Indian actress, author, and cancer warrior Lisa Ray, who moved to Dubai with her twin daughters and Lebanese husband last year, stands tall among pop culture multi-hyphenates and is oddly fixated on the word ‘serendipitous’.
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Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/bollywood/lisa-rays-dubai-diary-battling-cancer-building-a-startup-and-finding-serendipity-1.95792577
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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#UAEnews #lisaray #dubai
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NewsTranscript
00:00Good morning, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News. I'm the entertainment editor.
00:04Today is a glorious morning. I'm going to have breakfast and coffee with Lisa Ray.
00:09She's an author, Bollywood actress, supermodel and she's also a startup founder. Today we are
00:15going to find out about her typical day, how she survived cancer, how she wrote a book in
00:20the midst of it all and how she decided to become a startup founder. Let's find out more about her.
00:26You know, I love the winter season in Dubai. It's been actually a revelation and we just
00:36finished one year. We moved here in January last year and I'm loving it. I love everything about
00:43it. Honestly, everything about it. I really can't think of any drawbacks aside, of course,
00:50from the summer. Everybody knows that. Is your life a blender without a lid? I ask this because
00:55I'm a mom of twins. I feel my life is that. I feel overwhelmed. In your case, I feel I know
01:00you have it all together. Do you have it all together? No, no, I don't even attempt to put
01:06it out there that I have it all together. You know, I'm now added startup founder to my resume
01:15and to be honest, I actually, you know, I think that I wouldn't have been able to start a company
01:22if I hadn't moved to Dubai. This again is a year old enterprise. And while I think that
01:30being a startup founder and my company is called The Upside Space, I'm co-founder. Yes. And I'm
01:36able to finally actualize my passion for the arts and for, you know, supporting the arts.
01:44So that's been amazing. However, I have, you know, sort of a great foundation and support
01:51here in Dubai, even though we're very new. So that part of my life is very chaotic.
01:57I have four year old twins. That's also extremely chaotic and really, you know, teaches you that
02:04nothing is within our control, you know, brings home that message every single day. And they are
02:10honestly the delights of my life. So that's enriched my life. But life is led 360 degrees,
02:17isn't it? You know, it's 360 degrees. So it's startup. It's my kids. My family is actually
02:24comes first, then my startup, which is become another member of my family, an extension of
02:29my family because I'm living, breathing, eating it. Writing, of course, is very important. You
02:36know, I'll be appearing at the Emirates Lit Fest, which is which is really gratifying since,
02:43as I said, I'm a new resident as well. And it actually gives me a chance to refocus on
02:49my writing career, which is what I've also always wanted to do. And till I jumped headfirst into
02:56this art enterprise and I'm trying to juggle both. But it's wonderful to be able to introduce
03:02my book and my story, my personal narrative to an audience in the UAE. Because I really have,
03:09I feel so warmly embraced in the UAE. It's been like one of the easiest transitions in my life.
03:15It's great that I think every woman should be a businesswoman. Look at all the women who are
03:21doing so well. They have some business out there, even if it's an online thing. I think that's the
03:26truth, I suppose. Well, yes. And at the same time, though, I think it's really important to focus and
03:33to know what you're passionate about and to do something that's aligned to your values,
03:38because otherwise business is a grind. Starting your own business is very, very demanding. I mean,
03:43there's no two ways about it. And I'm a tech co-founder on top of that. And this is very much,
03:49you know, there aren't a lot of female founders in that space. But for me, what I'm doing is
03:55art-centric. It's very easy. We still put art at the center of what we're doing at the upside space.
04:01We are a platform. We're a playground. We're a community. We're a marketplace. So we're a lot
04:06of different things. But we are creator and artist-centric. So imagine that. We're all about
04:12democratizing art and making sure that everybody has equal access to artistic expression from
04:20Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. These are the places that we are from
04:25these are the stories that need to be told. These are the artistic traditions that while they are
04:32sort of rising in profile, we still don't have a table in the global art conversation in the way
04:39that it should be. Nobody else is going to tell our stories. We are responsible for elevating our
04:44profile and telling our stories. So the upside space is about that. I love it. So it's art-centric.
04:50Here's the thing. It's art-centric. It's about the art. The tech is the enabler. It's the delivery
04:56system. It's the new medium for being able to share art in a borderless world. If you're
05:02sitting in New York, you should be able to access some of the hottest, freshest talent in Dubai,
05:10in Mumbai, in Delhi, in Hanoi, in Bali. And that is what we are about at the upside space.
