Ten­nille Al­leyne

For all chut­ney mu­sic en­thu­si­asts out there, the name Anand Yankaran is a leg­endary house­hold name. To­day, like fa­ther like daugh­ter, Deepa Yankaran is well on her way to be­com­ing leg­endary in her own right - her stage be­ing her cre­ative niche as hair­styl­ist, dec­o­ra­tor and bridal dress­er, swap­ping her fa­ther's ador­ing fans for her many sat­is­fied clients. Al­though Deepa looks back and re­calls her ear­ly start as a child who loved to ex­per­i­ment with hair, like most young per­sons, en­ter­ing the cor­po­rate world was a no brain­er. "My moth­er's side of the fam­i­ly is very aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined and I at­tend­ed SAMS for a year. I thought that it was my call­ing so I pur­sued Ad­min­is­tra­tion there" she said. On re­turn­ing from va­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States in 2004, she was en­cour­aged to do a crash course in cos­me­tol­ogy by her then boyfriend (now hub­by); an ex­pe­ri­ence which she ad­mit­ted changed her whole game plan. "The crash course changed my life en­tire­ly be­cause I felt so pas­sion­ate about it" re­vealed Yankaran, who spent six months learn­ing about skin care, hair, nails and make up.

Ig­nit­ed once again by her child­ish fan­tasies of hair ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, Deepa want­ed to at­tend Paul Mitchell's School of Cos­me­tol­ogy in the U.S. How­ev­er, her de­sire to at­tend the promi­nent school was quick­ly abort­ed, due to the over­whelm­ing costs and in­stead pur­sued Cos­me­tol­ogy cer­ti­fi­ca­tion lo­cal­ly, where she was giv­en a holis­tic overview of beau­ty cul­ture. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing in 2005, Yankaran de­cid­ed to open a small sa­lon at her home in Mon­trose Ch­agua­nas. "Every client was rec­om­mend­ed through word of mouth. At first it was hard be­cause I most­ly did hair for my friends and fam­i­ly" she re­called. Deepa then chose to gain ex­pe­ri­ence by ac­cept­ing to work along­side oth­er es­tab­lished hair­styl­ists, one be­ing lo­cal hair gu­ru Vish­nu Bal­ly. In 2007, Yankaran left her men­tors to fo­cus on build­ing her rep­u­ta­tion and clien­tele for her home busi­ness. One serendip­i­tous en­counter with a des­per­ate bride in need of a hair­styl­ist would prove to be a life chang­ing mo­ment for Deepa, af­ter which her rep­u­ta­tion was aug­ment­ed pret­ty quick­ly. "I got a call from a bride in tears whose hair styl­ist can­celled on her right be­fore her wed­ding. I re­spond­ed and met make up artist Krys­ta G. who fell in love with my work and from there I would say my life changed once again" she said.

Work­ing to­geth­er since then with tremen­dous ex­po­sure and ad­ver­tis­ing on face­book, Yankaran was rec­om­mend­ed for a fea­ture seg­ment on hair­styling for Syn­er­gy TV's 'Chut­ney Is­land', host­ed by chut­ney su­per­star Nisha B. Soon there­after, Yankaran be­gan styling the pop­u­lar singer for many events. "Af­ter be­ing fea­tured on TV, I was flood­ed with calls; peo­ple even looked me up in the di­rec­to­ry. Be­com­ing Nisha's hair­styl­ist al­so opened a lot of doors be­cause peo­ple would ask me to style them to look like her" she re­called with a laugh. "For car­ni­val I was con­stant­ly on call to do her hair for many per­for­mances and events," Deepa added. Al­though Yankaran ad­mit­ted to hav­ing an ear­ly knack for hair­styling, her cre­ative hands have ex­pand­ed her beau­ty port­fo­lio. Her unique sense of style and d&ea­cute;cor for her wed­ding gave her an in­stant fan base and so en­quiries start­ed com­ing in for the beau­ty con­nois­seur to dec­o­rate for oth­er wed­dings. "I use satin fab­rics a lot, flow­ers, coloured rice, and Ran­goli de­signs for Hin­du wed­dings. I have al­so start­ed bridal dress­ing where I help to dress and put the bride to­geth­er for her wed­ding" said Yankaran.

Deepa, who de­scribes her­self as "con­fi­dent" said "I do a lot of re­search and I put my best foot for­ward al­ways. Peo­ple tell me that I go the ex­tra mile when I work. The beau­ty in­dus­try is re­al­ly prof­itable, you just have to be good at what you do" she stat­ed. Deepa Yankaran has re­al­ly come a long way from the lit­tle girl who loved to ex­per­i­ment, but still sees her­self as a work in progress. She thanks her friends and fam­i­ly who have sup­port­ed her dream, es­pe­cial­ly her hus­band. "If I have to live my life again, I would choose this path again. I have hands that were made for cre­ativ­i­ty and I think that's spec­tac­u­lar. I ab­solute­ly love what I do!"