Dr. Veena Dutta - Director Pearl Academy Jaipur
Who am I?
I m a woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a daughter in law, a sister, a friend, a subordinate, a manager who is supposed to be master of each task; function on all kinds of food, embrace the kids, work for 18 hours a day, give unconditional love, be able to negotiate, be kind and still be strong, be a nurse when required, know all the family traditions and yet be modern, have guilt for working late hours but still be as efficient as my male colleagues, support my family as second source of revenue but have my career dreams lived since childhood but I am a woman who loves doing all this, of course I commit mistakes but I learn from them.
How do you balance your professional and personal lives differently?
My family is my biggest support, this multi task role would never have been possible without my husband’s and parents support. There is no single formula however I think that works for balancing both lives. My approach is not balance, but integration. Of course there has to be absolute discipline, commitment, and prioritization.
The rules I follow are:
- Have built a support network of family, friends, helpers, colleagues……
- Let go off guilt
- Enjoy quality family time
- Forgive myself sometimes when things cannot get done.
- Delegate and work smarter and not harder.
How it works for me is that there are phases when one is more inclined towards the personal life and I do let it happen with ease.
What do you think is the biggest global feminist issue ?
The biggest global feminist issue is gender inequality and I feel it begins straight from home when the expectations set from a girl/ boy, husband/ wife, son/ daughter/ daughter in law is different. I would make sure that my son is well trained to cook, housekeep so that no where he understands that these are not his roles in later stages of life.
If you had the opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?
Though in our own worlds we are celebrating woman’s day and worship Durga and Laksmi but there are still incidences of girl child , sexual harassments and domestic violence
The true spirit of woman’s day would be when they are looked as equals for rest of 364 days of the year too and no street eve teasing takes place, when every female is safe to travel in local transports at odd hours of the day as men. When we will stop instructing our girls and daughters that outside world is unsafe and you have to be cautious at late nights.
What has made you to work for Pearl Academy?
The vision sharing, organization culture, values, beliefs, viewing education as a serious and responsible business in carving young lives, innovative approach, strong systems approach, Internationalization, gender equality, human resource centric, challenging goals and many such reasons make me proud to be a part of Pearl Academy.
The senior Leadership at Pearl is heavily dominated by female employees and the organization values, motivates gender equality culture within the system.
What keeps you going on?
To do the things I ought and so I continue on my way. On this journey I try to do the best I can though at times the goings tough I’ll do my part to refine the world And make it a better place By being “me” to my capacity.
Being a woman is the greatest strength for me.
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