No prisoner to any barrier | Ambika Pillai | TEDxKCMTWomen
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khherjf0QBw Video ID: khherjf0QBw ============================================================ [Music] I am a school dropout I was married at 17 I was a mother at 22 and divorced at 24 but before the heartbreaks and the tears and the crushing feeling that you know I went through at that point of time I have to go back and spin back to my younger days where is this full of laughter and excitement and one of four girls Gopika Ambika Devika and Renuka known as the car sisters so three of us at anonymous enters the faraway duty to study and of course I went there with the Italian nuns and cold weather and I thought I was just sent here to have a blast to play and not just study and you know the fact is I didn't study because I found it really difficult and I didn't know what it was people couldn't call me stupid because I am anything but stupid but even the teachers and the nuns were like shocked like what is happening because she is really smart when you speak to her she you get her to write something all her answer papers are a mess her Spelling's are ridiculous her match was just horrendous and nobody knew what the problem was I mean I just thought this is not something I have to do in my life you know and because I kept then no kid fails in the second standard but I did and because they were building a new library wing and archon donated towards it I got promoted and that's the only reason why I went on in my school from one class to another but then my parents decided whether sherry I will take them so they called me back from Ooty back to Kerala and I studied and called them that's where I'm from and I was I mean you know when you have to vote for the head girl I was voted for the head curl but never given the post because yeah very bad at studies so anyway so I think I'd gone into my 10th standard and arch in my father called me and said do you want to get married so I said huh and he looked very serious he says I'm asking you I'm going to say this in my column minica Kalyan angle Q Nam linic ecology porno without blinking an eyelid I said ah cha I want to get married I don't want to go to college I struggle right through school now you want me to go and study in college no question so I got married at 17 and I cannot tell you never give your kids that option of choosing when they're 17 whether they want to get married or not it's not the right choice Oh for a beautiful from any angle that was not the right choice it was a horrible 7 years hence I got divorce so I just walked out on the marriage I said this is not okay and my father was devastated Miami was heartbroken in those days divorce was unheard of it was unheard of and Here I am just sitting there saying nanana theory chapel and I you know I'm I'm just gonna stay here with I had a two-year-old baby and she was one-year-old at that point of time and my dad I walked up to my dad and I said I cha do you think I can become a casual exporter just like you so he looked at me and he says are you kidding me no because this is not meant for girls and I'm like what's meant for girls and boys I mean it's it's a it's a business and I can also help you run it you don't have a son I could be the son that you never had and he said no he put his foot down and I am a Sagittarian I've got wings on my feet you can't catch me and put me somewhere and say stay there and do this and do that that's not what I was born for so anyways I opened the paper one day and there was a Shahnaz hussein's ad in the papers and I looked at that and I said okay like this I have no education I the thing is I talk like this well because I went to UT you know and I'm not stupid like I told you so anyway I looked at the ad and I said this is probably the only thing I can do without Archon getting super hectic and saying oh no you can't do this because you are a girl and stuff because this is all about women learning how to do facials and waxing and it's something that you know you can come back and open a small little salon I told my dad that it's natural I'm gonna go to Delhi learn this come back and open a small little salon in column he was like no but I didn't um I was like you know maybe it's a good option and my two year old baby in my arms I tucked two thousand rupees into my back pocket and left for far away Delhi I chose Delhi because it was furthermost from Kerala in column everybody wanted to know who is Ambika talking to what is she doing what is she waving and I couldn't live with that so I went and I never came back and my father kept saying gives to my ransom area and I was like a child you know I'm just finishing my hair course and then I realized that Shahnaz is course that drew me to Delhi was not my calling I hate waxing and doing facials I'm not a beautician by you know I'm not so I decided to do a course and I'm a trained hairdresser and then I got my first pay it paid me 2,000 rupees and with two top row peas and I had my bike which was a moped not like a on bike but a moped I used to be I used to put like hundred rupees petrol in my bike but little Covey at the back of me she used to hang on to me and we used to zip across Delhi yeah I used to take her to the spot where you can see the planes landing and I used to say no Kakuta that's a plane landing and she's a girl like and we used to just have the best time those were the best days of my life you know I used to bring her back home she's a Kerlin to me and I used to tell her stories about my ot days and how naughty I was and she said giggle and laugh and go to sleep and I used to put my head on the pillow and sleep like an angel like a baby now that doesn't happen now I'm constantly violated I'm constantly highroad and constantly you know thinking what do I do next I wish I could go back to those days the two thousand rupees did well in my life at that point of time but anyway I add that from that point I decided not going back home I'm gonna stay in Delhi and continue working and all I wanted was just to put a roof over cubbies in my head food in our bellies and really proper clothes with them on our backs and that's all I really wanted I've been asked by the press so many times since you know I'm become did you always want to be this high-powered businesswoman I look at them and I say you're kidding all I wanted was to be happily married can you imagine happily married was all I ever wanted to have four kids for kids for girls and you know a husband who said I love you at least two times a day two dogs two homes one up in the hills and one next to the sea this was my dream but God decided listen Ambika I'm not