From a young age, Meenakshi discovered her talent as a mehendi artist. Despite challenges, she honed her craft over 15 years, made her own identity in the industry and gained popularity on social media along the way.

Meenakshi Soni is a Mehendi artist known professionally as ‘Meenakala’.

Born in Bhawani Mandi in the Jhalawar district of Rajasthan, she grew up in Kota. Recalling her childhood, Meenakshi fondly recalls her early passion for drawing, painting, and applying mehendi, for which she also joined several hobby classes to enhance her art. She shares that, due to financial constraints at home, she started working as a mehendi artist and gradually made it her profession to earn her livelihood.

Meenakshi draws inspiration from renowned mehendi artists, and watching their instructional videos on YouTube has enriched her skills. Apart from this, she has also made much improvement in her work based on her clients’ feedback and progressed constantly. She credits her friends and parents as her unwavering support system and considers them as her role models.

Describing her struggles, Meenakshi acknowledges the challenges she faced as a woman striving to prove herself in a field with no set working hours. She adds that her profession may demand that she work until late at night. But because of that, societal judgements and criticism weighed heavily on her and her family. She says that now she earns well and has earned respect in her profession. However, she feels that word-of-mouth publicity has helped her a lot to grow in this field.

Regarding her mistakes, she admits she could have chosen a different career path, such as fashion design, which might have streamlined her artistic pursuits. Nonetheless, she cherishes her hard-earned reputation for mehendi artistry.

During her leisure time, she indulges in portrait-making, watercolour painting, and pencil sketching, creating something innovative based on different festivals. She also likes listening to motivational videos.

Offering advice to aspiring mehendi artists, she emphasises the importance of a strong drawing foundation and suggests specialising in a particular mehendi art form. She advocates staying updated on industry trends through social media and recommends learning from professional mehendi artists' instructional videos.