Yes, We Hear You

Outlook Speakout was all about her story in her own words

- Ruben Banerjee

DR Renu Khator is any way tall. But she loomed taller still as she rec­ounted her life story before a packed audience in New Delhi last week. The occasion was the Outlook Speakout event and she was delivering the second Vinod Mehta Memorial Lecture held annually to pay tribute to our founder-­editor.

As Khator traced her remarkable journey— from a girl born in Farrukhabad of Uttar Pradesh to the longest-serving Chancellor of the University of Houston System in the United States—jaws dropped in disbelief and respect for her hit the roof. Till the age of 19, she couldn’t speak even a word of English. But married off and sent to the US, she scripted her own success story. Besides watching programmes on television to learn English, she doggedly pursued her education. The rest is history.

In hindsight, there couldn’t have possibly been a better person to deliver our event’s most important speech than Khator. Her single-minded determination and unflinching doggedness to excel have lessons for all of us. It tells us that where there’s a will there’s a way. Since the overarching theme of this year’s Outlook Speakout was women empowerment, Khator’s address narrating her own journey to the top assumed greater significance.

Outlook Speakout is aimed at encouraging participants to speak out and also be outspoken. Khator’s oration tugged many hearts and set the tone for the evening that witnessed several other women achievers narrate their own stories, perhaps not as dramatic as that of Khator but no less powerful.