Attitude of Gratitude
a very good evening to one and all
gratitude in advance is the most
powerful creative force in the universe
i happen to read these lines in a book
which was given to me to read in my
recent visit to kerala
and it really struck me
in the last one year we have seen a lot
the whole world was put to a standstill
what helped me to not break down
and to look up to each day was the
attitude of gratitude
when i used to feel completely lost and
confused
i used to just think about the things
that i’m blessed with
and that would give me the confidence to
look up
and face the day as it was
as a seven-year-old child when my father
walked into our home at 12 30 in the
night
he was surprised to see me watching tv
he asked me what i was watching and i
looked at the screen
i looked at him and i said i will be
miss india one day
i was watching the coronation of
aishwarya rai and sushmita sen
when my dad heard that
he just turned off the tv he asked me to
go to sleep
and said that you’re too late you have
to go to school tomorrow
he thought that i would sleep over it
and forget about it but little did he
know
that that dream would grow with me
fast forward to 2006
and i got the opportunity to work
with the men that had groomed the likes
of aishwarya rai priyanka chopra
diana hayden yukta mukhi
hemant trivedi
he looked at me and he said that you
should become miss india the day i heard
that
i saw that seven-year-old me who had
told my father that i will become miss
india one day
since then i realized that
every time i dreamt of something
and i worked towards it i would achieve
it
and that’s what i want to tell you guys
today
that dare to dream and dream with your
eyes open
there is a picture outside this
auditorium as you walk in
of bharat ratna sri apj abdul kalam
and there’s a wonderful quote of his
where he says
dreams are not those that you see in
your sleep
dreams are those that do not let you
sleep
his court has been my anthem
and i want you all young minds to dream
with your eyes open
when i was young i was extremely active
i loved to play outdoors
and one of the evenings
a girl a little older than me
called me a villager i was a little
stunned
why would she call me a villager
the reason was because i could not
communicate with her
in proper english
when i heard that explanation from her i
just smiled and i said
yes but i speak malayalam at home which
is my mother tongue
i read and write in that language i
communicate with my friends in school in
hindi
and the other language that i am taught
is marathi
english is the last language that i use
to communicate with people
so yes i’m not as good as you
but think about it you were born in a
family where english is your first
language
you go to a convent school where english
is compulsory
so yes your english is much better than
mine
she didn’t have an answer to that
as i grew i was subjected to
a lot of comments because i used to be
very skinny
so i was called chicken legs because i
had long legs
but then i took that in my stride
because that
became an advantage when i got into
modeling
i was told that i should not smile the
way i smile because my smile is too wide
i was also told that my laugh is too
loud
but i didn’t care because i know that
when i smile
i connect with people and when i laugh i
laugh from my heart
when i wanted to get into films i’ve
heard some really funny excuses
right from you’re too tall i’m only five
nine by the way i’m not
six feet nine that i’m too tall i’m too
skinny that i need to put on weight
i don’t look like a south indian and
the most funny one i’ve heard is that
you cannot be an actress because you’re
not a dancer in distress
that got me thinking and actually made
me feel powerful
so the lesson i learned from all these
incidences in my life is that
the world will try to bend you
and they will try to break you but they
can only do that if you let them too
so don’t feel let down by people’s
opinions
you are better than anyone else
and that is possible when you have the
confidence from within
we are as students and
as you know grown-up people we all love
the taste of success
right am i right or wrong
how many of us likes to fail anyone
no one no one likes to fail right
but failure happens life
can never be a steady line that can only
happen when we are dead
life will always be ups and downs
so failures are bound to happen
we have been taught of that word as
something as a sin
you can’t fail in examinations you can’t
fail in relationships
you can’t fail in life
and there’s so much of pressure built
into us right from childhood
i felt the same in fact i felt like my
world has come to an end
the night of the coronation of miss
world
when my name was called out as first
runners-up
i could not move for a few seconds
because i had expected to win i had
worked hard
i was told by my contestants
