Vinita Sidhartha

Vinita Sidhartha wears many hats. Writer, entrepreneur, revivalist, researcher, trainer, social sector consultant, gardener, corporate executive are but some of the few roles she plays. The written word, and preferably in prose, though remains her first love!

She started her career in communication and has organically explored several realms based on her interests, passion and an abiding desire to make a difference to the community.

 Returning to India from the US in 1990 armed with a Master’s degree in Journalism, and realising that she wanted to balance both family and career, Vinita opted to set up her own agency in content development called Masterpage. An early pioneer in the field, the agency provided well researched content backed by creative design and thinking to support organisations, NGO’s, educations institutions and even some media houses. Amongst some of the noteworthy projects were a series of articles in The Hindu on Wedding Customs of India and another series on Traditional Games of India in the Young World of The Hindu.

 The research for this series made her realise that our traditional Indian games were in danger of being forgotten and lost. With our modern nuclear families and an increasing dependence on digital recreation we had lost our connect with the games our grandparents played and this aspect of our heritage.

Thus was Kreeda born. It started with Vinita modifying and playing the games with her own children.

Kreeda is   an organization that researches and revives traditional games and is now a byword in India in conversations about traditional games.  Kreeda has grown to be one of the anchors of Vinita’s professional identity, giving her a pan India and even international footprint as a revivalist of traditional Indian games. Vinita is best known as the founder of Kreeda – with the iconic, eco-friendly and cheerful boxes gracing shelves across India. It gives her a great sense of satisfaction that in bringing back these traditional games into our lives and making them accessible to all, she has not only been able to save this aspect of our heritage but has been able to build a fun way to connect across generations. Vinita has travelled far and wide in search of games or people who would know of them. She would often find  an old villager who knew of a game his father had played or some interesting etchings on temple walls where people gathered to play. As her knowledge grew, so did her passion. Not satisfied with merely creating the games Vinita’s was on a mission was to bring these games back into use. Whilst working in a number of areas, Vinita continued to nurture Kreeda with passion, growing it from a small home based set up to one that has over 28 games in its portfolio that are Indian in spirit but global in quality and hold on based on values of sustainability and respect for the environment.   Today Kreeda has come to be a household word with anyone who wants traditional games and Kreeda games have been appreciated across the country. The process of incubating a game involves extensive community engagement, research and design interventions to ensure that these games are not just user friendly, attractive and in sync with Kreeda values but also commercially viable.

Over the years, the path of researching traditional games and has opened out a variety of avenues she collaborates and shares her knowledge and expertise from Heritage walks, to exploring ancient temples for evidence of games, workshops, to heritage art exhibitions collaborating with craft organisations and such like.  By virtue of the extensive research and documentation she has done in this field, Vinita is, today, one of the country’s experts in the area of traditional games is often invited to talks, workshops and other collaborative partnerships including corporate workshops to build managerial expertise through traditional games.

Around the same time, as Kreeda  being nurtured, she simultaneously got involved in the social sector. She joined   the Heroes Project (established by Richard Gere and Parmeshwar Godrej) to address communication about HIV related issues in India – working with media houses, celebrities and production houses to build relevant messaging on HIV. She spearheaded numerous successful initiatives across Radio and television and several workshops drive home the need for HIV awareness and action. She also consulted with  another NGO Population Services International on Project Connect, which to bring in corporate partnerships into HIV/AIDS efforts in various states. She spearheaded several successful initiatives that brought about public private partnerships.

Stung by the huge need amongst HIV positive children, in 2011 Vinita spearheaded the creation of the Petralthan Pillaiya and took complete responsibility for the functioning of the Trust. She spearheaded several innovative programs that harnessed the power of radio and television and celebrities to extend the outreach and support  HIV positive children in their education and career.  Over the years Vinita has continued her work in the social sector, consulting with Save our Children, Care India, Crafts Council of India, Rasa to name a few – working on a range of issues from HIV care to women’s empowerment to ………..

 Another anchor in Vinita’s career is her role as a Director in the IT company she runs with her husband. She looks after as aspects of HR, Communication, and Marketing.