Four years after she quit her six-figure corporate job in Bengaluru, Mukulita Ganguly sits under a tree, stretching. It’s 6 am and her yoga class at a Sri Lankan resort in near Kalutara is scheduled to start soon. She has a few minutes before her students arrive, and I get to ask about her journey—from walking in stilettos and promoting credit card spending at Citi with a Rs 26 LPA salary at 28, to walking barefoot on grass and encouraging mindful use of energy and resources.
As a yoga instructor and dancer, Ganguly, 32, earns about Rs 50,000 per month, but says that her life is more fulfilling now.
“I used to have anxiety attacks,” she says, recalling her life at the bank. “Things got so bad that I had to consult a doctor and take pills for it.”
‘Urging people to buy more when they are in debt didn’t feel right’
Ganguly’s job at Citi involved encouraging credit card users in the US to spend more using the bank’s attractive schemes. While crunching numbers came naturally to the economics graduate, she wasn’t comfortable pushing people to spend more.
“It was no secret that people in the US have a massive problem repaying debt and at the same time, I was urging them to buy more using credit card schemes… It didn’t feel right,” she says.
The Citi job was her first since she graduated with a masters degree from Presidency College in Kolkata. She was selected during campus placement and was arguably among the first few freshers picked from a non-IIT institution in the country. The new job offered her life in a new city and financial independence. She threw herself whole heartedly into the job, made new friends, and thought that life was good until she noticed an emptiness eating into her.
“I was never fond of drinking and partying, but that’s what my friends and colleagues would do at the time and I was expected to join in. It became a norm of sorts,” Ganguly says. “I was also being pressurised to work beyond my working hours. I tried to comply the best I could and was even given a promotion, but I was deeply dissatisfied with my work. It reached a point where I couldn’t sleep at night.”
Plans to save and upskill
Then Covid hit and Ganguly was forced to work from home, giving her a much needed window to pursue activities that helped with her mental health.
“When I consulted a doctor for my panic attacks, he prescribed medicines and suggested I do yoga. I took it up seriously and the effect has been life altering,” Ganguly says. “I stopped having panic attacks even when I was off pills. I felt more grounded when spending time in nature and it gave me a sense of purpose. I realised then that this was not the life I wanted for myself. I had to quit the job.”
She then began to work on a plan, saving as much as she could before taking the leap. During the last couple of years with the bank, she registered for yoga retreats and dance workshops both in India and abroad to upskill herself.
“I had learned Kathak as a child and dance has been an integral part of my life. Returning to it felt like welcoming a part of me that I thought I had lost while chasing numbers,” Ganguly says.
She then travelled to Spain in 2019 to learn Flamenco and work on how it could be incorporated with Kathak, thus building a niche that helped her organise her own dance classes. Ganguly also taught transcendental movement at a workshop in the Dominican Republic in October 2023.
She also went through intensive yoga instructor courses in Rishikesh that not only opened up new avenues of income but also put her in touch with people who could support her journey.
“I organised a dance movement event in Rishikesh along with a fellow yoga instructor and the response was overwhelming,” Ganguly says, adding that it was a free event but the donations they received along with the encouraging response from participants made her belief that she could build a career on it.
As the Covid pandemic neared its end and companies began to call people back to work from the office, Ganguly decided that it was finally time for her to quit. “I was a little hesitant because I had been given a promotion only six months earlier, but I knew I had to do it.”
Her family was supportive of her decision. “I had saved enough money to last me for a few years and my family knew how much this meant to me so they stood by my decision,” she says.
Lifestyle adjustments as earnings take a hit
After quitting Citi, Ganguly had to incorporate a lot of lifestyle changes, all of which she welcomed. She no longer went out drinking with colleagues and stopped splurging on clothes that she would seldom wear. “I enjoy being mindful of where I spend my money and what I eat,” Ganguly says. I barely buy more than a couple of new clothes from home grown brands a year, I thrift and upcycle my old clothes.”
She also recalled how, during her stay in a remote village in Ladakh, she fried stale bread in ghee, dipped it in thickened milk and topped it with dried petals of local flowers. “It was like a gourmet Shahi Tukda,” she says.
Travelling across the world teaching yoga, dance
In the four years that followed, Ganguly has taught yoga to foreign travellers in Goa, Dhaka, and Sri Lanka and to little monks in Ladakh monasteries, and modelled for a few home grown brands. She also taught dance in Kolkata and Goa, while offering online classes for both.
In fact, one of her major sources of income was a US-based platform that hired her services for their employees. It was part of an employee welfare scheme and employees would book yoga slots with Ganguly for one-on-one online classes. She used to earn upto Rs 80,000 a month from the platform so when it shut down in late 2025 due to changes in US government policies, it was a massive setback for Ganguly.
“I felt my anxiety return,” she says. “The company had not paid our wages for two months and had said that they would not be able to clear our dues. It was a major financial setback.”
But Ganguly believes that whenever she is true to herself and in tune with the universe, even if a door slams shut, a window opens for her. And it did, a month later when a dance director appointed by Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) approached her for a show to mark the birth anniversary of noted painted Jamini Roy in Kolkata. Not only did the performance win her accolades, it also made her a fair amount of money.
Moreover, when her friends came to know that Ganguly had learned how to make cyanotype prints in Ladakh, they encouraged her to offer classes in Kolkata. When she sent out feelers to gauge if there was indeed a market for it, Ganguly was surprised to find that there was a lot of interest in the artform and began to be invited by various studios and event spaces to host cyanotype workshops. It eventually led to her launching her own studio, Liminal Spaces, under which Ganguly offers classes and exhibits her own cyanotype prints.
‘Luck played a huge role’
Although Ganguly continues to be financially independent and is also able to support her parents, she is careful to acknowledge that luck played a huge part in her journey — a reason why she advises caution to anyone who wishes to quit their corporate careers to follow their dreams.
“Luck has played a massive part in my life. From being one of the three candidates Citi selected from Kolkata to having an elder brother who the family could depend on if there was a crisis and even in me getting the kind of opportunities I did, I think I have been incredibly lucky on all fronts,” Ganguly says.
When asked if there is any advice she would like to share with others also itching to shed their corporate careers, Ganguly says, “I think it’s very important for people to develop skills that they can use to earn money. I took up yoga instructor classes, dance classes and learned how to make cyanotype prints. All of it is helping me cross pollinate and create opportunities for myself. But if you have the money and are not financially dependent, I’d say go ahead and follow your dreams.”
As she gets up for her yoga class back in Sri Lanka, I couldn’t help ask, “So if you are offered a Rs 30 LPA corporate job, would you consider it?” Her answer is immediate: “Absolutely not!”