A woman who travels as a passenger will complain in a crowded bus, but the same woman when she works as a conductor, learns to maneuver the curves and sudden breaks in a bus! An ordinary woman who gets scared at the sight of a mob of men, learns to give a whack at the back once she becomes a police officer!  I always wondered how this transformation happens? 

Not only these people who are a part of our daily life, but scores of women who have taken up extraordinary challenges in life and succeeded. Take for example the six Women Naval Officers of the Indian Navy, who circumnavigated the globe on TARINI,  or Mrs Annie-Roy, the only women tunnel engineer in India, who worked for the Metro Rail projects in various cities in the country, or our own Mrs Nirmala Sitharaman who was the Defence Minister of India and now the Finance Minister, and many other women who have broken the glass ceiling. It has kept me thinking –  what is it that makes the difference? Is it the uniforms? Is it the attitude? Is it their passion? While attitude, grit, determination, passion are all pre-requisites, I personally feel all of these combined with the responsibility and authority is what makes the difference. I think with responsibility comes power. The power to deliver what is expected of the role and I believe this is what makes all the difference.  

So when we were contemplating on recruiting women as Home Inspectors, I said why not?

But we were sceptical because the job involved commuting to customer sites in any part of the city, unoccupied or partially vacant apartments, sometimes partially completed projects with no elevators, in high rise buildings having to climb say 20 -25 floors, carrying heavy tools and equipments. We felt it was very risky, considering that the concept itself is new in India and introducing women in an unknown field may be even more riskier. The idea took a back seat while we got busy with many challenges of a startup – raising funds, creating awareness of the concept, selling and complying with various statutory requirements of the company, so on and so forth.  

Two years later, we had the first woman Home Inspector join our team and recently, when I came to know that we want more women to join the Home Inspection fraternity, I was more than happy; not because I am feminist, I am not. It’s because I had heard such things, many times in my personal career path – when I wanted to join as a Personal Secretary in 1985, when I wanted to be a Journalist in 1991 or when I was chosen to manage multiple offices as Facility Manager in an MNC, way back in the year 2001, at a time when we had just begun to hear the word “Facility Management” in India, to now when we are hearing about Home Inspection for the first time in India.