Know Your Neighbour
Vijay Shiv Nath, a resident of Malibu since 2002, is President of MTRWA and Secretary of the Malibu Federation. For regular members, he is the one who responds promptly to and finds solutions to most of the important issues addressed in various Malibu groups. He has a pleasant demeanour and interacts with ease and patience.
The journey of making a personality is always interesting; there is more to what meets the eye. A graduate in commerce, Vijay from early on was into making something of himself apart from commonly taken routes. At the age of 17, he started dabbling in various Sales jobs like in Business Today, Eureka Forbes etc. and by the time he was 20, he picked up fashion. Always fascinated by colours & fabrics, he would experiment on his mother’s sewing machine to create/mend outfits. He continued exploring and working on fashion and found an opening in a fashion start-up. He grew in ranks and now is a partner after 30 years in the same business venture. He values loyalty. He designs, creates and sources home décor, home textiles and fashion accessories for International brands.
From a young age, his business took him to various fashion destinations abroad. Travelling is a great leveller; it gives a lot of perspective. You learn how to communicate effectively with people with different beliefs, values and life philosophies, apart from planning, organizing, executing and firefighting.
Travelling abroad mostly makes us aspire for a neater, cleaner and greener India. An avid gardener himself, he is constantly growing, planting and repotting plants. We have a lot of expectations from the Government but we, as an individual, need to make our community a better place to live. He firmly believes in the quote “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. But most of us do not know ‘how and where to start’. Covid was a turning point for many of us. For Vijay, as production stopped for two months and no travelling to be done, he actively got involved in vaccination camps, blood donations and getting in touch with labs. They collectively organized donations and made arrangements for people to go to their hometowns and arrange food camps and ration distribution. He hardly stayed at home during COVID-19 and got infected multiple times himself.
He found his answer to ‘how and where to start’. Now he with his team of like-minded individuals is working towards ensuring Malibu is a colourful and happy community living space.
