Meenachabbria -The Unstoppable Angels
Hello! Vanakkam! Namaskar!
This is Meena Chabbria, a woman, a mother, a leader, and VP Media Sales for South, PVR Cinemas.
I am on a mission to empower 100,000 women to become global leaders.
This isn’t an idea that popped overnight. It was a process of constant contemplation, conversations, and inner journey.
When just 23% of executives are women, and just 8.8% of them are actually CEOs, there’s something fundamentally wrong in the way society sees us.
This needs to change. Through the power of the experiences I have garnered over the years of climbing this corporate ladder, I want to instil those techniques into all of you women, for you to become global leaders.
Because we don’t deserve anything less than that.
My Background
All of the abundances I have in life didn’t happen overnight. I grew up in a lower-middle-class family with my humble parents and siblings.
My ancestors hailed from Pakistan, and they somehow found their way to Coimbatore after the partition and made it their home. A refugee camp in Coimbatore – that’s where I grew up.
My hustle to survive began the moment I entered the world as I didn’t open my eyes for the first four hours. Only when my father arrived and took me to his hands was when I opened my eyes for the first time. The first man I have ever seen was my father.
His influence on me was unparalleled, especially my ability to deal with people working for me came from him. My father kept it very simple – we could go to school, go to work, and be doing whatever chores we were supposed to do at the house, but my sister and I had to wash the tea glasses used by the ladies who worked at his tailor shop no matter what. It was his way of telling us we weren’t above anyone and that everyone needs to be treated with respect.
The need to be of help to others has also been instilled very early in my life. Growing up around my grandfather, I observed he had this weird ritual where while going out, he used to pour sugar across the path he was going. Every neighbour considered him mad for this. After a lot of probing, one day he told me that he did that because he wanted no ant to die under his feet, and he was just clearing the path for them. That hit me differently. Irrespective of whether that works or not, someone has to have genuine intent of helping others to do that so religiously every time they walk out of the home.
Not only that, when I was young, I saw him take special care of a mentally challenged young pregnant woman who he got admitted to a childcare facility using his own expenses.
Growing up watching him be of genuine help to others has made me what I am today.
Jobs and the corporate world
My first job was at a daycare centre where all I have to do is wipe the legs of children. But that didn’t go well, as the school coordinator didn’t like me, and I had to quit. When I quit, the principal of the school was kind enough to offer me another job. She told me that her mother was blind, and all I had to do was assist her mother – bathing her, taking her to the washroom, etc. She agreed to pay me the same salary I was getting at the first job. Knowing that I had financial issues at home and had to feed myself, I took up the job. But I never wanted to tell my mother, so I kept telling her that I was going to the same school.
When she eventually found out, she cried uncontrollably. She couldn’t digest the fact that I was being a nanny for an old lady. But for me, that job was feeding us, and I considered helping an old lady with her needs as a divine job.
But due to her insistence, I quit and found another school where I started working again as a helper. In the meantime, I also began taking tuition for Pre-KG children. I used to leave for my workplace at seven in the morning and come back home only by nine after visiting the children’s houses to teach.
I hustled in whatever way possible as I wanted to survive.
One day, I found out that one of the parents of the children I was teaching was selling Tirupur rejects. Any T-shirts with minor damages were rejected and sold in kilograms. At those times it was sixty rupees a kilogram and will contain around 20 to 25 T-shirts. I used to buy those clothes from her and sell them at 75 or 50 or even 100 rupees per T-shirt. I always waited till I made enough money, then gave away the rest. That was my first sales job, and the first time ever I noticed that I could sell.
All it takes is one such moment of realisation to instil enough confidence in you. For me, it was one such moment.
Donning the hat of a mother
But things didn’t fall into place. Not for a long time. Eventually, I got married and became a housewife. The middle-class life I was leading was a difficult one. I wanted an out but didn’t know how.
While that was happening, I became a mother. Donning the hat of a mother had to be the biggest privilege of my life. Giving birth to my first child, my daughter Prarthana was a story in itself. We were so broke at that time that the idea of caesarian itself scared me as I know we couldn’t afford that even though I was at the most affordable hospital in Coimbatore.
As luck would have it, I gave birth to Prarthana through normal delivery.
All of this impacted the way I saw life. The hunger to do more and be successful was always there, but giving birth to my son Vinay was the final nail in the coffin. My hunger increased. I wanted to give my children the best life possible and I started looking for opportunities everywhere I can.
One day when I took Vinay to a school ground, I saw an advertisement for Shaimak Davar’s 10-day dance class for ₹500. I enrolled my daughter Prarthana to the class and every day, I used to go with Prarthana to the dance class, watch her do those little steps, and feel elated.
