Introducing Dipashree Das, from India, Partner Marketing Netflix
“Invictus” reads a tattoo on Dipashree Das’s forearm in big, bold letters. A tattoo that she got at a crucial juncture of her life, it represents all that William Ernest Henley’s poem by the same title has meant to her: motivation, strength, prayer. It is a hark back to the difficult times, a call to move on, a reminder that she overcame the worst. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” she quotes from the poem; lines that have spurred her on, past every obstacle life threw at her.
Almost immediately after her move, one by one the pieces began to fall apart.
On the very first day, Dipashree realised that she was going to be pretty much on her own, whether it was to find the closest supermarket or to get herself a job. Her husband was almost always travelling abroad for work and she had no friends in the city.
On the work front, she was exploring setting up a bureau for NDTV, but despite giving it an earnest try, that didn’t seem feasible. Also, her talks with another major financial company for a job fell through. This falling out at a rather advanced stage came as a big blow.
She started a job hunt, sending out applications and making cold calls. After several weeks of it, she finally had a call for an interview and eventually joined a production house, Oak3 Films. “The woman who runs that agency, my first boss in Singapore, is still one of the most inspiring women I have ever met. I cannot be more thankful to her for giving me that break because no one else was. For me, it was a break in a new market during a bad recessionary phase.”
But just when she was about to join, her father had a stroke. It was a difficult period in every way, what with travelling regularly to India to take care of her father and managing a new job. Nevertheless, in a few months she had settled well into the job, doing a lot of TV content. Before long she was hired by Channel NewsAsia and was soon leading its digital team.
Things, though, weren’t looking great on the personal front—the couple were headed towards a divorce. For Dipashree, it was as sudden as it was unexpected and it left her devastated. “I remember it like it was yesterday, how I was lying on the balcony and crying my eyes out. I had been a unit with him from when I was 21. It was like having the rug pulled from under my feet.”
Given the circumstances and her yearning to be with her family, she did consider returning to India. “I even found a job there. But suddenly I said to myself, why should I go back?” It was now time to reclaim her life.
Determined to reach her goals, Dipashree dug her heels in. She moved out of her friend’s apartment to a shared accommodation, which was all she could afford on her modest pay. What she had in plenty by now were friends. “I would wake up on Sundays and not know what to do with my life. Two things saved me—my job and how much I loved it, and my friends,” she says.
[At Netlfix,] Dipashree couldn’t possibly be more thrilled about her career than she is now. She finds it to be the right confluence of content, technology and brand building.
“I am absolutely delighted with where I am right now professionally. I have received so much positive feedback in the last few months that I feel I really can crack it. I have to thank the breakdown of my marriage to have pushed me the way it did.”
About Sushmita Mohapatra
Sometimes all you need to hear is a good story. A story that shows it can be done.’
An expat life is complicated in its simplicity. I walked into it with blinkered vision, unaware of the emotional turmoil, the immense amount of self-doubt and apprehensions that would confront me every single day. Vulnerable one day, confident the next. Nothing had prepared me for life away from the comfort zone that I grew up in.
A working woman, a trailing spouse, a new mother—some roles were new, others seemed to have changed the rules of the game. The most heartening thing was that there was immense support in the ecosystem. Most people I met, went out of their way to help, making time for coffee, conversations and connections.
There were two things that stood out. One was the comfort of knowing that so many had gone through similar struggles and emerged with impactful success stories. And the second was the warm approach that people had to change here. Even today, it continues to surprise me that things can change so much overnight. Favourite stores and playrooms shut down, people leave, friends come in, new bonds are built and some are maintained over social media. To be all encompassing in your acceptance to anything thrown your way, is pretty much the mantra of survival.
Every single day, a new person stands at the threshold of life that I was at. And I wanted to do my bit and help.
So I wrote. It had to be about stories that I knew how to write, and about real heroes, because they inspired me. In some way, it also had to be about changing a much-misconstrued narrative around expat life being all about pristine beach holidays, shopping trips and spa vacations.
‘Dear Ms Expat’ is an attempt to reach out to every woman who faces a curveball she hadn’t planned for, in a land far, far away.
About Savitha Venugopal
It has been almost four years since I moved out of my home country. I came as a ‘trailing spouse’, both reluctant and excited at the same time. Reluctant because I was leaving behind a career and heading for uncertainty; excited for all the obvious reasons – a new place, that too a global city like Singapore, and all the wonderful possibilities it presented.
But no matter where you are, a journalist remains a journalist. You see potential stories everywhere. Especially so when you are in a new place, looking at it from a fresh perspective. As someone who has always been an active participant in the discussion on women’s issues, it was but natural that I was drawn towards the lives of women here. Expat women in particular, who had come into Singapore much the same as I had.
Just the stories of friends and neighbours were eye-opening as to how resourceful and enterprising women can be when taken out of their comfort zones. Where it was difficult to find jobs, they used their skills to teach, volunteer or set up small businesses. Where they found opportunities, they adapted and reinvented themselves. They let their passion lead them, they found new interests. There is, in short, no holding them back.
And once you’ve had a taste of these stories, you look for more and you find the more impactful ones – both exhilarating and heart wrenching. The world is full of such moving and inspiring tales waiting to be told. For me, Dear Ms Expat is but a beginning; a first step in giving voice to women’s stories.
Dear Ms Expat ISBN: 9789814779005 U.P: S$19.96 with GST - a heartening collection of 10 diverse real-life stories of accomplished expat women in Singapore who reinvent themselves to become entrepreneurs, advocates, writers, leaders while juggling successful careers alongside families and motherhood in a new environment.
