I was thirteen when I first realized that stories could change lives. It began with Short Term 12; a film that didn’t just tell a story, but held people in it. It made me notice something I hadn’t been able to name before: the weight people carry, the complexity behind behavior, the depth behind even the smallest reactions. I didn’t just watch the film; I stayed with its characters long after it ended. But the first time I saw this play out in real life was a few years later.

At sixteen, I worked at a child development center with children who were navigating autism, learning difficulties, and emotional challenges. I quickly realized something important - these weren’t children who wanted to sit across from someone and “talk.” The traditional idea of conversation didn’t work for them. So I asked a different question. “Who is someone you look up to?”, “Who feels powerful to you?” For many of them, the answers weren’t real people. They were characters; Barbie, superheroes, figures who felt larger than life. One child told me he was Iron Man. So I asked him to write a letter. He wrote: “Dear Iron Man, how are you so strong? Do you ever feel scared?” And before our next session, I wrote back. Not as a therapist but as Iron Man. I slipped the letter under the door once he arrived. And suddenly, something shifted. He responded. Then I responded. And without forcing it, without labeling it as therapy, we were having a conversation - one that felt safe, imaginative, and deeply real to him. That became our language. And in many ways, it became mine.

Long before I ever formally studied psychology, I understood something essential: people don’t always open up directly but they will, if you meet them where they are. Letters became that bridge. I’ve always been drawn to them, writing them, keeping them, returning to them. There’s something about letters that allows for honesty without interruption, reflection without pressure. You can say what you feel, in your own time, in your own way. That instinct stayed with me as I moved forward.

In undergrad, I initially explored film, thinking storytelling would be my path. But I found myself less interested in creating stories and more drawn to understanding the people within them - their inner worlds, their histories, the invisible forces shaping who they were. So I followed that curiosity. I pursued psychology, graduated early, and went on to Teachers College, Columbia University, where I completed a dual master’s in Mental Health Counseling and Psychological Counseling. I further specialized in positive psychology at University of Pennsylvania and trauma-informed care with Trauma Institute International.
In New York, as a practicing mental health counselor, I saw what meaningful, ethical, and structured therapy could look like. I learned how powerful the right approach, the right space, and the right training could be. And I knew I wanted to bring that back home.

When I returned to Mumbai, I wasn’t just starting a practice, I was building a standard. Kare Counselling was created with the intention of bringing globally trained, ethically grounded therapy into the Indian context. A space where care is deeply informed and therapists are extensively trained. But even within that work, I kept noticing something familiar. Across different clients, different lives, different stories, the emotional themes were the same. Love that felt confusing. Loss that felt isolating. Questions people didn’t know how to ask, even to those closest to them. And instinctively, I went back to what had always worked for me. I began giving clients prompts, reflections and questions to take back into their lives. Ways to continue the conversation beyond the therapy room. And slowly, that evolved into something bigger.

Letters from Your Therapist: On Love and Loss was born from the patterns we saw across our clients. As a team, we reflected on recurring emotional experiences and wrote letters to those moments, to remind people that what they’re feeling isn’t isolated, even if it feels that way. And just like years ago, those letters began to do something powerful. They started conversations. Not just in therapy, but at dinner tables, between friends, in personal moments. Which led to a realization that shaped everything that followed: Therapy doesn’t have to stay within a session. It can extend into everyday life. That became the Kare Collective. A space for psychology-inspired tools designed to spark reflection, connection, and depth in the spaces we often overlook. Everything we create is rooted in real therapeutic insight; designed by therapists and therapist trainees who understand the nuances of human experience. Because the same question that opens someone up in therapy can transform a relationship outside of it.

And none of this was built alone. Over time, I found people who deeply resonated with this vision, therapists with strong clinical training from across the world, who also believed that care could be both structured and expansive. Together, we’ve built something that feels both intentional and alive. From writing letters as Iron Man to an eight-year-old, to building a therapy practice, to creating a collective that brings conversations into everyday life - it has always been about one thing: finding ways to help people feel understood, in whatever language they’re ready to speak in.