It’s a refreshingly honest take in an era where everyone seems to want to become a founder.
For her, building a business was never the goal.
“Entrepreneurship was secondary to the work itself. I see myself first as a teacher and then as an entrepreneur.”
And if money disappeared tomorrow?
“To this day, if I didn’t earn a dirham out of it, I would still do it because I love my kids. I love my class. I love what I do. I love playing with them. It’s truly a passion.”
That passion has evolved into a thriving career, but she is quick to point out that people often underestimate creative industries.
“Many people look back and say, ‘Oh, that’s so cute that you run a little theatre around the city.’ No, actually it’s a very profitable, thriving business that’s grown six times in six years.”
Yet ask her what she’s most proud of, and she doesn’t talk about growth charts or balance sheets.
She talks about confidence.
In a world where children are growing up glued to screens and adults spend hours perfecting themselves on social media, Varadan believes one skill has become more valuable than ever: knowing how to communicate.
“A lot of people believe confident speaking is something you’re just born with. I disagree. I think it’s a skill that can be trained very much like maths or science.”
She says confidence isn’t magic.
“There is a certain posture. There is a certain rhythm. There is a language. There is a way in which you phrase your ideas. We figure out what to say and then we train how to say it.”
It’s also why she worries about children spending more time looking at devices than looking at people.
“If there is a hill I’ll die on, it is that children need a no-screen childhood because it is absolutely ruining their ability to focus.”
The consequences, she says, go beyond short attention spans.
“It’s ruining their self-esteem. When I see young girls exposed to TikTok and social media and that filtered, constantly polished image… it breaks my heart.”
She has similar concerns for boys.
“They’re constantly in this high-strung gaming environment. They’re so used to constant dopamine kicks that they find the real world kind of boring. That’s a bit scary because they have to live in the real world. They need connection. They need friends.”
Ironically, after years of speaking for a living, Malavika believes the most underrated skill any teacher—or leader—can possess isn’t speaking at all.
“I think a teacher needs to be listening 90 per cent of the time and speaking 10 per cent of the time. Our biggest role is to hear what they say, be curious and ask some questions rather than give them lectures.”
Another lesson she’s learnt has come from working almost exclusively with women.
“Women run our shows, they run our stages, they run our business,” she says. Why?
“If there’s one thing women know how to do, it’s budget. We’ve seen our mums and our grandmothers do this for centuries. You give them a finite budget and they make sure everyone in the home has a beautiful meal.”
She also believes women naturally bring empathy into leadership.
“We treat our classrooms like gardens. They require nurture and care. You invest in something and then wait for the long term.”
Her thriving theatre and arts school, The Hive, is in the midst of running a children’s theatre summer festival. It concludes this weekend, June 28.
“Many see arts as a side-hustle … We want arts to be approachable. If there’s anything that COVID taught us that arts thrived … To all the parents out there, children need to in-person interaction. Kids in The Hive want to be in the company of each other. Let’s prioritize connection,” said Malavika.
So how did Dubai help her re-invent the wheel?
“I came here at the age of 21 for a weekend show on radio. I was in my flip-flops, jeans and T-shirt thinking, ‘Okay, cool, let’s check this out.'”
She ended up building an entirely different life.
“The UAE has given me everything I have, really. It’s given me my identity, my work, my friends, my family. It’s been fantastic for me.”
And after nearly two decades of reinventing herself—from theatre kid to radio star, from broadcaster to entrepreneur and educator—she believes there’s one reason so many people manage to build second and third careers here.
“Dubai really is one of those cities where it favours the brave.”