[Forbes India] Why ApnaKlub Shruti doesn't mind being an angry young woman
The cofounder and CEO of of the B2B wholesale FMCG platform channelises her anger to defy norms, discard labels and fight gender bias
By Rajiv Singh, Forbes India Staff
People kept stoking her anger. And it started early in Shruti’s life. “Such a sad thing. The poor guy has three daughters,” the young girl—the second-born or the middle child—used to feel enraged whenever somebody commented on her IAS father’s ‘misfortune’. Little did she know that such jibes would persistently revisit in various avatars, and at various places, including school, during her growing up years.
During her senior secondary days, Shruti, who only goes by her first name, found enough fuel to jack up her anger. “Girls are not good at maths,” was how one of her teachers commented. “Take chemistry. It’s easy to mug up. And you won’t flunk,” the teacher dished out an unsolicited advice. When such remarks became alarmingly repetitive, they started affecting Shruti’s psyche and confidence. “At some point, you start believing in such nonsense,” recalls Shruti, who discussed the issue with her father, who completed his MTech from IIT-Delhi and had been encouraging her to take up engineering. “Do you know how much you scored in maths?” he asked. “Trust me, it’s better than what most would score in India,” the doting father assured his diffident daughter who realised it was not easy being a girl in science and maths.