CHENNAI:
Rohini Manian and Varun Manian
Rain or shine, he’s my biggest support system. When things are tough, my first call is to Anna,” says Rohini Manian, gushing about her brother Varun Manian. Despite sharing an age difference of ten years, the brother-sister duo who belong to the eminent Manian family, share a bond that will melt anyone’s heart. Over the years, their relationship has evolved and Varun tells us how. “Like any other brother, while we were younger I was protective of my sister, who is so much younger.
I’m still protective of her, but now we also can hang out and spend time together like friends,” he says. According to Rohini, now, the age difference doesn’t matter as much in terms of common interests and conversations. “I’ve always looked up to Anna. When we were younger, we didn’t have too many things in common to chat about, but I remember always having a good time with him,” she shares. There’s mutual admiration between the sibling entrepreneurs.
“I admire his tenacity and loyalty,” says Rohini, while Varun says he is in awe of his sister’s ability to movies, hang out with their families, have deep conversations about different topics — from work ideas to everything under the sun. “We enjoy too,” enthuses Varun. and/or challenges, pat comes the reply. “Absolutely! Quite often we use the other What are siblings without fights and rivalry? The duo tells us about their share of “silly fights”.
“We fight over the smallest things. The last again — no apology needed,” she says. Lessons learned and qualities imbibed from one another, the duo, often “balance each other out”. “I think we have learned that families stick together and if you do stick together there’s just so much more you can achieve,” says Rohini. Between the two, who is good at giving advice?, we ask and Rohini quickly points to Varun. “This is one of his best pieces of advice: ‘Success doesn’t bring happiness but happiness brings success’,” she says. Curious, we ask the duo a year from the past that they would go back to. “Oh definitely to the four of us living together at Venus Colony — our parents KS Manian and Ranjini and the two of us had dinner together every single day. These memories are special. We would also do a family summer holiday abroad. These memories truly do last a lifetime,” shares Rohini.