You can hear her smile when she answers the phone. What you can also hear is her son, somewhere in the background, demanding she stop talking on the phone and pay attention to him. At 31, Mannsi is expert at juggling work and her responsibilities of being a mother. And work isn’t just one thing. Corporate trainer and toastmaster by profession, she started taking pictures of her son when he was little and has been doing baby photography under the brand name Cherry Orchard ever since. What’s more, she even does stand-up comedy every once in a while, and though she says she can’t write comedy, one can assume she must be pretty good at it if she keeps doing it. She recently did The Last Sucker, the last stand-up comedy of 2016, and has already said yes to another show scheduled in January.This week, Mannsi joins us to talk about breaking conventions, why she chooses to overwork, and the value of research, hard work and dedication.How did you decide to do your own thing versus work for someone else?
I got married before I graduated. It was actually two months before my second year exams. I came to Nepal and I was depressed. Though I eventually did graduate, being in a place where I didn’t speak or understand the language being spoken at ‘home’ really bogged me down. Then I joined the Toastmasters. I met likeminded people I could draw strength from and got back a lot of confidence I had lost. At that time, I was also working at City Center as the marketing manager but I didn’t want to work under anyone else so I quit that job.
