There is more to Snigdha Munipally than meets the eye. Yes, she is a doodler and you might have seen her doodling at various events like Sunday Soul Sante Hyderabad. But did you know that she also counsels sexually abused victims and is an advocate of self-love, which she will be speaking about at the upcoming Hyderabad Literary Festival? Not to forget, her own personal battle with Psoriasis (a condition where the skin tends to develop dry, itchy patches). So over a conversation with this spunky girl, we attempt to peel back the many layers of Snigdha in an attempt to find who she really is and why she does what she does.
Doodling happened to Snigdha as spontaneously and randomly as the art itself. “I think what really clicked was that while doodling, perfection is not expected from you, unlike in painting or sketching. It’s an imperfect art form,” says Snigdha. She would doodle on cups, suitcases and even shoes and display them in exhibitions at Lamakaan and Nritya - Forum for Performing Arts. She has also given people the confidence to doodle alongside her at live doodling sessions in the city of Hyderabad. “Once I tell them that it’s okay if they mess it up, they don’t hold back,” says the 23-year-old. While her doodling journey clicked instantaneously, her public speaking attempts were not immediately successful. Snigdha chose to speak about the causes she felt passionate about — mental health and sexual abuse. “People just laughed at me,” she recalls with despair. But the more sexual assault victims she connected with, the greater the need to do something for them began to arise within her. And even the victims seemed to have found an empathic ear to tell their tale to and a sturdy shoulder to cry on. This probably came from the fact that she would never force victims to report their case to the police, just made them believe that whatever decision they made, she would be right beside them, supporting them all the way through it. “Some people prefer to report the matter to the police and others would rather have karma do its job. I like to leave the decision to them,” says the wise Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology alumna.
And in this way, she has counselled more than 50 victims, both men and women. But what was probably the most challenging task was to work on loving herself. “Once I understood that my skin condition was a stress alarm that would go off every time I was harsh to myself, I took a step back and learnt to relax and love myself the way I am,” says the lively girl. And at the core, that’s what she is all about, loving herself and teaching the same art to others.
For more on her, click on facebook.com/snigdha.munipally
