Varsha Agnihotri: Helping single tonnes

Her relatives started telling her that she won’t find anyone and her parents also gave up on finding a suitable match. But Varsha Agnihotri was determined to find someone, and so was her brother Abhishek for himself. So, both the siblings, then in their 30s, started looking for suitable prospects. And that’s when they found several singletons looking for a spouse. The siblings thought of going beyond their personal needs and instead help bring such people together. Their small initiative of forming a Facebook group soon took the shape of the full-fledged dating-cum-matrimonial website footloosenomore.com.  

But about seven years ago, Varsha wasn’t an entrepreneur and a relationship columnist. She was into ad filmmaking. But she started off being a professional theatre artiste and continues to pursue the art form. In fact, it is almost funny how she got into theatre. “I was pursing political science at Lady Shri Ram College and once violated the curfew time of the hostel. As a punishment, my principal asked me to get into the theatre society and participate in an upcoming play. While I tried my best to be thrown out of the group, I ended up playing the antagonist. And then I realised that I am good at it,” she reminisces.    

Varsha went on to do a lot of street plays for social causes and also got into the National School of Drama repertory company. “I was also among the first few women members of Act One theatre group and was doing plays with the likes of Manoj Bajpayee, Ashish Vidyarthi, B.V. Karanth, N.K. Sharma and others,” says the Delhi girl, who now lives in Mumbai. She has acted in over 200 plays but considers theatre only a hobby and not a profession. Currently, she is a cast member of Kaizaad Kotwal’s play Vagina Monologues.

On being asked what kind of a person she is, Varsha says she is a ‘people’s person.’ “I love interacting with people and knowing their stories. I can place myself in their shoes and relate to their lives. And I say and do things, I believe from the bottom of my heart. I am so happy that today, our initiative is the reason behind thousands of people meeting that person with whom they can be in a long-standing relationship,” she says. Varsha, who works almost 12 hours a day and also takes out time for theatre rehearsals, says that she never stays too far from her kids and always gives priority to their needs.

She also enjoys living many ironies. “I am married to a music director but I can’t sing to save my life. I am a mother of two-and-half year-old twins, but I am a nascent cook,” she says with a laugh, and mentions that she loves jazz music, which is what she plays often while working to concentrate better. But for Varsha, it is never too late to learn. “I am learning to cook. I bake cakes for my kids. But I can cook stories better and my kids love it,” she says bursting into a laughter. She is a self-confessed foodie and has learnt the love of travel from her husband Prashant Vadhyar. “Can you imagine...  being a Delhi girl, I have never been to Agra? Now my husband is taking me to Taj Mahal on Valentine’s Day,” she says. She also is an avid reader and is writing a book on relationships. However, be it in books or in movies, she says her choices are very diverse. “It’s not that I like only romantic stories. In fact, my husband loves horror movies. So, I tried developing a knack for them, but I find them funny,” she quips.   

So, who is the go-to person for the lady, everybody seeks relationship advice from? “It’s my entire family in fact. But I owe a lot to my mother, who let me be who I am and my mother-in-law who is my pillar of support. I tell you honestly, behind every successful woman, there is another woman,” she says before signing off.