Manifesto

What do you get when you throw in a motor bike, a thinking young woman, a lacquer bangle and Bangalore weather? A great idea.

On an early spring morning in 2010 in Bangalore, I was on the way to work on my motorbike, a Royal Enfield Thunderbird (a.k.a a Bullet, a 350 cc geared cruiser). I was in what had then become my standard riding gear: a full-face black helmet, black riding jacket, blue jeans, black shoes and - I can’t remember for sure - maybe my riding gloves. Now let me set some context on what looks like an over-armoured ride to work in a regular Indian city.

I’d been riding motorbikes for 9 years already. I rode inter-city when South Indian highways were still being built in the early 2000s. I’d ridden motorbikes when all of India probably had just 15 women riding motorbikes. Back then, It just wasn’t a thing, it just wasn’t cool (well, not for years. Today, there are probably a thousand in Bangalore alone).

Honestly, I took to riding a motorbike because a beat up old geared motorbike was the only vehicle I had access to at home when I was 19, and I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t use it to pick up groceries. In my head, if the men could ride motorbikes, then why not me. But, that’s really not how the world saw it then. Whether it was the third-hand beat up Bajaj Kawasaki that I first learnt to ride when I was 19, the TVS Victor that came a few years later or the bullet - a woman riding a motorbike just drew a lot of attention and often, unwanted attention. This varied from catcalls, uninvited races on busy urban roads, words of appreciation from strangers in cars, on cycles and on other motorbikers, questions about the mileage, questions about the price of the bike, and generally a vocalisation of everything that a woman on a motorbike made everyone feel - uncomfortable, awe-struck, curious, hopeful, envious and more. A couple of times, it got scary too. Once, a car full of men blocked my way and chased me down in the middle of the day on a busy Chennai road in 2003. I made a mental note of the car’s number, rode straight to the nearest police station and complained to the lady constable there. She looked me up and down, and asked me why I was wearing jeans and riding a motorbike. Oh well. But, that didn’t stop me. I just gradually stopped wearing bright-coloured clothing when out on my motorbike and eventually to inconspicuous riding gear that more or less hid the fact that I was a woman riding a motorbike.

(Picture to the right: taken in 2017, featuring my black riding jacket, black helmet - if you can spot it, and a friend’s Harley.)

So, that’s why I was wearing what I was wearing on my ride to work in 2010. But something different happened that morning. It was probably around 8:45am on a road with surprisingly not much traffic. I noticed a Channapatna red bangle peaking out of the sleeve of my black riding jacket. This got me wondering.

What does a red bangle symbolise? In fact, what does a clay red bangle symbolise? I think I vaguely remembered one from my childhood.

Clay to me is organic, earthy, malleable, moldable, fragile yet firm.

Red is vibrant, strong, inspiring, stark, bold and energetic. And, a Bangle is symbolic, beautiful, playful and elegant - all at once.

A clay red bangle was all of these, and it was hand-made. You could break it a hundred times, and make it again. (Or at least in my imagination, you could.) And so, that morning, I decided that when I started a business, I would call it ‘Red Bangle’.



A year later, I started my YouTube show and a production house. I called it Red Bangle.
In 2016, I moved on from running a production house to running a tech-enabled global video agency. I called this too Red Bangle.
Today, Red Bangle has evolved into an AI-first creative agency serving both B2B and B2C brands the world over.

Perhaps now the meaning of ‘Red Bangle’ has evolved, too. Perhaps now it stands for a vibrant circle of evolution and community - in business, in creativity, and my own personal life. One that keeps moving forward together, down the winding road, up the mountain and down the hill – no matter the naysayers, no matter the challenges, no matter the rocks along the path, soaking in all the small wins along the way and smiling at the sun. Charting its own surprising path. Inspiring each of us to say ‘why not’, and consciously evolve.
I can say with certainty 9 years into running this business, that we have built an organisation and a community of people who are not afraid of change, not tired of evolving. To us, change and evolution are fun, exciting and a new opportunity, even if we are nervous about the unknown. We embrace it all, each in our own ways. While I could write “because, why not” here and end this essay, I can think of a million real reasons in history that point to examples of life forms that survived and thrived because they evolved, and embraced a ‘why not’ attitude and DNA at many turns.

Truly, is evolution an option to any of us? Just how well we embrace it, is. Perhaps ‘Red Bangle’ is just a wise, creative symbol of resilience (on a lighter note - much akin to a cockroach).