For Kenyans who have keenly followed her since her rise to journalism prominence at K24 TV, she has been wowing audiences with her dance moves which have not only gone viral but also sent reputable brands fighting tooth and nail to land marketing contracts with her.
Her journey in the media industry began by chance when she worked as a part-time radio presenter at Easy FM, a move she never saw coming. She had a penchant for research and all things science and was intrigued by little organisms, hence her undergraduate studies in Microbiology.
Upon realising her newfound passion, she enrolled for a Master’s degree in Journalism at Westminster University in the United Kingdom while simultaneously working at the British state broadcaster, BBC.
“I think of myself as a people person, I love to perform, I have always been a dancer, I have been dancing since I was four years old so I have always been on stage but at the time I did not know that I wanted to pursue art in this manner in the form of journalism,” she revealed in a past interview.
She described her radio experience as one that made her realise how long a minute was since it demands that one talks almost constantly, aside from the planning that goes on behind the scenes as a radio presenter, which she believes is tougher than being on TV.
Other than radio, looking for a job in the media industry was a tall order for her as she had to wait for five months before receiving callbacks from the media houses she had applied to, including K24, KTN, NTV and Citizen TV.
Read also: Shiksha Arora: From Surviving Westgate Attack To Dancing KBC Anchor
She began receiving callbacks from the media houses she applied to and through her unfettered determination, she was able to rise to the peak of her journalism career when she bagged her first media job at K24.
In 2020 however, she was the unfortunate victim of a mass firing exercise by MediaMax Networks which swept clean almost the entire newsroom, an exercise she stated came just when she was gaining popularity not just as a news anchor but also in terms of her numbers on social media. To make matters worse, she had no plan B and could not even return to dancing because of the performances being halted by COVID-19 restrictions.
“But then I realised that Social Media is one of the most powerful tools, at the beginning I was not doing much, I would just post short videos of myself as a distraction to myself and all my fans from the dire situation that was there thanks to the pandemic.
“People liked my content online and my numbers just started growing. So I started being very intentional with the kind of content I produce,” she stated while noting that she experienced depression, anxiety and bouts of panic attacks after losing her job.
Shiksha Arora during a past photo shoot. /FACEBOOK.SHIKSHA ARORA
She would get a big break a year later when KBC poached her in 2021 when it was rebranding itself, alongside a star-studded list of veteran anchors, including those previously at the national broadcaster and those recruited from rival media houses.
Arora has been recognized for her on-air skills, and she bagged the Best Female Anchor award at the Asian Weekly Achievers Awards in 2019.
She terms her life as a news anchor as an interesting one, recalling how she was fresh out of her postgraduate school and received a lot of backlash when she got her first job as a news anchor.
Kenyans now eagerly await her next move, with many believing that the journey of the ‘dancing anchor’ is not over yet.