I did have the belief and was ready to do whatever it took to take Indian Women in Hospitality, IWH to the next level. I feel great coming to IWH page each morning, as if I am meeting the ladies there. As the weekend had approached and there was so much to do, my thoughts were figuring out  the reason why I wanted to do this in the first place. I had a decent success in writing whether it’s the blogs, columns, editing a shipping magazine or being an author for a marine website. I haven’t charged anyone a penny for whatever I’he done in this domain as I was doing something that I liked doing. This platform has given a direction to what I wish to do, basically shown a larger and meaningful picture. I shall be forever grateful to every lady, who came onboard, shared her views with others, was ready to mentor the ones who needed it and were supportive in living my vision and passion. Somewhere every lady felt that there was something that they wanted to give back to the fraternity and the society at large. Bingo! we were ready and fully charged with our vision of having a supportive and collaborative platform for us.

I have faced adversities like most other women and I’ll call myself a fighter, not a survivor. I believe if someone tries to pull you down use that force to go so high that it’s not possible for him or her to reach you there. Success is indeed the height you reach after being pulled to the pits.

I have faced pits in many accounts, the recent one being on health. I have a ligament tear, a bad one at that and I was suggested surgery which I managed to evade and am doing fine. The last few months have made me introspect and really see what is it that will give meaning to this life and whatever I have learnt professionally from the veterans, doing justice to that. Basically I wish to pass on the baton; so this community is born and it’ll always have a much deeper place in my heart. This is where we have awesome women who are great achievers, it’s time to applaud each other and create more success stories and contribute to the larger cause. May be one day make money so that we could meet up in real. It’ll be nice to have real meetings and get-togethers than the virtual meets.

The blog is going to turn into a website soon and the person who’ll host the website called me to say that he had been blessed with a baby girl, he said the group was lucky for him. A colleague was telling me that the group had all stars what do they contribute. All of us are stars in our own right. This platform values all and inspires everyone to be the best version of her!

I opened my mailbox to receive a beautiful message from one of the members from the UK, ” With the formation of IWH, I now know of a platform where I can celebrate women achievers and rejoice that I am an integral part of it too. I honestly did not know the high fliers until I personally saw them join the IWH from around the world; one by one sketching their achievements. I can proudly say that I know all these high fliers and not just by their names. Glad to have arrived at my own list of Indian women achievers to add to if asked by my British colleagues to go alongside Clare Smyth, Ruth Rogers, Nigella Lawson, Ching He Huang and Monica Galetti”. Such massages validate the thought and they motivate to do even better. Grateful to Amruta for her kind words of encouragement.

I had written about the highest number of lady pilots being from India, today read in the newspaper that IAF gets it’s first lady pilot to fly Mig 21 and take up combat role! Another thought comes to my mind that every lady is a fighter and each one of us does the piloting. Aren’t we fighter pilots within us? let’s churn up a storm then! We are getting stronger more than 1383 ladies in our closed group, it’s time to bring out the inspiration, empowerment and enrichment on the board. The ladies make me realise my true calling in life, at 42; I guess it’s a nice feeling! and am grateful to each one of them.