Pallavi Rao, (Batch of 1989) is a Leading Radio Jockey / Newsreader / TedX Speaker / Writer. She joined the biggest private FM network of India, Radio Mirchi in 2002 as the prime-time evening jockey and became a household figure with her extremely popular show called ‘Bumper to Bumper’. In 1994, she joined All India Radio as an English News Reader. There was no looking back for her from then onwards, as she went on to become one of the most sought after Voice-Over persons in the city, doing a number of radio and TV commercials, and shows on ZeeTV and Star Plus including Janta ki Adalat and Zaika ka Safar. A Hindi announcer and newscaster with Doordarshan, she is a MC on shows regularly. Taking radio as a profession was her dream from class 7 onwards. An influencing factor was her father who was a sports journalist and gave regular sports updates on AIR. She also contributes her love for the language and diction to her school teachers Ms Anuradha Kalia and Mrs. Sundar Jain. While in school , she was recognized more for her dancing talent than studies. Having won the ‘Best Dancer’ award many a times, you would find her more with Miss. Sen, in the Art and Science Complex’s dance class than in anywhere else! After passing out of AFBBS in 1989 with Humanities, she completed Geography Honours from Kamla Nehru College, topping the University all three years. An accomplished Bharatnatyam dancer with a B.A. in the dance form, she went on to learn Kuchipudi for a few years, giving regular public performances. This is also the time she was lured towards theater and ‘Street Plays’ in particular. Till date she has written and directed 15 odd nukkad nataks most of which have won awards in Delhi school and college competitions. Immediately after graduation, Pallavi joined St. Mary’s school, Safdarjung Enclave as a Geography and Dramatics teacher. She insists that was one of the most enjoyable phases of her life when she got to work with kids! In 2001, she married a serial entrepreneur from Mumbai, Rahul Narvekar. Their love story makes for an interesting listen. In 2005, immediately after the birth of her son, she was diagnosed with a extremely rare auto-immune disorder called Myasthenia Gravis, that made her muscles weak to the extent that she could not speak clearly but with a slur. A series of medical interventions led to a thymectomy surgery in which she lost one vocal cord and a doctor’s verdict of ‘you will never be able to go back on-air.’ Her sheer determination to prove him wrong made her work on the other vocal cord and she made a dramatic comeback on Mirchi with the breakfast show, ‘Hi Delhi’ after her set of radiation & chemotherapies. She ran the Airtel Delhi half Marathon for two consecutive years. However, luck had it that Thymoma revisited her the 2nd and 3rd time over the next few years, leading to a life-threatening Myasthenia Gravis Crisis and a Type-2 Lung failure that had her go in and out of the ICU of Apollo Hospital. While lying in the ICU, she penned her first story inspired by a real incident on the bed in front of her, which on her husband Rahul’s insistence went on to a few more. Ironically, the set of stories was released by her husband the next year in the same ICU where she was admitted again, as a book called ‘ICU Love Stories’ which is now available on Amazon. She is excited about her next book which is going to be on healthy nutritious and tasty home made traditional recipes. Completely influenced by award winning globally renowned Holistic Lifestyle Coach who practices in the field of Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine, Dr. Luke Coutinho. She believes we need to work on our immunity first before anything else. That is the most important investment. Ensuring her medical issues did not come in the way of her pursuit of happiness, career and life, she changed roles from being a radio-jockey to becoming a producer in Radio Mirchi. Presently, she heads the CSR initiative, MIrchi Cares and works towards providing audio support and entertainment to visually impaired and blind friends. Looking only at the brighter side of things, she believes her dramatic story is meant to be shared. She is now a professional speaker, having done talks for TEDx, CII and a host of other clients. She is right now all set to launch ‘Can Inspire’ -her maiden podcast with WYN studios. The podcast is all about dealing with a life-threatening illness, that shall have fellow travelers share their experiences and shall reach out to cancer and other life threatening illness patients who need to be comforted and encouraged that there is a life with and beyond a chronic illness.Pallavi’s brother C. Rajshekhar Rao is also from our school (1987 batch). We had posted an update on his career a few months back on OSA FB.
Kudos ! Best Wishes !