Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Mythili Seshadri - Will power matters in life!

  I consider most Indian women to be human dynamos.  The number of things they pack in a day`s work is amazing. They work 24x7x365 days. There are no Sundays or holidays for them. For those who do some jobs in addition to managing a home, life is even tougher. There are millions of them in the world. What makes  64-year-old Mythili Seshadri stand out in this crowd is her will power to do things she enjoys doing despite a Liver condition, which calls for her to be extremely careful in her food habits, medicines that she can take, and also the kind of activities she can undertake.

Right from her college days in Coimbatore, where she was born and brought up, she was inclined towards social service. She was actively involved both in the National Service Scheme ( NSS) and Community Social Service (CSS), which was to influence her career choice later in life.  Her marriage at 24 took her to Bombay, where her husband, a successful advertising professional, was working. While she was brushing up on English speaking skills,  she decided to get a B Ed from the Bombay Teachers Training College and qualify herself as a teacher.

` I was thrilled when I learnt that out of 1600 applicants, only 100 had been shortlisted and I was one of them,` says Mythili.

Arrival of her son within two years of her marriage prevented her from taking up any teaching assignments in Mumbai. The family moved to Chennai in 1988, where she was to realize many of her dreams over the years.  As a person who cannot sit at home idly, in her spare time she learnt Shorthand, Typing, Tailoring & Embroidery. It was in 1997, a friend influenced her to consider teaching special children. She joined  Vidya Sagar, a school for special children in Chennai, as a volunteer in their Vocational Rehabilitation Unit.  Her formal training in Tailoring and Embroidery helped her become instrumental in starting the Tailoring unit in Vidya Sagar. She taught the students to make drawstring bags,  scrunchies ( cloth rubber band), hand towels to name a few. These were done using the scrap materials given by a boutique in the neighborhood.

`I was delighted when I found that some of the students I had trained were given jobs in a well-known  Boutique, where they did well. But I also realized that, being a mere volunteer, not an employee, you are not taken seriously by the management.  So I decided to get a formal qualification as a special educator by joining `Bala Vidyalaya`, a school for the hearing impaired,  and did a one-year diploma in Teaching Young Hearing  Impaired, a course which is recognized by the `Rehabilitation Council of India`.

 Along the way, she also completed two short-term courses in Alternative and Augmentative Communication conducted by Vidya Sagar.  After working in Bala Vidyalaya for a couple of  years, she decided to quit and started teaching language therapy to children with special needs at home. Her students also included children with additional disabilities like mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy besides being from different age groups. This one–on–one therapy helped children who cannot hear and speak to get integrated into mainstream schools. 

`It was tough because these children do not understand direct communication, but respond to alternative methods of teaching where you patiently take them through several stages using different props to make them understand things. The course also involved training the parents of such children so that they can continue to practice the lessons at home. It was heartening when, after two years of training, they were ready to be integrated into mainstream schools. That is the biggest satisfaction from the job I got.` However, since teaching such children necessitated speaking loudly, she developed vocal cord problems, which posed the danger of Mythily losing her ability to speak. So reluctantly, she had to give up a career she loved so much.

This setback did not deter Mythili from pursuing other interests, which helped her bring out the inherent creativity in her. She channelized her creative abilities by involving herself in making handicrafts and a variety of cloth bags, curtains, etc.  Most of these items were made from waste cloth and other waste materials, thus furthering the concept of `Waste to wealth`. However, she did not do it as a regular business but produced bags, curtains from old saris, wall hangings, plastic bag dispensers, to name a few, based on specific demands from friends and relatives.

Mythili says, “I stitch my blouses, salwars myself. By not depending on the tailor,  I save money and time chasing him. I use the scraps from these to make other patchwork items  like cushion  covers, pouches, potholders, etc.”

While she was busy creating useful items from waste clothes, another friend introduced her to the fascinating world of `Quilts`, which again opened up opportunities for converting used clothes into mattresses, table runners,  wall hangings, etc. For this she had to attend a training workshop run by `The Square Inch(TSI)` in her neighborhood before she could start working on the quilts. She participated in  the  First International Quilt Festival held in Chennai, in 2019 where her quilt titled `Pinwheel in a square inch` was displayed. It was made using more than 5000 cloth pieces, each  measuring one square inch.  Since then she has participated in 3 International Quilt Festivals organised by The Square Inch.

When I asked her about the process of making a quilt, she said, ` I first think of an idea,  convert the idea into a picture/drawing, then look for materials to make the quilt, and then get into action. I used an old saree to create a quilt to cover the Diwan set in my home. Similarly, I made curtains out of old cloth materials. Every quilt is like a piece of art. I thoroughly enjoy making them` says Mythili. She is currently active in the informal group of quilt makers in Chennai.

Mythili`s childhood dream of becoming a dancer came true when she was in her early fifties.  She joined a dance school in her neighborhood which was providing dance training for senior citizens, ranging in age from 50 to 80.. She became a part of the group from the school, which was invited to perform at the temple & other festivals in the city.

Mythili did all the above while busy bringing up her son & daughter, who are both married and blessed her with four lovely grandchildren. A most interesting aspect of her life is the fact that she never appointed a ubiquitous maid servant, not even a part-time one,  to help her  with some of the household chores. Where did she get the energy for this? Her reply sums up the practical woman that she is: `I did not have any maid servant all these years because I realized early that dependence on them can cause unnecessary anxieties and tensions. My day is not affected by the idiosyncrasies of a maid. With a strong willpower as my strength,  I have been managing the home and my outside interests. Having a two-wheeler of my own has also helped me  in being independent  to  move around  on assignments.`

Mythili also gives full credit to her supportive husband for encouraging her to do whatever she enjoys doing.  As they say, there is always a man behind a successful woman and vice versa

 

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