can think of at least a dozen reasons. If she is not requesting the Income Tax Department to sell seized heritage buildings with only a clause that the buyers retain their heritage status, she is fighting for the removal of the LED screens at Cubbon Park. BangaloreConvince the observant postmaster general that he can make his department more attractive, or calendar the story of the city’s flowering trees (like they do in Japan with cherry blossoms).
She has been involved in almost every major civic action in Bengaluru in recent years, from a movement to block a steel flyover to a campaign against the de-notification of 50 tree species, which meant they were no longer allowed to be felled. Is not needed. She has a solid reputation for work in the worlds of animal rescue, heritage conservation and entrepreneurship. He once gave a public speech on the power of the word ‘and’.
Chetty-Rajagopal, 58, navigates complex local laws and government structures to find ways to make the system work. Did you know that a bus stop, for example, is owned by five departments and all must negotiate any changes? Her eyes light up when she talks about ward committees; And his aides range from the Municipal Commissioner to members of the Madras Sappers, India’s oldest regiment. Her father was a sapper and they were married in their mess.
hyperlocal legacy
People spend time with their pets at Cubbon Park in Bengaluru. , Photo credits: K. Murali Kumar
She leverages social media to effect change that can sometimes start with powerful hashtags like #NoMoreBagheeras (against the e-commerce of puppies) or #InMyFathersName (for delaying the national military memorial). She set up my favorite Facebook group, Cubbon Park Canines, to introduce the world to the park’s four-legged residents, all of whom are her friends. And yes, she is on her way to her next meeting with government officials wearing a yellow pant-suit.
She wants to make heritage hyperlocal, so that neighborhoods can take responsibility for the history they see in their backyard. “You can’t love what you don’t know and you can’t save what you don’t love,” is his philosophy. He demonstrated how this is done in his ward by creating a heritage trail with the local post office. The idea is inspired by the 45 canine rescue squads he helped set up across the city, which operate separate WhatsApp groups to keep an eye on neighborhood street dogs.
I’m actually a little stressed about our meeting because her thoughts are flying from topic to topic somewhere in the interstellar medium. I check my recorder several times because I know I can’t remember the loopholes she found when she read Karnataka’s Town and Country Planning Act, 1961. “I’ve trained myself to speak less rapidly,” she says. “But, yeah, when I’m excited about something I tend to talk fast.”
She views herself as “collaborative and democratic”, but others have been known to use different adjectives. “A lot of people tell me I’m fearful and scary,” she says.
no bleeding heart
National War Memorial in Bengaluru. , Photo credits: K. Murali Kumar
Although she can be passionate (as you will see when I tell you about her role at the National Military Memorial) she has little patience for people who talk endlessly about their commitment to volunteer work. “When you work in the social sector, consider that your heart is in the right place,” she says. “Please don’t come and show me your bleeding heart. Please bring your mind and your hands.”
Even in his day job as a CXO search consultant, he’s drawn to a certain kind of candidate. “I always try and see if anyone has taken a project or idea from start to finish. There are a lot of starters,” she says. “Finishers are the ones who take ownership.”
She quit a fancy job to set up her own executive search firm in 2018 with colleagues partly because her former boss couldn’t see how important it was for her to be authentic about all her different lives. The new company was called Multiversal, all from the many universes its founders were involved in. Candidates with multiple lives have a clear advantage.
Like many successful women, she is larger than life, she works all the time ignoring her health; She struggles with impostor syndrome, and can’t take a compliment. “Someone says something nice and I’ll try to say ‘thank you’ but instead I say ‘no no, it was nothing…’.”
It was nothing when it banded citizens together and inspired many departments to move 450 tons. veeragallu Or the Hero Stone that was commissioned for the National War Memorial in Bengaluru more than a decade ago. The names of nearly 22,000 soldiers are engraved on the pillar, and for years the city could not act together to move it from the quarry. The words ‘inaugurate in February 2009’ still make Chetty-Rajagopal angry. She says she got involved because of an image that kept rolling in her head: “The soldier’s ghost standing, chest held out, waiting to be recognized, after waiting for 12 years he It’s getting grayer and grayer.”
The author is a Bengaluru-based journalist and co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.