‘Any woman who understands the problem of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country!’
This quote by Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t have made better sense any other time. As covid19 has given us times where not only our sleep patterns but almost all patterns aren’t a pattern anymore and have become a freestyle kinda thing. One big realization, we as women have had, is managing a circus would probably take less effort.
Time is one thing which might have come to stand still for a lot of species except one ‘Women’!
And as the undone dishes still prance at the kitchen sink with interrogative eyes and the cornflakes in Champs bowl pose a question at the benchmark of womanhood set by Ammi and Dama (Dadi+ Amma, Dama) I fondly find myself in 90’s where I am the laid back teenager relishing Ammi’s Biryani and Dama’s tales, one thing which grabs my attention is the fact that our moms, dadis, and nanis forever had led a quarantine life. I’ve never seen Ammi or Dama go out much. Cocooned in their nests named ‘Homes’ they always led lives carrying out these extraordinary tasks like a pro with just a difference of not penning down the saga of ‘jadoo-pocha’ & ‘Bartan maanjhna’. And as ‘Fear, panic, anxiety, Uncertainty’ are the names of a few guests who drop in to say a hi anytime now I decide to pen down my kitchen tales & House cleaning Saga & Yes the women who have stepped out from the comforts of kitchen and made sure India is placed right on the map of the world & how. The kitchen has never been an alien space for me but as I force myself a morsel of overcooked Biryani today I miss khaala’s (domestic help) regular warnings of ‘Deedi 5 seeti ho Gaye!’
As the scientists ransack their minds over the brand new intruder OMICRON, I am elated & glad that I am jotting down these Lovely women’s achievements & still daydreaming that one day I can be the CEO, Abba wanted me to marry ( borrowing your words Priyanka Chopra) I’ve discovered which till this point have kept my sanity intact (with few exceptions of me losing it over not getting seafood and giving divorce, suicide & murder threats)
As the year is on threshold bidding a goodbye along with Katrina Kaif’s heist of a wedding & Harnaaz Sandhu bringing the Miss Universe crown back home there are women from all strata of society shining bright & doing the job the way it’s got to be done.
Starting with Indra Nooyi, yes it’s not a pandemic headline that Indra Nooyi had become the CEO of PepsiCo, it roots back to the year 1994 when the majority of the girls of my age would be crooning loud in their bathrooms,’ Mere khwabon mein jo aaye, us se kaho kabhi saamne toh aaye’, She was busy creating history. Not that bathroom singing is any bad but knowing your worth sure is. Indra Nooyi on joining PepsiCo scaled it to heights which just didn’t add feathers but stars to her tiara which still shine bright. As CEO, she shackled a bid to break up PepsiCo, nearly doubled sales, and introduced healthier products and environmentally friendly practices. Her fortune roots from stock she was granted while working at PepsiCo. She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women In 2014, she was ranked at number 13 on the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women and was ranked the second most powerful woman on the Fortune list in 2015. In 2017, she was ranked the second most powerful woman once more on the Forbes list of The 19 Most Powerful Women in Business.
Following her footsteps, there was a little girl who indeed got out of the bathroom singing to some serious Business. Leena Nair makes sure history is a good place to be as she created it On 14 December 2021, when she was named the Global Chief Executive Officer for French luxury brand Chanel. With this, Nair joins the long list of Indian-origin executives who have been appointed to command global companies.
“The first female, first Asian, youngest-ever CHRO of Unilever,” reads 52-year-old Indian-born British national Leena Nair’s LinkedIn profile. She has been given the charge of ensuring Chanel’s “long term success as a private company,” the company said in a statement, recognizing Nair as a “visionary leader whose ability to champion a long-term, purpose-driven agenda is matched with a consistently strong record of business outcomes.”
Born in 1969 in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, Nair did her initial schooling at Holy Cross Convent School in the city. She pursued her Engineering degree, specializing in Electronics and Telecommunications, from Walchand College in Sangli. She later graduated with a Gold Medal from XLRI, Jamshedpur in 1992 where she pursued MBA in Human Resources.
Her career started off with Unilever as a Management Trainee and then she spent almost 30 years in the company – both growing and essaying various roles.
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever had was before my career even began, from my college professor who sat me down and said, ‘You know what, you’re going to make a pretty lousy engineer. But I think you have a flair for management. You like being with people.”
Leena Nair on Instagram
Fortuitously, Leena Nair is the second woman after Nooyi to take over as the CEO of a global brand. Named as one of Fortune India’s ‘Most Powerful Women’ in 2021, Nair will be assuming her new role in January 2022.
Now how can I conclude this without mentioning Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar who on 10 November, was announced as India’s wealthiest female self-made billionaire amid the ongoing initial public offering (IPO) of her startup, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index? The market capital of the beauty and fashion retailer hit an overall valuation of 1 trillion rupees in the first five minutes of trade.
In 2012, a 49-year-old Falguni Nayar started Nykaa, now one of India’s leading e-commerce websites, and in this process, she went on to smash two big stereotypes that often define women at the workplace, age, and gender.
In these 10 years of its journey, Nykaa is slated to become India’s first and only woman-led unicorn to go public. The Mumbai-born Nayar graduated from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and then pursued investment banking. In 2012, when she was the Managing Director of Kotak Investment Banking, she took that leap of faith & quit the job to pursue her dream of starting her own venture. And then what followed would gleam gold in pages of history.
The list of women whom I would like to talk to wouldn’t be contained in an article. Be it from Khaalas achievements of breaking the patriarchy & stepping out to feeding her kids to Ammi’s Biryani which helped her family to find their footing in this world. As the world almost cages in, their four walls are trying to figure out the idiosyncratic of an ever-updating Covid19. A gentle touch of my steaming pan brings me back to my reality by giving me another burn on my hand which is a big bold stripe this time, well all I can say is the tigress has earned her stripes!