05:20Let me put this right. So I don't need to go to a gallery owner and perhaps hawk my goods because
05:25at the end of the day, art has to sell too. There is a bit of economics attached. You can't just
05:29live on fresh air. No, no, of course we are a marketplace. We are a marketplace. However,
05:35exactly, we are curator. So we're taking some elements from the traditional art world because
05:41we feel that this new space of art NFTs is very confusing to your point, to a lot of people.
05:46A curator becomes like someone to hold you by the hand, right? It's an expert who's handpicking
05:52the works. For instance, we have exhibitions from Sri Lanka. So we have an incredible curator
05:59from Sri Lanka who handpicked incredible artists from Sri Lanka. And I love Sri Lanka. I shot a
06:05film there called Water. So I spent a lot of time there. And I understand the artistic traditions
06:10are very, very strong. However, to give you an example, Sri Lanka, as we all know, has been going
06:15through a very volatile, difficult time for like the last year and a half, economically, politically.
06:22Now, as an artist, as a creator, how do you make money when you are at the demands of like local
06:29geographical volatility? Well, if you have a practice that bypasses that, if you have an art
06:36NFT practice that where you can actually access a global audience, you can still generate an income
06:41for yourself, you know, you're not beholden to local volatility. And that's another reason why
06:48we believe in what we're doing amongst many, many, many reasons, you know, like looking at the, you
06:53know, we have a curation out of the UAE. And look at the diversity of voices that you get. And that
07:00becomes another form of soft power of sharing the stories of these regions and helping again to open
07:06people's minds and their wallets. I'll tell you what, I mean, also what you do in art NFTs is the
07:16artist becomes a lot more empowered, right? We have smart contracts with, you know, tries to ensure that
07:21artists can receive royalties indefinitely on their artwork. The artist can directly
07:26connect with the collector. There's no middleman. An artist can choose how they want to present
07:32themselves. And again, an artist is developing their own profile in their community. It's within
07:36their own hands. They don't have to always rely on a middle person. Look, I have, wow, isn't that lovely?
07:43I love this place. I love the little chirp, chirp, chirp in the morning. But, you know, so I don't
07:49want to throw shade on a traditional gallery system, but there are flaws and problems,
07:56like any system, right? So what we're doing with this new medium, this new way of delivering art
08:02to everyone, making it accessible, is it actually addresses some of the flaws in the old system.
08:06Writing isn't easy, the discipline that you need as well, and you need to be a wordsmith, which you are,
08:13but how did you get into it? How did you just decide, okay, I'm going to write a book,
08:16and I'm going to become a businesswoman. How do you make these calls? I mean, it takes serendipity.
08:22No, no, no, no, honestly. And I mean, there's so many people I admire, so many women I admire,
08:29and I've been lucky enough that, you know, in my communities and circles and wherever I've lived,
08:36I've managed to embrace incredible women who inspire me with their decisions. And I think that,
08:44you know, obviously, I'm not fearless, but I acknowledge the fear and I move on in spite of it.
08:52Writing a book is, though, something that I always wanted to do, so I grabbed the opportunity.
08:56Ironically, being diagnosed with a serious cancer, multiple myeloma in 2009, actually addressed
09:03whatever inner obstacles I might have or inner hesitations I might have about embracing new
09:11careers and new projects, because, you know, when you have to deal with your mortality, that's it.
09:16You know, everything else actually kind of fades into insignificance. And you realize,
09:21again, you're really, this idea of embracing whatever you have in this life comes into very
09:29sharp focus. So I think that in a strange way, cancer obviously, like, liberated me
09:36from a lot of my sort of self-conscious, whatever self-conscious kind of impulses that I had.
09:42So I wrote a book, in fact, because of my cancer diagnosis. And I've always only ever wanted to be
09:48a writer. That's all I wanted to pursue. And it only took me about 30 years to get there. So
09:55you can do it too. It's okay. How did you get into it? Did somebody just
09:59pull the idea? Yeah, so Aisha Khan is Singapore based. And we literally met one and a half times
10:07because it was COVID in Singapore. And it was very hard to anyways even meet someone for dinner.
