 Okay, hi everyone. I am here with Chinu Kala. She is the founder of Rubens Accessories, which was founded in 2014. It's a jewelry brand. And from what I've got written over here, it has more than 2000 designs by artists all over India and the entire one of the aims of this company was to make jewelry more affordable. Chinu Ji, the first thing which I want to jump into straight away is, is this true that apparently you left home at the age of 15, armed with a pair of slippers, a salwar suit and 300 rupees. So if you could just sort of explain this to us, what exactly happened? Yes, that is true. And that's a long journey for me. So I left home when I was just 15. I had a major fight with my parents and as a teenager fight it was today I feel that maybe my parents were not so serious. My father was not so serious when he told me to leave the house. It was because I was a rebel. And I just decided that I will never go back because I didn't want to give up. I was a headstrong child. And then the journey started of me staying on a railway station, trying to struggle, trying to find my space to live, fending for my food, the whole journey and then landing up into a do-to-do marketing, a do-to-do sales girl kind of a job where you know as you go and look at almost 100 doors a day and the success rate on a do-to-do sales is just over set. We used to sell just like two or three pieces a day. So with about 20 of these commissions starting from there, doing numerous job and number of things and today being owner of a box. Can you say a sales job when you were contacting or knocking the doors of 100 people a day is 100 like an overestimation or actually you were knocking on the doors of like 100 people a day? Yeah, tell me. No, so we have to because see what happened in those days I'm sure you remember an era where you know people could walk into a building with a bag in their hand and try to sell something. Now because success rate is so low because 90% of the people just slammed the door on the faces. They don't even give us a chance to speak. So even if I had to do like a two or three pieces sale and earn like 20 rupees per piece, I have to go and knock like 100 doors as I cannot do it. And you know you said you, I mean you had a, we all have fights with our parents and but in the sense when you were living on the railway station etc. Did your parents try to get in? I mean this was the era of where there were no mobile phones, right? What year are we talking about? What's the time back now? It was like 20 years? 24 years? So the late 90s where the cell phone era had not started. So did your parents try to get in touch with you? You of course I already know are extremely stubborn like you already said but did they try to get in touch with you? I don't know, maybe they did, they said they did but they could not find me because I left from one end of Mumbai, I used to live in a place called Nala Supara, which is just a second station, like a second last station to Mumbai. And from there I straight to go straight to Bombay Central. So it wasn't possible for them to find me. I mean later on when you sort of got in touch with them etc. when you sort of got established, what they must have been through when you sort of left, I mean the kind of tension etc. And then when you came back with your success story, why the name Rubens accessories? So Rubens means Rubens in French, it stands for colors, smoothness, softness and elegance. And that is what my brand stands for. Okay, right. And some, what was it like, I mean staying at the railway station and struggling like this, how did you manage, how did you survive? It's kind of a typical Bollywood filmy story. I mean you never know, maybe with the kind of content Netflix is coming out with the next thing which we are going to see is some sort of a story which is being on a documentary which is made on you. So how did you survive that? It was a tough time. See what happens is when you're at your lowest and when you don't have money, you see life to its extreme. And that is what was happening to me. So I was hardly getting food to eat, I still hardly make like 20 rupees or 40 rupees a day. I used to survive on a Vada Pao, survive on sometimes on a milk packet because that used to cost me only 6 rupees and it used to give me a little bit of energy. So there was no, I had nothing. So I would just set up a packet of a milk packet like a half meter and just have that for dinner or lunch and I used to get just one meal a day. I remember that what I think one of the biggest achievement at that time was affording my three times meal. So that has been the journey but then I realized that that is that I'll be able to survive through this if I work hard. So I have to work hard and realize that there is a 15 which is still the most, you know, this is something which I still believe that there is no substitute to hard work. You will have to burn your midnight oil, you will have to give it your best, you have to be at your 100% almost every day. And that is what I've been doing for 24 years. And that is what has brought me here. So how did, again, it's just difficult to hear all this but still I'll move on. How did you start Ruben's accessories, you know, start your own company. So basically now that I've sort of heard you, it must have been quite simple compared to living on the railway station compared to other entrepreneurs. So tell me how did you, how did you start off the company. So I got married and then I wanted to take this as I was working for so many years I want to take a short break. That was the time I decided to do a makeup course in Bombay. I had a lot of models and you know, fashion photographers announced it. So one of them, like few of them told me why don't you go and participate in Mrs. India that time, glad right since this is the day I was going to give this pageant. So, you know, all my friends told me hey, you look so pretty and you married, why don't you go and participate. I'm like, this sounds exciting, this is like other part of the world, you know, other, sort of a dream for me like, you know, Mrs. India and all that then starting from where I come from. So right at that I, so during that period, I noticed how, you know, the jewellery was like the most, that was like the final finishing, the final touch, you know, the models would be ready with our attire or our makeup ahead. And finally there will be a stylist who comes with a whole box. I should give us some beautiful jewellery depending on what attire we are wearing and complete the whole look. So this thought stayed with me for quite some time. Now, after that I started my corporate merchandising company. Wherein I used to deal with all the top corporates like Sun Miller, Pranarika, UB, Setmac, Sony, all of them. And here I was interacting with all the marketing heads because I started to go merchandising for them. Now, this where I was interacting with this marketing head, you know, understanding how branding works, what is branding, what is branding basically. That was like fascinating to me because, you know, I never got a chance to complete my education because I left at 15. So this whole journey of, you know, running that company for seven years, interacting with marketing heads and the love for jewelry, the love for fashion I always had, but I could never afford it. Then the little exposure that I got in the fashion industry. In 2014, I decided to, you know, just combine both the things and then I decided that I will own a brand and I will start something of my own which is very long term. And which will have a meaning. It should not be, okay, I'm working today and tomorrow whether it will exist or not, you know. So something like that is what my thought was and then I noticed a lot of gap in jewelry. I realized that there were brands for almost everything. Even today we want to go buy a slipper, there are 20 brands for it. You buy a jeans, there are 20 brand t-shirts for everything. Jewelry was the only, only, you know, product where there was no brand. Women was like practically struggling, they would buy something when they go to Bangkok, they would buy something when they go to Mumbai, Delhi, you know, Colaba. So I just decided and I'm going to bring the best of jewelry under one roof and make it like super affordable and super reachable. And that's how I started. Great, great. Now, to sort of wrap up in 30 seconds, tell me what is, what does personally to you, what does women's day mean? Celebration of being a woman and see women's day I feel for a very long time, women are always neglected, you know, they were not giving the chance that they deserve, they were not given the opportunity that they deserve. So it is just that one day which makes me feel special then which you can, which tells them that yesterday I think it should happen every day, you know. And if now the things are changing and yes, women are given that opportunity. But when this whole thing started, it was all about that is what I feel. Very, very well said. A lot of truth in what you said. And I hope a lot of people see this video. It's quite an incredible story. I think that's the word I'd like to use. All the best for the future and take care. Thank you for talking to us. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.