On the third day of the class, I saw a notice put up by them, saying they require call centre helpers. Upon calling the number they provided, they informed me that the work was only for two hours, i.e., from 10 in the morning to noon, and I would get paid ₹5000. They also told me upfront that it is only six months contract, after which they would have to move the set-up to a different place, so they would not be taking me. It didn’t matter to me, I wanted it and I grabbed the opportunity.
I worked in the call centre there for six months, morning to afternoon, then parallelly I would take care of children who were going to school, by then.
One day, while working in the call centre, I received a call, a usual enquiry regarding the dance classes. I handled it, and that person seemed satisfied, and he cut the call. Immediately, I get another call from the same person. I picked up, and the conversation went like this.
“You spoke very well, darling!”
“I’m sorry, who is this?” I asked.
“It’s Shaimak”
“Like, real Shaimak?”
“Yes, real Shaimak” I could hear the smile across the phone.
I was jumping with joy, knowing that he himself called me. Although it was supposed to be a test, I was happy that he actually liked my work.
So much so that, the next day, he made me an Assistant manager. From getting ₹5000 per month, I went directly to earning ₹18K per month. The giant leap of confidence he has shown in me then is something I would always be grateful for because that essentially changed my life.
Believe that universe is watching you and it’ll help you find opportunities. All you have to do is be ready and grab with them both hands. That’s what I did.
I quickly became a city manager as Shaimak liked my work and started doing many shows for them.
While doing one such show in the lobby of INOX, I met Lakshmi Narayana, then the marketing manager at INOX. We were talking, and he told me that he had quit his job and I casually asked him about his replacement. He said that they had not yet decided, but he could recommend me if I wanted. I immediately said yes. Then and there, I wrote my resume on a small piece of paper with just important information – name, age, marital status, address, present job, current salary, and expected salary, that’s it, nothing more and nothing less. After putting in my signature, I went to attend the interview.
There, I met Vinod, the cinema manager of INOX. After seeing the resume, he laughed out loud. He was not expecting someone to turn up for an interview with a resume written on a piece of paper.
I wanted to grow, and I wanted to do it at any cost. Be ready when an opportunity presents itself. Even if you are arriving with just the bare minimum, showing up is what matters. I did the same.
They took me in, and my stint at INOX has begun.
After doing everything I could at INOX for three years, it was time for me to move on. I met Gautam, the current CEO of PVR, and he asked me whether I would like to join them as they were expanding into Chennai, and my answer was an obvious yes.
My salary became double, and I never looked back after that. I started scaling heights. Starting from being a city manager, I started handling business for the whole of South India and eventually started handling the market of Srilanka too.
In all these years, I worked hard, travelled many miles, went hungry, fought for my space, and gave everything I could to the organization so that it could grow and help me grow.
Though there were days, I didn’t find time to spend with my family, as I grew, I understood the importance of doing so. So, along with providing for the family and helping to give the best lifestyle possible for my children, I also prioritised spending time with them and reconnected with them deeply.
In the 13+ years in PVR, I challenged myself in ways that I never would have imagined while growing up or when I was a housewife. I took risks, spent sleepless nights, nurtured teams, helped many people find their voice within the organization, hired people for their potential, stood my ground, and carved my own space in the male-dominated corporate world.
Covid and aftermath
When the pandemic happened, it affected all of us in many ways. For cinemas, it was worse. We didn’t even know whether cinemas will ever be back, we didn’t know whether we all will have our jobs intact.
But the idea of uncertainty fueled growth inside me. Something in me said I cannot give up now. I have to be strong, and I started doing everything in my capacity to reach out to people who were affected during the pandemic and organised help.
I also wanted to improve myself. Though the whole idea of improving myself stemmed out of fear of not knowing what the future holds, only when I started educating myself, and reading new things, I realised how much I enjoy these things, how much I love getting the knowledge and growing into this person who is curious, understanding, loving, and knowledgeable.
I started loving myself, and I gifted myself with courses from various universities. When I didn’t have money and didn’t know how my career would shape up, I took a huge leap of faith to invest all my savings into educating myself.
I attended UCLA, IIM Raipur, and ISB to complete various management courses. Once I completed all of them, the feeling of a newfound power I got was inexplicable.
Learning is a lifelong journey, and no one should take it for granted.
Women in the corporate world face unique challenges. We are expected to behave a certain way, our growth patterns are pre-defined, and we were told by people within and outside of the corporate world that we have the responsibility of taking care of our family and so we cannot be burdened by the responsibilities at work.
But they are wrong. Women are strong, and they can absolutely manage to be best at everything – in taking care of family and in leading organisations. The empathy we bring into leadership roles is unique, and we deserve every bit of success.
I’m here to show you that path. With my experiences of coming from a lower middle-class family, and not having anything other than incredible confidence, I made it. I can see all of you doing that.
So, join me on this journey. Let’s make this world a better place to live in.
Let’s be “The Unstoppable Angels”.
Glimpse Of My Successful Career And Happy Family
