There was a time when I believed that some people were simply born with wings.
They seemed more confident, more courageous, more capable of taking risks. They appeared to know where they were going while the rest of us were still trying to understand the road.
Life, however, taught me otherwise.
Nobody gave me wings.
Life gave me reasons to grow them.
Many years ago, I wrote an Odia poem called Dena — Wings. In that poem, I looked at the vast sky and wondered whether there was still a little space left there for me. Somewhere between responsibilities, relationships and the everyday business of living, I seemed to have forgotten the wings with which I once wanted to fly.
When I wrote those lines, I probably did not realise that I was writing about my own life.
Today, I do.
My journey did not begin with a grand business plan or a carefully charted career.
As a young woman, I became involved in a movement for employment opportunities for unemployed engineers in Odisha. I spent years meeting government officials, Ministers, MLAs and administrators, arguing our case and trying to create opportunities for thousands of young engineers waiting for employment.
I was not born knowing how to do any of this.
I learnt because I had to.
When you represent the hopes of thousands of young people, you cannot remain afraid of entering an officer’s chamber. You prepare, enter, speak, get rejected, return, rethink your argument—and go again.
Perhaps my first feathers grew there.
Then came business.
People often see an established business through its successful projects, offices, employees and balance sheets.
But an entrepreneur remembers something else.
She remembers the nights when sleep would not come because salaries had to be paid. The days when money was scarce. The decisions that went wrong, the people who disappointed her, the opportunities that disappeared and the occasions when giving up looked easier than continuing.
There were times in my journey when I did not have enough money in my pocket even for a cup of tea.
Yet the next morning came.
And I got up.
I went to work.
Looking back, I realise that those mornings built me more than the successful years ever could.
Life has a strange way of preparing us.
It rarely gives us courage first and challenges later. It gives us the challenge—and asks us to discover our courage.
It does not give us confidence and then responsibility. It gives us responsibility—and confidence grows while carrying it.
It simply asks:
Will you take the next step?
Every time we say yes, another feather grows.
For women, these wings often grow invisibly.
A woman walks into a meeting where almost everyone around the table is a man and learns to make herself heard.
A mother leaves her child behind to attend an important meeting and carries the guilt with her.
An entrepreneur signs the salary sheet while wondering how she will arrange next month’s cash flow.
A leader faces a crisis, carries her own anxiety quietly and tells her team, “We will find a way.”
There are no awards for these moments. But these are precisely the moments in which we discover what we are capable of.
For years, I thought success meant reaching milestones.
Complete the project. Achieve the target. Grow the organisation. Create employment. Build another institution. Then move to the next goal.
Business has an interesting habit: every destination becomes another starting point.
Gradually, my understanding of success changed.
Employees were no longer numbers on an organisational chart. There were families behind every salary. Customers were trusting us with years of savings. Partners were placing faith in our decisions. Institutions we created would affect people whom we might never personally meet.
Success slowly stopped being only about what I could achieve.
It became about what I was responsible for.
And responsibility, over time, became purpose.
Looking back, I can now describe that journey in three simple sentences:
In searching for success, I discovered responsibility.
In fulfilling responsibility, I discovered purpose.
In discovering purpose, I found my wings.
There is another thing I have learnt about wings.
We often associate flying with freedom—the freedom to leave, to break away, to choose ourselves.
But a woman’s flight can be different.
Sometimes flying does not mean leaving.
Sometimes it means carrying.
Carrying your family while pursuing your dreams. Carrying your colleagues when the organisation is struggling. Carrying disappointment without becoming bitter. Carrying success without becoming arrogant.
And carrying other people high enough so that one day they too can discover their own wings.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest privileges of leadership.
When I meet young women who want to become entrepreneurs, I often find them waiting.
Waiting for confidence. For the right opportunity. For enough money. For family responsibilities to become lighter. For someone to believe in them.
I understand.
But there may never be a perfect day.
I wish someone had told the younger me:
Don’t wait for your wings.
Enter the room even if you are nervous. Take responsibility even if you do not have every answer. Ask the question. Learn the numbers. Negotiate. Make mistakes. Accept rejection. Start again.
And when life knocks you down, get up one more time.
One day, you will look back at things that once frightened you and wonder why they seemed so impossible.
The world did not become easier.
You became stronger.
Many years ago, when I wrote Dena, I looked at the vast sky and wondered whether there was still a little space there for me.
Today, I would answer that younger woman differently.
Don’t ask the sky whether it has space for you.
Grow your wings. The sky will make space.