gonna give you all that I'll give you one daughter and I'll give you a gift in your hands and I didn't even realize I had a gift in my hands you know because when I finally decided to open my own salon I used to UM you know wait for a client the client used to call and say I need a haircut appointment okay let me check my schedule my schedule is empty all right and then I'll check my schedule and then she'll say okay listen then as Wednesday at 5:00 I'm like all right okay come in at 5:30 because I might be a little busy and all that all full not that happen and those two clients came to me she went and told ten of her friends and then word of mouth just read in six months I was doing 30 haircuts a day absolutely no makeup because remember I'm not a trained makeup artist so I was doing 30 haircuts a day if you wanted an appointment with me you had to book three months in advance so I started becoming a household name in Delhi and I was cutting hair just totally enjoying myself and my thumb just collapsed I mean I had to take steroid shots and finally of course the Ayurvedic massage is the only thing the kerala Ayurvedic massage the only thing that helped me but the doctor said no more cutting hair I looked at the doctor I said what are you saying I mean this is my bread and butter you know so he says no you can't cut it so I put down my scissors and picked up my makeup brush and of course the second assignment I did caimans today they're very big design and choreographer in Bombay looked at me and said you're a hairdresser but do you know how to do makeup and then me and my bold self said of course I know how to do makeup so he said good do this face you know and the second face I did I won the national award for best makeup artist and it was just ridiculous because I didn't know how to do that work but also it was I should wear eyes face that I did and she is beautiful she is stunning all I ever thought in my head is how can I make this girl look even more stunning and that is exactly how I work today as well you know when somebody walks in and I look at her when she says Ambika please make me look beautiful that is what I aim for to make her look super stunning but after that a word that have one there has been no looking back since every girl who sat on my chair said please make me look like I should arrive and I'm like no I shall make you look like yourself but way more beautiful but really so people started pouring in you know I used to do one bride in in six months and over night we started doing a hundred and fifty Brides a day from each salon of mine so can you imagine what publicity and all that can do to you so we were just like I was flying high I was riding the big wave what I didn't realize was I stopped looking I didn't ever look at my finances I mean my finance was left to my best friend and he was looking at whatever counting the money and I never used to looked that side I was this creative soul so eventually it was Kirkeby little cubby from two years old grew up and she had to go to college and I had you know I was like okay fine that we get all my finances together and everything else and I found out that my best friend was stealing from me but you know what that was a major hit for me I hit a rock bottom that's when I realized two things you know when you're 28 years old in my community your father picks you up he's sitting down on the ground he picks you up covers one year and whispers your name into one ear and then covers the other year whispers it into the other year and my mother says my name out loud for the first time Ambika and receives me from my dad that is how we named back home yeah and that is one thing that you can never take away from me my name I am Ambika Pillai the second thing is this God's gift that I have in my hand so my partners and my whoever it is who's stabbing me in the back and taking me for a ride can take anything they want they cannot take these two things away from me so from that hitting the ground struggled all the way to the top with these two things the gift and my name and still made it to the top yet again you know the thing is I can say I made it to the top because I have won every single award there is to win in my profession in India I've won awards that are not even in my profession you know I've made it to the power list of Femina that means I'm one of the 20 most powerful women in India I have no idea for what reason probably being powerful for believing in herself but whatever the reason is there are there are lots of awards that have come my way and I don't walk to win awards I appreciate it when it happens to me you know through this whole thing and through all my partners taking me for a ride and all my accountants taking me for a ride and just stealing money blindly from underneath me I still did not look into my accounts because remember by the time I write her 6 it becomes a nine by the time I write a 7 it becomes a four I am dyslexic and I found that out only when Covey was in the third standard you know when her teacher called me up and said please come to school and I went to school and they said your daughter's dyslexic I'm like oh my god that's when I knew why I struggled through school I struggled because of dyslexia but I'm also who I am and what I am because of my dyslexia I look at mirror images and I work and it works out fine for me so I used to come back home after a tedious book day and make these scrubs and all these things you know and give it to my stars and give it to all these and when I see stars every single Bollywood actress has sat on my chair before they became these stars because they were all models first people asked me ma'am who whose face have you done ask me whose face I haven't done in Bollywood everybody but anyway so I used to make all these products and give it to people so now it's my time to step back from my what I've been doing for 34 years more than three decades I cannot see myself cutting hair and doing makeup the way into the future I'm getting too old for that it's manual labor so I want to step back and probably do it exactly what I want to do because I do want to write a book I want to travel the world I mean I've been traveling on work where people pay for my ticket they pay for my hotel rooms they pay for my food I want to travel on my own strength how I want I want to go and stay in home stays I want to go and do so many things and I can only do that if I retire you know I have to tell you that I was a fighter I am a fighter and I'll always be a fighter to stand up for my rights nobody can take that away from me to be Who I am and to live my life the way I want to thank you so much [Applause] [Music]