Journey from the corporate world to YouTube

“What to do now? Lost my job at the peak of my career, shifted from Delhi to Coimbatore, my best half Ram was on the verge of his voluntary exit from his defence services and the icing on the cake was, we both were clueless what more life had for us” says Ajanta was the trigger to her new journey.

Like many, Ajanta too started as a cubicle dweller with a hectic professional life. Born in a Bengali household, she grew up between various cultures and finally got married to the love of her life from a defence background. Ajanta’s career almost took a 360º shift from a stable sailing boat to a roller coaster ride when she lost her job. She had trained more than two hundred thousand professionals and students, handling and juggling with operations and getting a taste of being in HR, getting all the job satisfaction one could wish for. She finds herself lucky to have gotten guiding and mentoring bosses throughout her career with quite a safe work culture environment that made her relish every profile that she worked in. She never faced any tough challenges that she couldn’t handle- but at the end of the day, her heart still wished for something which even she was not aware of, says Ajanta.

Getting pushed out of the workplace made her mind and career take a turn. She recounts her job-hunting days when she was even willing to compromise on her package and designation and waiting for freelance assignments. But it was a relaxing moment while watching YouTube, that she conceived the idea of Petukram’s Kitchen in her mind. She found her spouse standing by as a strong support that got her going with pursuing her passion for cooking as a professional YouTuber.

“Though we started to work on it, with heart and soul, we knew it was going to take long- really long. May be a year, two years, or even more than that. We had to position and market our channel from scratch, and get the stones melted. Moreover, I also got to hear from friends and family that this field is also saturated, and we would be just another small fish amongst the sharks. Apprehensions and negative thoughts were taking their heights. Despite all we thought of proceeding and started to workout. Ram started capturing every moment of my kitchen activities, setting angles, adjusting the curtains for lights, peeping into food every now and then. In fact, I had never seen him so involved and interested in the last 9 years of our marriage. Having known him for so long I knew that he never was a foodie, so he never intervened in my kitchen operations before this.”

She recalls that fear and insecurity of not getting the monthly income as in a fixed job was always there at the back of her mind, but it did not stop her. Ajanta made a choice to pursue her passion and is now going strong with her YouTube channel that has started gaining traction over the past few months . 

Ajanta says, “The ability to mix various ingredients and bring them together in a new and beautiful way, is also like re -arranging your life and career. Never be afraid to experiment. If you fail, you learn a new thing. If you get through, you are the winner. So, keep trying until you live your passion to the fullest. As it is said, there’s a first time for everything. If you skip that, you never start.”