By M. Rajini
She is a young person at heart but carries a lot of burden of the elderly in her mind. 60Plus India, initiated by Arasi came at the right time when the vulnerability of senior citizens living alone came to light during the Covid catastrophe. 60Plus India was chosen as the Overall Best Startup of 2021 for its exemplary business growth, range of services and usage of technology.
Arasi is an Engineering graduate and an MBA from LIBA. She deviated from convention, to accommodate all that she was passionate about, in her career.
Arasi started ‘Zha Café, which at that time, was the first and only Tamil ethnic-themed coffee shop. Zha Café had a huge Aiyyanaar statue at its entrance. Its facade made heads turn. It was highly popular among patrons and critics alike. The interior had nostalgic, traditional board games and activities, like Paramapatham, Dhayam, etc. Both traditional and fusion food was served. A Kerala-styled room where you were seated on a boat and served food was an eye-catcher. It was a hangout for the young and old alike. Three franchises of the cafe sprouted.
Chisel Factor – a personality development and soft skills training company, was Arasi’s next venture, which focussed on women. She has trained hundreds of school and college children in employability, language and communication skills. The institution goes to government schools and conducts sessions on awareness of sexual abuse among children and teachers pro Bono. With the help of professionals from Bangalore, the project took off well.
Wanting to do more for women especially children, Arasi co-produced ‘Awareness video on Child Sexual Abuse’ starring actor Sivakarthikeyan. This video educates small children on how to identify and guard against sexual abuse. It was also an alert to parents on the topic.
Then came COVID.
Hundreds of Arasi’s friends, who were stuck abroad during the lockdown, reached out to her to take care of various needs of their parents, which she successfully did. The sheer need for personalised services and the first-hand experience of all the difficulties in organising them and the potential for providing such services sparked an idea. With all businesses shut down and struggling, and the world hit by what looked like a dooming problem, Arasi turned the problem into a golden opportunity and started ‘60Plus India’.
60Plus India has so far served more than 2000 senior citizens with services ranging from doctors’ home visits, COVID isolation help, hospitalizations, oxygen beds, providing help to set up electronic devices, food supply to nurses and attender visits, insurance claims, etc. The WhatsApp group formed during the pandemic is still functional and 60Plus is a huge family now.
Arasi stops at nothing and has converted each seemingly impossible obstacle into an opportunity and has continued to start up each time she falls.
She can be contacted at 94452 09696.
Accolades
- ‘Tamil Youth Icon’ award at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for providing a model of success to show that the Tamil language has the potential to provide great opportunities in all areas.
- IT Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mano Thangaraj presented the Best Startup of the Year 2021 Award to 60Plus India’.
- Recognised as the Top 20 Women-led startups to be watched in Tamil Nadu by Tamil Prenuer Forum.
- Awarded by Honourable Finance Minister of the country, Nirmala Sitharaman – as the SHESTAR – promising Top Women Start-up.
- Entrepreneur of Tamil Nadu – Dhruv Awards in Coimbatore on May 5, 2022
