When Nisha Vora graduated with a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2012, her path forward was clear: join a law firm for a few years, then spend the rest of her career in nonprofit law. But 10 years later, Vora instead has an established social media presence as a vegan food blogger with her brand, Rainbow Plant Life, which has garnered over 685,000 followers on Instagram.
“I thought I went to school to use this tool to help people, but it was very eye-opening for me to see how the law was used for different means,” she told TODAY. “It was just a slow-moving, conservative, static force that was hard to use for actual change.”
Realizing she wanted something else out of her life, she picked up her hobby — cooking — and began developing her “side hustle” until she was able to go full-time with Rainbow Plant Life just over three years ago.
Becoming disillusioned with law
In her traditional South Asian family, Vora said she grew up in a household where education was highly prioritized. She said it was expected of her to become a doctor, engineer or lawyer — so she chose the latter.
As a fresh law school graduate, Vora said she was excited to enter the real world of law. Law school provided her with theoretical and analytical skills that exercised her critical thinking, and she entered the industry with “very lofty” goals and expectations.
But in the corporate law sphere, she described her work as “soul-crushing.” Instead of defending the country’s ideals, she was defending large corporations that often broke the law or wanted to avoid paying penalties.
Vora then switched to nonprofit law, representing low-income tenants in New York City, but she said it was a “disparate experience” because of the laws in place to make sure they remained disenfranchised. On either side of the law, she said, she wasn’t finding fulfillment in her job.
“I became very disillusioned with actually using the law as a method for change,” Vora said.
'A time of growth and experimentation'
At that time, Vora said she realized her passions lie elsewhere. She began food blogging on the side, posting photos to her Instagram account of the dishes she made after work each day.
From a young age, Vora had always loved cooking. Her father used to record Food Network shows for her as a teenager, and she enjoyed spending time in the cookbook section at Barnes & Noble.
Vora said she got back into cooking as a way to de-stress at the end of a busy workday. As she began to build a following on social media, she realized there was much more to food blogging than just cooking.
With her growing following, she began to develop useful skills to use as a transition out of law, from food photography to recipe writing to copyrighting and more. At the same time, Vora decided to go vegetarian and eventually vegan as she began to think more about the food she was consuming.
Going vegetarian was a simple decision, she said, as her parents are vegetarian, and she began to feel unwell and weighed down after eating meat. But going vegan was an entirely different journey.
Vora said she spent three consecutive nights binge-watching documentaries about factory farming and where her food comes from, and by the end of the third night, she knew she wanted to go vegan.
“It was an easy transition once I had it thrown at me,” Vora said. “It aligned with my values as someone who always believed in compassion and nonviolence.”
It was an easy transition once I had it thrown at me. It aligned with my values as someone who always believed in compassion and nonviolence.
Nisha vora on going vegan
Diving into food
Using her Instagram as a portfolio, she found a job at a food startup in 2017 while still maintaining her Instagram and YouTube channel as a side hustle. By 2018, a publisher from Penguin Random House approached her asking if she wanted to write a cookbook, one of her childhood dreams from the days she spent reading them in Barnes & Noble.
“In June 2019, it came out, and shortly after that, I decided there’s so much more I can do for my business and my community if do this full time,” she said.
When she first began her Instagram account, Vora said she had no idea it would turn into something she could pursue full-time. She said she didn't know what an “influencer” was at the time, and her goal was simply to share recipes and follow what she would later realize was her true passion.
“It was out of pure interest and passion — a desire to build a community of like-minded people,” she explained.
Over time, Vora said she was able to hone her skills and find her niche: vegan food blogging. While her recipes include both Indian food and non-Indian food, she said she also had a full-circle journey with her own culture and food at the same time.
As a child growing up in the small town of Barstow, California, Vora said she had always resisted Indian food and wanted to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like her white friends. But as she matured, she realized she wanted to lean into her culture and learn how to cook the dishes she grew up eating everyday for dinner. Learning family recipes from her mom was “so rewarding,” Vora said, and she’s glad she can now share that experience with her followers, too.
Reflecting on the journey
Now, Rainbow Plant Life is a verified Instagram account, a flourishing blog and a YouTube channel with almost 800,000 subscribers. With one cookbook already published, Vora is now working on her second book, set to come out in 2023. From vegan brownies to chickpea tacos to baingan bharta, Rainbow Plant Life provides a full range of vegan recipes.
Ultimately, Vora said she learned that it’s important to listen to your gut, even when people try to convince you otherwise, because at the end of the day, you know yourself best.
“On your journey, you need to trust yourself and know that you should take advice from others but ultimately make decisions on what feels best for you,” Vora said. “Being a lawyer was making me miserable, and even though (food blogging) was unconventional, I still wanted to do it.”
On your journey, you need to trust yourself and know that you should take advice from others but ultimately make decisions on what feels best for you.
Nisha vora on trusting your gut
She noted that making the transition from a well-established job to a social media job was not simple in its logistics. To be practical, she had to make lifestyle changes like moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn and cutting out any unneeded expenses in her life. But at the end of the day, she said it was all worth it for the fulfillment she finally felt after working for so many years to find it.
“I just had to push myself out of my comfort zone because I knew, ultimately, I want to be doing something creative and interesting and fulfilling, and I don’t want to be stuck doing this job or this career that looks great on paper and people think is prestigious but I know inside is making me unhappy,” Vora said. “So … (it was) pushing myself in different ways to make all the passion and high-level stuff actually happen.”
