Tiainla is a graduate from Ramaiah Institute of Technology with a B.E in Biotechnology and will be pursuing her Masters in neuroscience. Meantime she has also started a clothing brand called REBIRTH where people can wear her art. For her career, she has chosen two different paths and wants to work simultaneously – running a clothing brand and studying neuroscience.

She loves art and have always been drawing and experimenting with different mediums of art. When she was in her last year of college she decided to take a year gap to clear off her head because the pandemic had taken quite a toll on her mental health and she, being a person who wants to be productive at all waking hours, thought to herself “why not try starting a clothing brand where people can wear my art?”. That’s how her journey in REBIRTH started and she has recently launched the first collection which she said had an amazing response. Though it might be slow growth and a long journey, she is really blessed and happy that she is able to keep creating, and seeing people wear what she creates inspires her even more. 

As for her second career, neuroscience, she has always been fascinated by the human brain. She says it’s a whole new universe in there. She read a book about Alzheimer’s disease when she was in 10th standard and thought that it is one of the most tragic diseases out there. “We, humans, are made of memories. Our entire existence is a memory and to see how this disease degrades human existence made me want to do something about it” Tiainla says. 

Along with this realization came mental illness and mental health issues she have seen and experienced. The complexity of human emotions and the brain just flipping off like a switch when a person experiences trauma and goes further into self-destruct made her excited and curious to learn about this complex and vulnerable machine. She also stumbled upon the use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes and how it rewires the brain helping those in great suffering. So, now she is embarking on this wide and challenging path in hopes that she can at least, with the knowledge she gather, help people and make their lives a little bit better.

According to her, there wasn’t a specific time or a year when the idea of starting her own Brand struck. It was an accumulation of her experiences and she thinks the experiences turned into something she needed and wanted to do. She also thinks that the timing is really important, if she had tried to start the brand a few years back she assumed that it would’ve been a failure or she would’ve just given up easily. Only after a few more years of growth and experience, now she started off on a great note and with a stable mindset.

Tiainla confesses “Yes! I am quite proud of myself for coming this far. I have dreamed of starting a brand, studying the brain, and now I am at the start of that journey. It feels exciting and it scares me a little but that’s what makes things worth it.”

She has plans for the brand to grow organically and hopefully collaborate with other artists. The focus for the brand is growing and she plans to build a community of fashion and artists to challenge each other with designs meeting art. She believes that it will be quite fun and hopefully, there will be events in the future to promote the importance of art.

For neuroscience, she hopes and plans to bring better treatment and therapy for mental illness, addiction, and brain degenerative diseases in Nagaland. And also, to open up the path for neuroscience research in Nagaland as it has such massive potential. She expresses her excitement about the future and her plans ahead.

Tiainla admits that she has been quite an active participant during her high school days in ‘Little Flower Higher Secondary School’, Kohima and received the ‘Child Scientist award’ in 18th state-level National children’s science congress 2010, 19th National level children’s science congress 2011 and received ‘Lions Clubs International Achievement award’ 2011. Student of the year 2014-2015 in Livingstone foundation Higher secondary school, Dimapur. In her College, she received Silver in the Women’s Inter college Boxing Championship, 2018 RIT and worked on a major project “Screening And Testing of Potential Inhibitors on AChE for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease Using Bioinformatics Tools”. 

She concludes the interview by giving some words of advice to the readers “– trust the timings in your life. It is not a race of who does things first and don’t beat yourself up when things don’t go your way because things really do happen for a reason and that reason will make sense later on. Do what you love, one that excites you and scares you. Sounds cliché but you really do live only once and in this short life that we have, the world is your oyster. Always pray and be grateful even when things are tough, you will thrive when you strive to be better.”

We wish nothing but the best for her exciting future ahead.