Actor Vidya Balan and entrepreneur Revathi Roy want women to stop feeling guilty

We at Tweak India take celebrations very seriously. Naturally, for the Tweak Summit, that marked our first anniversary, we invited two superwomen to the party.

Entrepreneur Revathi Roy is a real-life hero. When her life took a wrong turn after the sudden demise of her husband, she took her mundane passion of driving cars to create a path-breaking business model (Hey Dee Dee, India’s first women-run delivery service that trains, employs and empowers marginalised women). It helped her run her life, and empower thousands of women across the country.

At the Facebook live, Roy was joined by our favourite Miss Congeniality, Vidya Balan, who has effortlessly played multiple real-life superwomen (scientist in Mission Mangal, undercover agent in Kahaani, housewife-turned-RJ in Tumhari Sulu and Shakuntala Devi in the eponymous biopic) on screen.

And when these two fierce women met, the session that spotlighted the need for women role models and real-life heroes turned into an hour of laughter therapy punctuated by giant dollops of wisdom.

“There are heroes all around us, in every one of us. A few of us are fortunate enough to let that inner hero rise,” said Balan, as she spoke about her own struggle with being assertive at work and in life. But she wishes that every woman builds on their confidence and exercises assertion in everyday life.

We gave them an imaginary magic wand and asked what superpower they’d grant women if they could. Roy spoke about financial independence. “I’d want to financially empower every woman, so she can go to the ATM, take out her own card, get the money out and simply do a facial or anything that makes her happy.”

Balan wanted to give women a day off, to take a step back and stop feeling guilty. Well, we are all guilty of that, aren’t we?

“Women need to stop carrying all the burden on their shoulders. We experience guilt all the time. We can feel guilty about an earthquake happening in some other part of the world. We need to stop feeling this way,” she said.

And just when we thought we couldn’t find a better mantra, Roy dropped the bomb called, ‘Mother-In-Law Day’. We hope a lot of other companies heard the HR cheat code she spilled.

“Every two months, at Hey Dee Dee, we invite mothers-in-law to the office and gift them something useful like a mixer grinder. When she takes it back to her basti and flaunts it, others ask her, ‘Kahaan se mila?’, and she says, ‘Bahu ke office ne diya’. We have noticed that a lot of new girls join us from that basti soon after,” she explained.

Roy left us with three golden words that have nothing to do with loving somebody else. “Dreams are free,” she said, while Balan wrapped the session by applauding Roy’s inspiring journey. “I can’t wait to watch your biopic. It is a story that needs to be told,” she said.

We agree completely, which is why we documented her inspiring life story in When I Grow Up, I Want To Be, one of Tweak Books paperbacks, in association with Juggernaut, which you can now order on Amazon.