Let’s Get Social: Age is just a number

Basav is a real estate professional, specialising in real estate product development, sales & marketing of senior care residential communities, luxury residential, luxury second homes in 100+ acre gated communities, hospitality and clubs. He serves at Columbia Pacific Communities as Chief Revenue Officer. He is also a Certified Life Coach from Coach for Life and has trained under Master Coach Peter Reding.

A professional with more than 20 years in strategic leadership roles in real estate, club development, hospitality, brand consulting, and retail; with brands, including The Oberoi Group, Barista Coffee, Taj Group, Chlorophyll, Kalpataru & The Maker Group, he has led teams through multiple transitions of growth, metamorphosis and shifts. With a multi-disciplinary career spanning, sales, marketing, business development and operations, he brings a bias for big ideas, creativity, action and accountability in his coaching and business vocabulary.

In business, he is able to quickly and aggressively, identify, develop and execute opportunities for growth. Basav translates strategic thought into effective execution on the ground and coaches teams to achieve desired results.

As a certified Life Coach, he specialises in helping clients find their true potential and resourcefulness. He guides his clients to live a more authentic Life, embark on their dream adventure and create the life they have always envisioned for themselves. Basav helps determine the path, develop an action plan and personal accountability. Basav is also skilled in personal protection, self defence and founder of Practical Street Preparedness – a self defence program.

Dr. Dominic Benjamin is a Consultant Geriatrician and Diabetic Specialist for older adults. He was trained in the United Kingdom and worked as a consultant in the UK for 2 years before he relocated back to India. He set up a Geriatric department at Bangalore Baptist Hospital where they offer a comprehensive Geriatric and holistic care for older people.

When he started his career in United Kingdom, He had the opportunity to experience the challenges involved in treating the older people and the utmost joy and delight in seeing an older people recover and return to their homes. He soon realized that older people need a holistic approach to address the physical, mental, psychological and social challenges that they face. It also involves maintaining their functional independence and promoting happily independent living, all of which reinforced and solidified his intense interest in Geriatrics. He also had the opportunity to specialize in the field of Diabetics for older adults.

He is one of the Panel experts with Silver Talkies on the website silver talkies. He is currently involved in promoting “Successful Green Ageing” and “Age Well Clinic” through his lectures and public speaking across Bangalore. He is actively involved in various committees in formulating policies and programmes for the welfare of older people and passionately believes that older people who have contributed towards the welfare of their children and society deserve the best care. 

Sharada Venkataraman is an English teacher, Yoga teacher, Bharatanatyam dancer, veena player, writer and an avid runner. She is one of the women featured in the film, Run Sister, Run, a crowd funded film by the India Amateur Runners Trust that showcases the running journey and adversities faced by women runners and seeks to motivate more to take up running. One of her happiest moments was when she ran a 10 and a 5 km race in Sacramento in July 2011 and represented India!

Sharada says “Running for me, is emancipation! Running for me, is freedom! So wear a sensible pair of shoes and run. You can do it!” Two thumbs up for more women stepping out of their comfort zones no matter what their age and three cheers for running!

Dr Soumya Hegde is a Consultant Geriatric Psychiatrist with over 18 yrs of experience managing mental illness and related issues predominantly among elders. She has a private practice in Indiranagar and is a visiting consultant to Nikisa Dementia Village in Yelahanka.

Her interest lies in developing community models of care for the support of elders with mental illness, particularly Dementia, supporting the caregiver, increasing awareness and reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.

She believes in the holistic model of care and that active ageing strategies and early detection and treatment of mental illness can significantly improve one’s quality of life.

Bindu Subramaniam is a singer/songwriter, entrepreneur, author and music educator. Bindu has been described variously as a “third generation prodigy”, “a Bangalore woman changing the way children learn” and an “assured young soprano” by several critics and magazines. In 2012, she appeared on the list of 12 gen-next achievers in Verve Magazine.

She has performed around the world, and her first solo album was critically acclaimed and nominated for a GiMA. 

Bindu is the Dean of the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts (SaPa), an institute that trains musically inclined children to become professional performers. In 2014, she started the SaPa in Schools program, an initiative to integrate music into the mainstream academic curriculum. SaPa in Schools works with over 25,000 children across India (as of 2018).

She is the daughter of violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam, and has collaborated with him on a number of releases including Global Fusion, Visions of India and Athens.  Along with her brother Ambi Subramaniam, she started a contemporary world music band, SubraMania in 2013. In 2018, she created The Thayir Sadam Project with Ambi, Carnatic fusion artist Mahesh Raghvan and mridangam player Akshay Ananthapadmanabhan.

Ambi Subramaniam is a violinist, composer, and educator. He started performing on stage when he was six years old and has been described as the “new king of Indian classical violin” and as ‘India’s 24 year-old Itzhak Perlman’ by the Ozy Magazine.

Ambi is the Associate Dean of the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts (SaPa), an institute that trains musically inclined children to become professional performers.In 2014, Ambi started the SaPa in Schools program with his sister, Bindu Subramaniam. SaPa in Schools is an initiative to integrate music into the mainstream academic curriculum, and works with 25,000 children in India as of 2018.

Ambi’s awards include the Ritz Icon of the Year Award, the Rotary Youth Award, two Global Indian Music Awards (GiMAs), and one BiMA. He was the three-time winner of the Philomena Thumbochetty Award for Best Western Classical Violinist, and received a golden violin from Sri Jayendra Saraswati when he was 18 years old.

Ambi is a youth delegate at the United Nations for the Sri Chinmoy Peace Meditation group.

Mahesh Raghvan is a Carnatic Music Fusion artist whose artistic goal is to present and create Indian Classical Fusion Music in contemporary ways for modern audiences. He plays new electronic musical instruments and runs a fusion project called FLAIR – Carnatic Music 2.0. His experiments with Carnatic Music on the iPad are published on his YouTube and Facebook pages.

He has an MSc. in Digital Composition and Performance from the University of Edinburgh. Besides his specialization, he is extremely passionate about related fields such as visual arts, mobile application development, digital media, sound design and film. He is the Creative Director of IndianRaga, and also works with major music technology companies to make Indian Classical Music playable on their hardware/software. Besides being a performing musician, He also gives music technology related workshops at various universities and schools.