Being from a kutchi-gujarati community, it was
difficult for a girl to even think about working post-graduation as they were
expected to marry guys who have family businesses and limit themselves to
kitchens. This was about more than a decade ago, obviously the scenario has
changed now but I am glad my parents thought differently. While bringing up all
the three daughters and a son, they did not differentiate based on our gender;
we were all treated equally and provided with equal opportunity to become
independent. I was the lucky one to have two elder sisters who guided me on my
career front. Learning from their experience, they advised me against taking
the Commerce stream and opt for a professional course, which will help me
develop a career.
Being good with studies and scoring well in SSC led
me to choose the science stream. Like every other student, I was in dilemma
what to choose post HSC, given the plethora of career options available. At
that time, I had seen my neighbour work in a five star hotel as a hygiene
manager and the kind of work she did in hygiene and food safety excited me a
lot and I followed her footsteps of choosing food technology as a
specialisation course to pursue my career in.
I remember being asked by one of the professors
during my college days, “Where do you see yourself five years down the line?”
and my answer was “working in a five star hotel as a hygiene manager”. The
naïve answer that I gave at that time had become a dream without even having
the slightest idea on how I was going to
turn it into reality. Since then I knew I belonged to the hospitality industry
although in a different field altogether. I worked very hard throughout my college
days and topped my college too as I wanted the best internship. Being the
topper, in 2004, I was given an option to choose from Cadburys (the
organisation which every topper would aspire to join) and Hyatt Hotels (the
firm which was taking food technologists as interns for their in-house hygiene
lab, for the very first time). My heart knew what I wanted and it led me to
choose Hyatt Regency for my internship. I worked hard during the internship to
prove my mettle and that resulted in an offer to join their their Management
Trainee Program post my graduation.
At that time, the Hygiene Manager of the hotel was
Ms. Rupali Saxena, who eventually became my mentor, giving me guidance and
helping me develop the necessary skills to succeed in the field.
Just when I was feeling happy with the way my
career and life were shaping up, a personal loss struck me hard, four months
after joining Hyatt. My father passed away. This put the financial
responsibility of the house coupled with the responsibility of taking care of
my mother and younger brother (who was still studying) on my shoulders (Since
my sisters were already married by then)
The hardships that I faced in my life only made me
stronger and mature as an individual. I completed the Management Trainee
Program and graduated to becoming the Hygiene Officer. I could not move out of
Mumbai, as I had a family here to take care of. So, although moving to a
different city would have accelerated my career growth within the industry, I
had to choose the more difficult option. But my perseverance paid off and I
went on to become Assistant Manager- Hygiene and to finally heading the Hygiene
function of the hotel as the Hygiene Manager of the hotel. I spent close to 12
years with the same organisation, which shocked a lot of people, given the high
attrition rate in the industry, But I really enjoyed what I did – every bit of
it. And this passion for my work was instrumental in the success that I
achieved in this organisation.
There was a time when I was told to be mentally
prepared to quit the job in case I don’t get married in a family that would
allow me to work post marriage. I am grateful to God that I got married into a
family who, along with my husband, were modern in their thinking and were
supportive of me continuing to work even after marriage.
But it was an uphill task, trying to strike the
balance between my personal and professional life. And when I became a mother,
I thought it was an end to my career. Again, my mother-in-law came forward to
support me and I joined back work, struggling with the guilt of leaving my baby
at home. Career growth was not a priority at that point in my life , but the
flexibility which this organisation offered to me, in term of work timings,
helped me immensely to sail through this challenging phase of my life.
By this time, the food safety and hygiene function
had become my passion and I was craving to do something for the betterment of
the society. As a part of ‘green team’ of the hotel, I worked for quite a few
projects related to environment sustainability and was also awarded the
Hyinnovators award for suggesting and implementing the green concept of
converting used vegetable oil into an eco-friendly product – Biodiesel.
I also became a part of hotel’s Global Hand Washing
Day celebrations along with ‘Sundara Project’(which recycles used soaps
obtained from Hotels) where in I was given an opportunity to a conduct training
session on Hand Washing and Hand Hygiene for the children living in slum areas. I got a chance to conduct hygiene
sessions for various other children’s home too. I was the one who lead the
project of ISO 22000 certification for the hotel and our hard work of almost
three years lead to the final certification of the hotel. Being a part of this
project, I worked very closely with different teams of the hotel – be it
engineering, housekeeping, culinary, service, purchasing etc and integrating
the concept of ISO 22000 into the system was not only challenging but also a
great learning experience for me.
Being a part of Human Resources Team (surprisingly
as I reported to the Director of Human Resources), again for which I need to be
thankful to God , gave me an exposure to training, recruitment, payroll,
employee engagement activities too apart
from my core Hygiene related work. My thirst for learning was always there
which led me take up projects on my own and I kept learning something new every
time. I could have moved to HR or Training but my true passion was for Hygiene
and Food Safety. I knew that this field will have a great potential for growth
in the near future and hence it made me stick to the same career field. As of
today, I work with the Reliance Industries Ltd. whose next venture is into
hospitality sector with one of the largest convention centre coming up, helping
them set up food safety management systems is quite exciting and I look forward
to growing in this field.
With the launch of food safety regulations in
India, the food safety culture is changing in the country and the scope of
growth for professionals like me is very high. It gives you an opportunity in
training, auditing, consulting, R& D, Analysis and lot more. I really
believe in the adage “If you want to be successful in this world, follow your
passion not your paycheck”.
For all the women out there, who are struggling to be
a super – woman, I only have one piece of advice, “It’s okay to not be perfect
sometimes. You are doing a great job. Don’t give up on your dreams. Who says
it’s going to be easy! But you have to keep going! A positive attitude can
really make your dreams come true – it did for me”
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