10:11But we realized that we have this twin passion for art, but also about disseminating art,
10:17about reducing, again, the defensiveness around, like, you know, bringing down the fences around
10:26art, you know, and eliminating that and eliminating the borders. So circle back to,
10:31we were just in the midst of moving from Mumbai to Dubai. And Aisha reached out and she said,
10:36hey, what do you think? I've been thinking about this for a while. We had a lot of time to think
10:40during COVID. And, you know, and I give her credit for putting the two together, art and tech,
10:47and understanding the potential of this disruptive new technology to be able to,
10:52you know, deliver art to a much, much wider audience, and to have fun with it as we're
10:58doing it. We're very focused and excited. But this literally just fell into my lap. I actually had a
11:02conversation with my husband. My husband's been in blockchain for a while. And we had these
11:08very interesting dinner conversations where, you know, for me, a lot of it is around
11:12books and poetry and art and cultural events. And, you know, sometimes I feel it goes in one ear
11:18and out the other. And for him, it's about crypto and blockchain and tech and finance,
11:23and it goes in one ear and out the other. And I mean, to give him credit, of course,
11:28he does actually enjoy culture. It'd be hard, right? Otherwise, but I don't necessarily
11:34actually meet him halfway and reciprocate. But we were sitting and discussing this. And I said,
11:40you know what, Aisha brought up this business idea. And what do you think? And I'm really
11:45scared. And I, you know, I acknowledge it. And I said, I don't know anything about tech. I'm
11:48not a tech driven person. He said, first of all, you consider yourself creative, right?
11:54Yes. Hello. What are the qualities that it takes to be creative? Well, you have to be
12:00open minded and adaptable and embrace new ideas and da da da da. And he said, well,
12:05then why are you so resistant to this idea if you consider yourself creative? And I went,
12:10oh, ding dong. I can't argue with that. So interestingly, my very logical husband,
12:18kind of opened my mind and my perceptions and my eyes to following this new passion,
12:26to putting the two together. And that's what I mean. You don't have to be an expert in anything.
12:29I am not an expert in art. I bought my first piece of art when I was 16. I've been a collector. I'm
12:35not educated in art, but I'm not educated in anything. I don't believe that that should
12:41dictate the direction of your life because you'll pick it up as you go along. Oh, I love that. I
12:46think you're a hustler. Do you know that? No, I'm not. You're not? I'm honestly not. You are.
12:51I'm very resistant. I'm very resistant. I'll tell you why. I do feel that this is actually a very,
12:58in my opinion, it's a very toxic term. And I'll explain why. Because we live in an age of
13:05distraction already. Right. And I am very mindful. I've written about this in depth in my book. And
13:14one of the main messages of my book is, again, to go back to yourself, to align your internal
13:20journey with your external journey. But to begin that process, you have to understand who you are
13:24and you have to sit silently and quietly with yourself. You know, you may not have the time
13:29to go off on a retreat for six months like I did at one point in my life, but just carving out some
13:36time every day. So where I'm resistant to this hustling culture is because it's really already
13:42an age of distraction. It's an age where we have to fight hard to find stillness and reflection.
13:49And we're not encouraged to by the world, by culture and society. So hustling, I think,
13:57is not the right word. What would you? Aligning. Aligning. I like that word too.
14:04When you're aligned, things start falling into place. You still have to work hard. I will work
14:09really hard. But I've learned the hard way due to my medical issues and due to being diagnosed
14:15with cancer, that if you cut yourself off from your internal world, from your inner world,
14:25from your body's needs, if you stop listening to that little voice, you will bear the consequences
14:31and they will often be very harsh. And that's what happened to me. I was a hustler when I was younger.
14:35I would not say I'm a hustler now. You started at 16, I'm thinking. So you were so vulnerable.
14:41I was thinking while I was just reading something about you, I was like, my God, four years older,
14:45Arya is so young. I wouldn't want that to her. I feel you have learned the hard way as well,
14:49all of this. And do you feel like a borrowed time user? Is that why you're doing everything?
14:54You're like, you're ticking the boxes in some ways as well, isn't it?
14:58I honestly, yeah, I don't think of it that way. As I said, it literally is these wonderful
15:03opportunities that I feel aligned with that have come into my life. I'm deeply grateful. I'm deeply
15:08humbled. I'm learning every day. I've learned to listen in general more than speak, although now
15:14I'm doing all the speaking, but I really feel it. No, it's so important just to listen. And I'm,
15:21you know, and I always want to be in a room full of people who are much smarter than me.
15:26Always. You're not intimidated. That's always good. Most people are intimidated
15:29being in a room where, you know, people are generally like you think they're more educated,
15:34but it's all just. No, no. I mean, I've been at the benefit or the receiving end of
15:39people who are either I would categorize them as great spiritual masters, you know, or people who
15:45are so wise in what life is about and how to lead a good life. And I've benefited from those
15:51relationships. I benefited from the wisdom of a lot of women and developing my feminine side and
15:57the strength of the feminine side and really embracing and stepping into that as opposed to
16:02see like hustle for me is a very also Yang male oriented energy. And I think as women,
16:09we should understand that we have different ways of doing things that are just as powerful.
16:15What's your day in the life like? Because Lisa, I know you as a Bollywood star. Okay,
16:19I know. I know. It's probably a little bit of a trip, right? Yeah. How did the
16:25radio misfit? A huge misfit. And that's, again, why I wrote Close to the Bone.
