Q: What inspired you to become an engineer? Were you always interested in technology?

A: I think it was more like an accident that I became an engineer. I was groomed by my father to take up medicine as my career and I hated it. So engineering was an option that my father was willing to compromise on and I had to take it. The reason is a lack of awareness. I hail from a rural background and people did not even have the idea that a girl can have a career, let alone an engineering one. My father was a great visionary and he was adamant that I should do a professional course so that I would have a career of my own. Now I wonder how my father could have envisioned thirty-five years back that women can have a career. I was the first engineer from my community and when I was doing my courses there was a teacher who inspired me. He made us think and brought out the creative streak in us to learn technology with relish. Later on, I took up teaching technology because of the inspiration I gained from him.