Priyanka Khimani, the owner of Khimani and Associates, one of the biggest law firms running in the financial capital of India, underwent a roller coaster ride to walk down from chawl to Nariman office point. She has represented renowned celebrities like Anurag Kashyap and Badshah, making her one of the nation’s top entertainment attorneys today. The cream of success for Priyanka Khimani came from courage to struggle. The ever-wondrous lady had marked a diligent journey from hardships to understanding the finer nuances of gargantuan entertainment industry in India.

Priyanka was born to a Muslim father and a Gujarati Hindu mother and had two sisters. Her father ran a modest business outside Mahim station, which occasionally doubled as an STD/PCO booth and a photocopying facility, while her mother stayed home.

“Living in a chawl with so many families staying there from so many diverse cultural, religious, ethnic, and geographic origins, has been a wonderful experience. It was a place where I could encounter a variety of foods, languages, and other cultural aspects” Priyanka remembers.

“I was able to appreciate the idea of a community where everyone is there to help you since I grew up in such a dynamic working-class milieu. But, it also prompted you to modify your behavior and show respect for the opinions of others. Not everyone is exposed to a situation where people can coexist peacefully despite holding radically different opinions on the same issue” says Priyanka.

Image Credit : Money Control (Priyanka Khimani at Govt Law College in Mumbai)

From her childhood, she has seen her parents fighting over the shortage of money, and that is when she got determined to do something great. Her father always backed her potential. Priyanka experimented with theater at school, first performing in Hindi and Marathi plays before moving on to English plays and working with actor Bharat Dabholkar. She discovered that she preferred working behind the scenes than performing on stage when participating in theater. She was either adjusting scenes and dialogue, doing the lights, or writing a script on any given day. At 15, Priyanka’s early training helped her secure her first job as a screenwriter. She co-wrote the 2004 Zee television programme “Tamanna Home,” which she co-wrote. 

Even though this was an early success, misery followed it eventually. The same year her father passed away, leaving her to maintain her family while attending high school and college. “Doing fascinating jobs like co-writing on that programme became a need. We are discussing a period of time that was roughly 20 years ago, before social media and the meteoric rise of the content writing sector” she adds.

After his death, depressed and disappointed, Khimani’s real journey in life began. During college, she accepted every TV writing job she was offered to support her four-woman family. 

Luck turned for good when she got her first breakthrough with Lata Mangeshkar .

“Kiran contacted me once more. She required a singer for a lawyer. I only had to hear one syllable before I knew it was Lata Mangeshkar,” she recalled.

After ten years, Khimani has some of Bollywood’s top stars as clients, including AR Rahman, Sushmita Sen, Vir Das, Badshah, and others. Her look back into her journey makes her confident every passing day. This superwoman has proven that everyone has the right to dream and achieve it in multiple steps!

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