You’ve seen her everywhere – from YouTube and OTT screens to LinkedIn and talk show panels. But, for the Internet audience she’s spotted with new-age comics like Samay Raina and Aditya Kulshreshta (Kullu). Yes, she’s Sahiba Bali.
From being a marketeer at India’s leading food delivery platform, Zomato to sharing the screening with Aamir Khan – her career has been a blueprint for several aspiring Gen-Z mavericks. After headlining and launching Zomato’s YouTube channel with several creative campaigns, she starred in one of India’s highest-grossing films, Dangal.
Speaking to Financial Express Online, Bali shared her journey and weighed in on being a ‘role model’ and how that’s a huge responsibility to uphold. She also explored how she admired being financially rewarded for your skills in the non-linear career path chosen by Gen-Z today.
From college to sets of Dangal
Bali shared that her parents always pushed her towards getting a professional education and ‘climbing the corporate ladder’. And “being creative was always just a hobby,” she recalled. Only later in college, when her passion for debating and theatre took the forefront, she secured her first big audition. Landing a role in Dangal, Sahiba opened up about her first time on set.
“I loved being on set. I loved being on camera. Looking at Amir Khan perform. I’m like,’I have come from a theatre background. Maybe this is something that I can explore’,’” she told herself. And then came Laila Majnu in 2018. She was in the UK for her Master’s and that’s when she got the role. However, a constant feature that remained was her zeal to learn, upskill, and expand her avenues. “That’s where the understanding came that I don’t need to do one thing. It is possible to have 2 career options, not just one,” she explained, echoing how Gen-Z today have started content creation, while having a stable job – building two sources of income at once.
Even after Laila Majnu, Bali was not a marketing professional yet. Only later, she chose the corporate path, despite having acted in two hit films. Not only did Bali make Zomato’s YouTube channel a viral content piece, but also continued her acting career along with it. She did two other shows, including Netflix’s ‘Bard of Blood’ and ‘Tanaav’.
“My life outside corporate was getting more and more visible and more and more opportunities were coming up and I didn’t want to let it go because corporate is such a bubble that 9 to 5 would be the same thing again and again,” Bali shared her take on her journey from being a corporate marketeer to a Bollywood actor.
‘I want my daughter to be like you’
When one looks at Sahiba Bali’s career, it usually looks too good to be true. But becoming a role model, especially for Gen-Z, wasn’t planned. Bali shared how she receives a plethora of comments, questions, and positive remarks on several occasions.
“I go to an event and when they come up, they say very, very kind words and honestly, I feel a little scared. I feel a sense of responsibility,” Bali told Financial Express Online. More than Gen-Z, she shared that parents have come up to her and told her that they want their daughters to be like her. “Parents come and say, ‘I want my daughter to be like you’…It just scares me so much, but I’m so grateful to that statement, too, that I have a fear of not making a mistake now.’ “If I am someone’s role model, then I have this pressure of doing everything right in the back of my head,” she added.
But, at the same time, she liked to remind her audience, especially Gen-Z, that her ability to multitask comes more from biology than anything else. “I’m not that special, and I’m just a woman, and it’s my DNA to multitask.So instead of seeing me as a role model, just act on your own and do it and it will be great,” she shared and how even she learned from her mistakes.
“So when I see someone in Gen Z trying to replicate it, I was like, listen, don’t replicate it like this…” Sahiba told Financial Express Online.
The career jump: Proceeding with caution or worth the risk?
Gen-Z, today, would love a career option that makes them a quick buck, as they travel and work hard for a job description they actually enjoy fulfilling. But the glamour of content creation often blurs the line between growth and career shift.
A piece of advice Bali cannot give enough of includes, “I just keep telling everyone that finish your education, what I’ve seen right now is the glamour of content creation and being a visible personality is so high that everyone wants to be in this space, that they’re not finishing a credible degree…they are not following a stable profession before jumping into it…I do not support it.”
She then shared how her growth is actually credited largely to her education and following a stable career path that gave her the confidence, both financial and emotional, to pursue her passion.
“If you want to become an influencer of content creation, you don’t need a specific degree to do that. But you need an education to be a practical and knowledgeable human,” she expressed. “You have chefs who were chefs first, and then became content creators,” Bali shared as she thought it was the blueprint to go.
But at the end of the day, “it’s all business,” shared Bali while expressing her thoughts on becoming a role model for grabbing opportunities, be it acting in a movie or doing a corporate job.