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What inner voice leads someone to leave behind the familiar and dedicate their life to social change?
This question anchored a deeply personal and moving conversation in Coacharya’s recent webinar, From Vision to Impact: How Individual Purpose Transforms Communities, part of the Opening the Inner Eye series. Hosted by Gayatri Krishnamurthy—a PCC-certified leadership coach, Coacharya alumna, and the steady voice behind this series—the session brought to light how seemingly small moments of awareness can give way to lifelong commitments to change.
Saraswathi Padmanabhan, a BITS Pilani graduate with a Montessori heart and boundless energy, left behind a successful auditing career in California to co-found Diya Ghar in 2016. What began with just five children in one center has now expanded to over 1,300 children across 20 centers in Bengaluru, with plans to grow beyond. From her early days visiting children’s homes in Chennai with her family to volunteering with children of prisoners in the U.S., Saraswathi’s life has been steeped in compassion. When the conviction to serve became impossible to ignore, she and her family packed their bags and returned to India, choosing purpose over predictability.
Bhavana Issar, an XLRI alumna and awardee, also shifted course dramatically. Once on track to become a top global CHRO, she stepped away to explore a more personal mission. Inspired by her own experiences of caregiving and deeply influenced by her work with Sumedhas, Bhavana founded Caregiver Saathi in 2018, a pioneering initiative to support the often invisible and unsupported world of caregivers. Featured in Touch the Sky by Rashmi Bansal, Bhavana brings her deep expertise from both corporate and social sectors into her work, blending empathy with systems thinking. Her metaphor of the bumblebee, one that shouldn’t be able to fly but does anyway, captures the spirit of her quiet resilience.
Together, Saraswathi and Bhavana showed us that the path to purpose doesn’t always come with fanfare or clarity. Sometimes it begins with discomfort, sometimes with faith, and often, it unfolds only in hindsight. But when pursued, it becomes a force powerful enough to transform communities, one relationship at a time.
Planting Roots in Places That Move
One of the questions Saraswathi is asked most often is this: Why invest in communities that don’t stay put? Migrant families, by nature, move. Their settlements are informal, their futures uncertain. And yet, Diya Ghar continues to show up—setting up classrooms in blue-tented neighborhoods, knowing full well that the families may be gone tomorrow.
But as Saraswathi pointed out, not all mobility is as fluid as it seems. “Some of these so-called temporary settlements have been there for years—even a decade. No electricity. No running water. No sanitation. And yet, families live there, raise children there.”
This reality redefined how Diya Ghar approached its work. Rather than seeing mobility as a barrier, they focused on making the time they do have with each child and parent as meaningful as possible.
Their approach centers on deep engagement with parents. It’s not just about teaching the child, but helping families understand the risks their children face—when left unsupervised, when taken to construction sites, when engaged in waste picking. And alongside that, they share something even more powerful: hope. A belief that education, even if brief, can open new doors.
The results are quietly transformative. Parents who once saw school as irrelevant now ensure their children continue learning, even after leaving Diya Ghar. Some enroll their children in government schools in their villages. Others, when relocating within Bengaluru, transfer them to another Diya Ghar center. “Even six months with us,” Saraswathi said, “can shift a parent’s mindset.”
In transient spaces, Diya Ghar plants something lasting. Not permanence in location, but permanence in perspective. And sometimes, that’s the deeper kind of change.
Caregiving Without Capes: The Quiet Reality Behind the Role
In Indian households, caregiving is often seen not as a role, but as a duty, folded into the list of things one is just expected to do. Cook, clean, go to work, look after children, care for elders—and do it all with grace. It’s often romanticized as a selfless act of sacrifice, especially when performed by women. But as Bhavana pointed out, this story leaves much unsaid.
“There isn’t even a word for ‘caregiver’ in most Indian languages,” she said. “That says a lot about how we value—or don’t value—the role.”
Bhavana isn’t here to fight tradition. She’s here to name it, to invite people to look at what caregiving really means, and how deeply it’s tied to identity. “When something is so closely linked to your idea of being a good daughter or son, it becomes difficult to ask for help. You feel you shouldn’t have to. That you must carry it alone.”
Her work with Caregiver Saathi is not about redefining caregiving into a glossy narrative. It’s about making space for the messy, often invisible realities behind it. Through Gentle Warrior conversations, Bhavana and her team invited caregivers to share their stories: not just tales of strength, but also fatigue, grief, guilt, and tenderness. And when many were reluctant to speak publicly, she adapted. The stories became anonymous podcasts, like quiet pages from someone’s diary, offered to those who need to feel less alone.
Rather than pushing for cultural revolution, Bhavana advocates for awareness and choice. “It’s not about saying caregiving shouldn’t involve sacrifice. Sometimes it does. And that can still have value. But we must ask—how much? At what cost? Is this within my emotional limits?” These are questions every caregiver deserves to ask without shame.
Bhavana also addressed the slow shift in how caregiving is gendered. While women still bear the lion’s share of the work, more men are beginning to identify with the role. In her words, “There’s no genetic reason women should be better at caregiving. Two X chromosomes don’t make you more qualified.”
When asked how caregivers can nourish themselves and stay lighthearted, her answer was honest: not everyone can laugh through the hardest parts. Sometimes, support and lightness only become possible in hindsight, after the crisis has passed. “Humor is contextual,” she said. “But what helps is being able to tell our stories, not just the brave ones, but the real ones.”
In a world that often turns caregivers into background characters, Bhavana’s work invites them to take center stage—not to be celebrated, but simply to be seen.
Beyond the Halo: Doing Good Doesn’t Mean Being Perfect
There’s a certain kind of reverence that often follows people who do “good work.” They’re placed on pedestals. Their smiles are seen as permanent, their choices as saintly, and their lives romanticized as moral missions. But as Bhavana reminded us—sometimes sharply, always honestly—this perception is not only inaccurate, it’s a burden.
“I’m not Mother Teresa,” she said. “I have my grumpy days, my tough calls. Sometimes, being compassionate means drawing firm boundaries. It’s not all soft and smiling.”
Saraswathi echoed that sentiment, adding another layer: doing good work doesn’t mean you don’t ask for support, or demand excellence. “Compassion and professionalism aren’t opposites,” she said. In fact, at Diya Ghar, one of their core values is excellence. “We owe it to the children we serve, and to the donors who trust us, to work well.” She acknowledged that fundraising, often seen as detracting from the ‘nobility’ of social work, was hard to embrace at first. But she came to see it differently: not as asking for charity, but as offering others a chance to be part of the work. “I love sharing stories that help people see what they’ve never noticed even in their own city.”
Both Bhavana and Saraswathi challenge the idea that doing meaningful work means doing it all, doing it alone, or doing it with a constant smile. What they offer instead is something far more grounded: the reminder that impact doesn’t require perfection, just presence, commitment, and the courage to keep showing up.
Inner Work as Outer Impact
Beyond just being a story of social change, what emerged from this dialogues was a reflection of what happens when inner awareness meets intentional action. At Coacharya, we believe that leadership and coaching are not about fixing others, but about seeing more clearly: ourselves, our systems, and the stories we carry. Whether through our upcoming Coach to Lead program or other ICF-accredited coach education programs, we support leaders and coaches in doing this inner work, so they can show up with clarity, courage, and compassion in every space they lead.
(This blog post is based on the recent Coacharya webinar, From Vision to Impact: How Individual Purpose Transforms Communities, and aims to provide a general overview of the key takeaways. For more in-depth information, please refer to the original webinar recording.)
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