Sugandha

• Bangalore

• A Brief about yourself and how you describe your own Personality and Persona.

Hi, I am Sugandha, born and brought up in UP, settled in Bangalore for the last 12 years. I am an entrepreneur by profession, founded a tech company at the age of 25 after quitting my tech job in a MNC. In a parallel world, I see myself having a career in an art, someone who takes the help of canvas to share her imaginations with the world. I am a women who values her family more than anything. I love to travel and a fitness enthusiast. I am a certified yoga coach too. As an entrepreneur, I am obligated to spread the awareness about financially independent women and in my opinion every women should be independent no matter how financially well-off their close family members are.

• Your Achievements that makes you feel high.

I belong to a very small town in western UP, with a population less than 1lakh and in that town women marry as soon as they turn 21. I was fortunate enough to receive high technical education and ended up moving out of the town. My first biggest achievement was starting up a tech startup at the age of 25, which ended up creating 100+ jobs in 3 locations. I was recognised as the Top 30 women entrepreneur in India. Being a founder helped me shape myself personally too and when I look back, I feel I have covered a very long distance from the place I was at 20 years ago.

• Define the true beauty.

I don’t think true beauty has one right definition. But irrespective, i will take an attempt. My version of true beauty for a human being, is someone who cares about their well being as well as the people around them. A great mixture of Kindness, Empathy, Self-Awareness, Strength (both physically and mentally) and Growth mindset is what a true beauty should look like.

• What makes a complete, healthy and happy family for you?

Answer - My idea of a complete, healthy and happy family for me is where each family member works toward their own success and the success of the others. Success doesn’t have to be just in respective careers, a lot of times we need success in our personal lives. It could be around developing a good new habit or learning a new skill or even helping in getting rid of anything negative. A family where everyone can also empathise about each other’s emotional needs and mould their behaviour in a way that it brightens them up when there is a good mood around and doesn’t add any further stress if there is a bad mood lingering. Happiness is extremely contagious in a group of family members and that’s where children being around uplifts you like anything. A complete family is one where all enjoy each other’s company, make an effort in celebrating special days of lives, find occasions to have a fun dinner or a day outing and don't hesitate in taking the first move in making “house vibe” more positive. Lastly, I think family dynamics is an evolving thing. Since all of us as individuals grow and change in our lives influenced by our own individual experiences and in the same way, family relationships grow and evolve over time. They don’t always follow a uniform path, in certain phases you will feel things are never going to be perfect but at times, if all members are putting in effort to improve the dynamics then everything will surely seem perfect and ideal.

• What is your favourite Idea of Holidaying?

I love mountains. I literally feel 1/3rd of the genes in my body belongs to a mountain-born person. I crave the drives on himalayas and when I pull down the windows of a car and the fresh and cold air rushes in and sit on my face like a beauty mask, it makes me feel relax and reduces whatever stress I had by 99%. The perfect holiday begins with sight of the tall green trees, snow on faraway hills, sheeps carrying thick wools on their back, a shining sun which is very gentle, smiling faces waving to you and a pitstop for street food and hot masala tea. Once I reach the destination, my 2nd favourite part starts. Fashion. I like dressing up in cold weather. My love for overcoats, boots, bright sweaters, knitted dresses and shawls are so high that sometimes I just go to cold weather locations just to get a chance to dress up. Taking a sip of Hot chocolate while enjoying the mesmerising view of the nature, coupled with chirping sounds and not a slightest hint of city noise is what a perfect holiday afternoon would seem for me.

• Why are you participating in Mrs India Queen of Substance?

It gives a great platform to tell the world about where Indian women stand today. We are great creators, we are innovators, we are beautiful, we are unapologetic, we dream of bright future and has courage and ability to make them a reality. I can’t think of a platform better than Mrs India Queen of Substance to showcase this to the world and that’s why i am participating in this program.

• What bothers you most about what is happening in the country today?

Our country has been growing tremendously for the last 10-12 years. We have been achieving milestones at a breakneck speed across various social and economic aspects. It’s a futile exercise to go into each and every factual description of growth, but at surface level, we can look at how people are prioritising their spends and that will give us an idea on living standards of the people. Having said that, I believe we have many areas that need massive boost and one of those is self-reliance. India is one of the largest consumer markets in the world, which means with bigger growth, consumption will also sky-rocket. At the same time, if we as a nation don't reduce reliance on foreign markets to cater the demand, we may hit a consumption wall in the future. Although the government has been positively trying to push the Make in India initiative, I expect more and more business houses and even mid to large enterprises to invest in home grown R&D and manufacturing setup to build items in the country itself. Many will be amazed to know than 25% of all Apple iphones are developed in India as of today and this number was less than 1% just a few years ago. In nutshell, more home grown companies and products are in extreme need of the hour to cater the growing demand and even elevate societal prosperity.

• A quote or saying that encourages you?

One of my favourite ones is “Life is an ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts”. We just live once and one life is enough if we do it right. Many of us are born with right privileges but rather than utilising it to the fullest to make our lives happy, fun and successful, we waste our time and energy to achieve things which enhances our life very marginally.

• What is true “Sportsmanship” for you?

One should play in a very aggressive way by maximising the use of their potential without breaking any rules of the game. Show high respect for your opponent all the time. Be it on-field or off-field. If you win, don’t let it get into your head assuming you will always be better than your opponents and if you lose, focus on why you lost and work on those areas in a mindful manner. Lastly, aim of sports is not about winning or losing a game, it’s more about conquering your own fear and being closer to who you are as an individual.

• If you were selected as a Charity Ambassador what Value addition would you like to make for our Society and how?

Not everyone in our society has the same privileges at birth and there is absolutely no fault of theirs in being born as a less privileged person. But it doesn't mean that opportunities are always inaccessible or very hard to access for them. As a matured human society, it’s our moral responsibility to uplift others and bring them to close to where most of the people are when it comes to access to opportunity. The biggest value out of this exercise would be the overall contribution for the betterment of society and the human race can go up significantly if people from all kinds of backgrounds get access to opportunities. It’s a deep desire inside me to help those who were not well gifted physically at the time of birth. Just because someone wasn't born with a solid hearing, doesn’t mean they have a bad voice. Those people deserve an equal chance to be a great singer if we can help them improve their own hearing, which in today’s modern and technology driven world is very possible. I as a charity ambassador would increase awareness about such empowering scientific possibilities which will make people believe more on the cause as such initiatives in turn will increase societal contribution as a whole.