Soul Talks ~ Humanity Speaks with Gauri
She helps the organizations in becoming more efficient, effective and sustainable through her interventions. She loves to engage with and shape young minds in prestigious educational institutions such as IAM, TISS, IBS, Nirma University by conducting various sensitivity training for them. Gauri likes to give back to the education sector by doing voluntary work for the teachers of the school that she passed out from. Her extensive work with teachers involves simple interventions that trigger self care and creative thinking for the teachers
Hi, Gauri. So my first question to you regarding your journey as a kid and your early life experiences
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 4:52
Nobody ever said that don't ask us, or don't talk to us, or don't come to us, or we don't have time for you and things like that. I think that kind of upbringing also instilled in me a very deep sense of emotional, psychological security that no matter what, somebody will be there. And also very early responsibility possibly instilled in me also very high need for independence and freedom. So freedom is a great value for me today
You. We would like to know about your life experiences or the events, actually, which helped you to decide your career or area of interest, where you wanted to grow, where you wanted to develop yourself
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 4:59
But at that time, my father also became aware of the professional course for hotel management. And the hotel industry was an upcoming industry at that time. My father, I have always been very influenced by my father. He has been my mentor and guide in my life. And when he suggested hotel management, we went and explored. We went to the hotel management Institute in Dadar and checked with them what it means, how the course pans out, et cetera, et cetera
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 5:00
That helped to taste a lot of success, look at failures in a very different way. Once again, I had an excellent boss, and his capacity to take risks and his tolerance for failure is something that allowed not just me, I think the entire team, we were all a young team, and it helped us achieve so much more than what we could have
So my third question to you, Gauri, is how do you see life now from the position of current state where you are today and as you are working with you students, professionals and volunteering in organizations? So what is the one lesson you have learned which you want to share with us?
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 3:44
The more we are able to identify what these multiple realities are and the more we are able to build our own resilience and our own acceptance of these multiple realities, the easier it is for us to really embrace life in all its forms, in all its successes, in all its disappointments, in all its fears, in all its failures. And that's how one really moves forward. For me, the biggest learning has been that be flexible, be ready, always
Question four, what is that one change you are observing in the society as in large, from the perspective of diversity, how do you see empowerment efforts happening in our society? And what are those major bottlenecks which need to be worked upon for the betterment of our society?
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 5:00
I don't see much work happening around that. Celebrating a woman's day for the whole day, or celebrating a day for physically challenged, or celebrating an equality day or whatever it is, it doesn't work. It doesn't work because even today, there are times when women get fired when they are pregnant. Why because organizations don't want to give them maternity leave. So where's the empowerment? Where's the equality? We are not doing it. The mindset is not changing
You talked about the travel and life experiences which helped you to learn a lot in your life journey. So how it helped you to implement these learnings in your life and how you executed them in various situations or in your relationships or in professional spaces and also request you to share how one can enhance their travel experience with their life. Life experience
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 4:46
And you asked me, how can one enhance their travel experience in their life? Just be open. Just be ready to explore and experiment. And don't forget to do your due diligence before traveling. Make sure that you at least have sufficient to take care of yourself. And that you are being safe in the whole process. And whether it is life or whether it is traveling to a destination, I suppose these are the things that one needs to really have
You last but not least, and we are enjoying this session very much and looks like we can keep asking so many questions and get enlightened by your responses and replies. So, as you know that Women's Day is going to come very soon, how do you think celebrating a woman's day and how one common person can connect with these events to empower the society, to empower themselves, by and large, how to make more meaningful celebrations in terms of empowerment
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 5:00
Some specific initiatives are taken and activities are done to at least raise awareness of the gender discrimination that happens and how for centuries together, women have been relegated to only certain tasks or certain roles or even certain designations beyond which we are today talking so much about women not being able to break the glass ceiling
Gauri Nigudkar
@GauriKN · 3:43
Hello. I suppose I got a little carried away with this whole empowerment idea and stuff. And fact is that each one of us needs to really create that equality and create conditions in which each one of us feels empowered. Women more so, because traditionally we have not been doing that for ourselves. Men also need to continue to create those conditions throughout, in urban India, in cities, metros like ours, and maybe our generation marginally, there is more