that they see me as miss world so when i
was called as the first runners-up
i i was devastated
that journey one year from then
made me realize a lot of things
that in prosperity people know you
in adversity you know the real people
suddenly all my well wishers had
vanished
and i was left to fend for myself
thinking has my world ended
and then i realized there are so many
things
that i can do other than this
and i started exploring so
failures are not
the end of your world failure
is a mere pit stop for you to refuel
rethink and move towards your goals
there is an incident that happened on
the night
of the crowning when my name was
called out as first runners-up i looked
into the crowd
and i saw my mother and my father
my mom knew immediately that i wasn’t
happy
but she signaled me from the crowd to
keep smiling she was my strength
and that strength gave me
the ability to keep smiling through that
night
that made me realize the simplicity with
which
my parents had grown up
and that is the value that they had
taught me
so keep it simple and keep it real
it’s very easy to connect with people
when you’re open
to knowing them and they would want to
know you even better
there’s another very strong
experience that changed my viewpoint
about
the way i look at people my mother and i
were walking out out from subway
my mother was holding a can of coca-cola
with her
and a little boy wearing black shorts
looked very dirty might have not
showered in days
came up to me and he said that he wants
money
i ignored him he went up to my mother
and he said that he’s hungry that he
wants some money
so my mom just handed over the can of
coca-cola
he said auntie i need something to eat
usually what kids do is if we buy them a
packet of biscuits
they just return it back to the store
and get the money
so my mom went to the pawn shop nearby
bought him a packet of parleji
opened it and gave it to him the little
boy
sat down right in the footpath dunked
the parleji in the coca-cola
ate it and the gleam he had in his eyes
i still remember and that
completely broke me
because i realized how genuinely hungry
he was
and how privileged i was to be able to
eat whatever i want whenever i want
from that day onwards i used to always
carry a packet of biscuits
or chocolates with me in the car and
give it to the kids
and i’ve seen some of the most genuine
smiles on their faces
it takes a lot to actually get out of
your comfort zone
and do something absolutely new
because once you get into the whole
cycle of
doing something you’re very happy in
that whole process
but i was never brought up to just
settle
i was always told to do what i feel like
and that gave me the opportunity to
experiment and explore
after decade of being in the fashion
industry when i realized that i was not
happy anymore
i decided to leave everything and move
to new york
and study food which has been my passion
since childhood
and there i learned
[Music]
the amount of wastage that happens in a
hotel industry
the amount of food that we waste in our
homes
because we have so much food in excess
there are different parts in the world
where people die of hunger
so my work is towards bridging that gap
we all can be part of it if we make sure
and make conscious decision about the
food we eat
go back to our roots and understand the
food that our
grandparents ate why they ate it
why they ate food according to the
seasons
it is going to make a great impact in
the future of this world
and having said that i want to say
that you young minds
are the present of this country you
are the future of this world
if you want to see a change in our life
in the world outside we have to bring
that change within ourselves
so the change has to start from you
university degrees yes can earn you a
good job
give you a good salary but it cannot
earn you
something that’s priceless and very
uncommon and that’s common sense
i see a lot of people who are educated
illiterates they’ll have a lot of
degrees
but they will roll down their windows
throughout the garbage from their cars
they will have fun and they just spit on
the roads
a country like india which has
everything
from snow cloud mountains to rainforests
to the desert
to everything you can think of in the
world we have it in our country
and if we consciously make a decision
to make people aware of that in the
world
they will have more respect and they
will look at
us in a different light
i am extremely grateful to be here today
and to be able to share
the things that i have learned in my
short span of life
and we really can make a difference if
we choose to
there is a poem by dr seuss
where he says you have brains in your
head
feet in your shoes you can steer your
life
in whatever direction you choose
you’re on your own you know what you
know
and it is you who decides where to go
on that note thank you very much and
namaste