Florine Roche
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru

Mangaluru, Nov 24: There were occasions where I was asked to cut down the speed or rhythm of my talk while conversing with others and that is when I realised I have this habit to talk too fast. However, when I spoke to Sneha Kamath, a young creative professional in her mid 20s bubbling with oodles of energy and enthusiasm, I really began to get a complex. But her sheer liveliness is infectious. Yes, that is Sneha Kamath for you, a young girl whose hard work, creative talent and knack for storytelling, albeit in her own way, has made her an achiever at a young age in the creative and glamorous filed of cinema and television.

It has just taken her two years but lot of creativity and hard work to make her mark in the field. Her transformation from a young girl, who never used to any kind of work until 25, into a responsible creative talent working almost 18 to 22 hours in the big and bad city of Mumbai, is really astounding. She is an inspiration to youngsters as she has proved that there is no dearth of opportunities for those who are creative, willing to go extra mile and are armed with the capacity to think out of the box.

Kamath Family

Sneha’s journey from a simple girl into the glamour field makes an interesting and intriguing reading. She is youngest of the three girls born to Sudhakar Kamath of Kamath Caterers fame and Sandhya Kamath, a homemaker. Her parents were very progressive in thought and at no time they gave an opportunity for others to feel pity or sympathy on them because they were all girls. Sneha says that her parents were very broadminded and understanding and they treated us as children and as boys or girls. "My father always used to encourage me saying 'stand on your own feet. You don’t need to depend on a man in your life' and that really motivated me subconsciously to excel in whatever I did," she says.

Sneha’s father Sudhakar says he gave freedom to his children do whatever they wanted. I always advised them to be independent. "When we were blessed with the gift of a child, we only prayed they be born healthy. Whether it is a boy or girl was immaterial for us. As a father of three girls, I believe they are my biggest strength and not at all a liability," says the proud father. Her mother Sandhya firmly believed that education would help her daughters to be fiercely independent and spared no effort on that front.

Sneha believes that her upbringing, home atmosphere, the friendly neighbourhood and school and college atmosphere all helped mould her personality and channelize her creativity in the right direction. She believes that her knack for writing stories from a young age has wonders for her.

"We were group of children from the neighbourhood who always moved together and telling stories was my favourite game. From a young I used to write little stories and due to my writing skills I was even made the editor of our school magazine. I believe we have to create opportunities rather than find fault with the system," she opines.

'Gumrah'

Disney 'Oye Jassi'

On the sets of Disney production

Star Parivar Awards

Not that her life’s journey was all smooth and comfortable or it moved just the way she desired. She did not know what she wanted to become or what she wanted to pursue at that age. So she joined NMAMIT Nitte for BE in Computer Science and in the final year she realised she had lost interest and she wasn’t happy with what she was doing. She attributed her lack of interest to fatigue associated with travelling to Nitte daily and also the academic stress. But finally she realised she did not have any inclination to become an engineer. She did not attend any campus recruitment interviews and slowly revealed to her parents that she was interested in creative field. Her ever supportive parents encouraged her saying she is free to pursue what she wants.

That is when Sneha realised she wanted to get into the Media and Entertainment field and got enrolled for MBA from Manipal University, Bengaluru on the same subject. For her final semester she had chosen Whistling Woods International, Pune, the film institute promoted by Subhash Ghai and that proved to be the crucial turning point for her. She came out of her Post Graduation with flying colours, having topped the batch.

Sneha recalls having sent her CV to a number of companies after her post graduation and was fortunate to land the job as the Assistant Director of Hindi feature film "Angry Young Man” as her very first job. Though the film did not make much of a splash Sneha had found her ground and there was nothing that could grind to halt her multifarious achievements. For those doubting Thomas’s who were initially apprehensive about her ability to write dialogues in Hindi with a typical snort ‘ohhh Madraasi Hindi’, Sneha has silenced them with her work of writing dialogues even in Hindi.

In the last two years Sneha has tried her hand as Assistant Director of Disney TV Show "Oye Jassie," Asst Creative for Production house, a communication director of Star Plus show "Made in India”. Sneha has also tried her hand scriptwriter for Zoom TV event "Live Quotient Awards," story writer for Life Ok "Savadhan India," Associate Creative Director for Channel V’s "Gumrah", creative head for "Star Parivaar Bemissal Hai Tu” and Star Parivar Red Carpet 2015. As Creative Director Sneha is actively involved with various projects for TV channels and clients like Sony, Star, Sab TV, Reliance Big Magic, MTV, Channel V, star world and Doordarshan.

While the proud parents are happy to see the name of their daughter in the credit lines Sneha believes she has done what she loves the most and there are no regrets. She also believes that her engineering background helps her a great deal in her creative work.

Sudhakar and Sandhya are proud of their daughters’ achievements. Their elder daughter Asha is married and is a homemaker. Second daughter Priya is a gynaec at A J Shetty Hospital and Sneha has chosen the creative and glamorous field of media and entertainment.

Sneha who is in Mangaluru to attend some family weddings, is often bombarded with questions of her marriage as her relatives who are younger to her get into matrimony. Marriage, however, is not a priority either to Sneha or her parents as now she has to devote her full energy towards her work.

When I had offered to assist my father in business earlier he had dissuaded me saying "that is not what you want to do in life". Now he is really stunned but proud to see me working for more than 18 hours sometimes.

A multi talented personality that she is, Sneha is now using her story telling talent by writing a book though she did not elaborate on what the book is all about.

Sneha’s many-sided talent has found an appropriate platform and she is all set to unleash her enormous creative potential in the days to come.