16:30I never fit into the entertainment world in India. I think at least it's taking a very
16:37different direction. Obviously, I love the new stories that are being told. I feel really
16:43honored that at my very advanced age, and, you know, even though I'd step back from acting,
16:48I got this wonderful opportunity to be part of Four More Shots, please, which I think is a very
16:52forward thinking and such an interesting story. And I was roped into this by my friend,
16:57Rangita Nandy, who's the showrunner, Pritish Nandy's daughter.
17:04She's a showrunner. She conceptualizes and she roped me in. I was very resistant. And I'm so and
17:11I love the role. And I love the entire series. And it was so much fun. So I'm glad that I'm
17:18fortunate to be able to do that. So, you know, I get a bit of a taste of this new age of
17:24entertainment coming out of India. That, you know, I do have some regrets. I wish that I could have
17:29been a part of that, because those are the stories that I would have loved to tell it that were not
17:32available in the 90s. The 90s is very different. But of course, you know, I attained and achieved
17:39a lot of success that I myself felt like I was a fraud. I didn't feel that I deserved it. But,
17:44you know, it was on the basis of how I looked at that moment, right? But that's fine. That's
17:49different. But I was always I was always a misfit. But I managed to find a community.
17:55So I always, in parallel with what I was doing, I dedicated myself to art, you know, I was
18:02collecting art alongside I was writing in my journal that led to my writing career. So I
18:07planted the seeds of what I wanted to do later on in my life. At that period of time, not
18:12consciously, but it somehow happened. So I feel really, really fortunate and, and lucky. And I
18:18think that today, this idea of being a misfit, being an outsider is even more embrace than it
18:22was when I was there. So I had this inner conflict, because on the outside, the way I describe it also
18:28is I was able to redefine success at a very young age. Reason being is that when I was at maybe you
18:36could say the height of my success, you know, in my mid 20s, being celebrated around India,
18:42and all the all the stuff that all the stuff that comes along with that. Yeah, externally,
18:50like, in terms of you, I know, I just thought you were the no, no, I mean, it sounds terrible
18:55to say no, but the reason why I'm saying this, no, but I was at that point of time,
18:59and it felt very surreal. I was disconnected from the image of myself. And I'll tell you what.
19:04So imagine that was the external reality. My internal reality is I was at my the depths that
19:10you can get emotionally. I was really, really sad in turmoil in conflict, sometimes almost suicidal,
19:21and I also had an eating disorder. So this kind of, you know, disconnect from between the external
19:29and the internal, for me is not success. How can you define that as success? There's no singular
19:36line. Because sometimes, you know, they'll ask you to do this exercise. Well, right, you know,
19:40use a single line and describe the ups and downs in your life. What are your high points,
19:44your low points? And I say, I can't do that. I had to use two lines, at least if not three or four.
19:49Because there's the external success that people see that has its own trajectory. There's the
19:54internal, and they don't always sync up. Yeah, and not always, but they don't always sync up. So
20:02the idea is that they should intersect and that they should mirror each other. That is true
20:07success for me. So that's what I aspire to. Are you like in a better space now? I mean,
20:11because I don't know, tackled all your inner demons as well. And like you said, the eating
20:16disorder, it's all for real, like, you know, people are talking about it, public figures
20:20are talking about it. And even addiction, if you have an addictive personality,
20:24stars are now talking about it. Yeah, it's so positive. Isn't that better? Like, don't hide it.
20:30Thank God. Thank God. It's about time. It's about time. Because, you know, I mean, I think it was
20:35that beautiful Rumi quote that if we all sat in a field together and discussed our, you know,
20:40our flaws or our failures, we would all laugh at the recognition that we all contain the same
20:46things, the same failures, the same sort of mode of success. You know, we are all connected through
20:51our stories and through our experiences, regardless of, again, what the external perceptions might be.
20:59And I am proud at least to have been the first Indian personality to have spoken about cancer
21:06openly, to have broken that taboo, the stigma attached that I could never understand. And that
21:11was really, but that was a breakthrough. It was a breakthrough moment for me personally.
21:18I wasn't doing it necessarily for other people. I was doing it for myself.
21:23But it did turn into a form of activism and a great sort of mission statement for myself.
21:29You know, we felt empowered reading your stories.
21:33And now and now everybody feels like I feel like the lid has come off and that's so powerful.
21:38And, you know, I wouldn't encourage that more and more and more. No, no, no. Honestly, not at all.
21:43Not at all. It's been very circumstantial for me. You know, whatever circumstances I've been in,
21:48I've taken the best decision I felt I could in that moment. And that's it. Right. But one of
21:53the best decisions we took is moving to Dubai, to be honest. I love it here.
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