Women are not equal, they’re more than men: Kalli Purie
Everyday brings with it the conflicts and the choices that women must face, and decide almost instantly what to do and what not do. The conflicts are many, but most of the time, women emerge stronger and smarter, because of the snap decisions they make not just for themselves, but for a whole lot of people around them.
Kalli Purie, the India Today Group Editorial Director for Broadcast and New Media, makes being a woman seem easy and graceful. But the media queenbee gleefully admits that takes indeed a lot of work.
At the India Today Woman Summit 2017, for example, Purie candidly explained that the conflict between that extra hour of sleep and that extra hour the company needs from you for it to stay ahead and stay meaningful – that’s the conflict at the heart of being who she is.
Purie, a modern-day feminist who is feisty and unwavering about the principles, yet easygoing on the face of it all, wearing a smile and her excellent ability to grasp any development unfolding outside the confines of the newsroom, is therefore never ever apologetic about being a woman.
She doesn’t say managing the newsroom or managing the country is a man’s job. As far as Purie is concerned, women are “Darwin’s fittest” because they can house a little human being inside for nine months and still come across as smiling, happy people.
That’s why Purie thinks that rewarding the “SheHeroes” of our society – the women achievers, the idols, the politicians, the leaders, the scientists, the teachers, the singers, the artists, the writers, the beauty queens, the actors – each and every one of the wonder women, is important.
At India Today Woman Summit 2015, Purie said she believes women are not just equal to men, women are much more. We’re hard-wired to do more, multitask; write that article while also advising a dear friend about important life decisions; run marathons, while also stopping awhile to offer a helping hand to the one who has fallen down; and to all of that with a smile.
Most women working at India Today share this trait with Kalli Purie, or at least want to emulate her, inspired by her strong opinions. It’s infectious, her ability to blend the newsroom into a place where women are not just the content makers, they are content to be a part of the newsroom.
The everyday choices that Purie emphasises make women who they are. And Purie voices all the emotions that come along with being a woman – love and warmth, fierce ambition, clear insight, guilt over not having enough time, desiring more from the partners, and rightfully so, and chasing that ever elusive work-life balance in 21st century India – all that and more.
With her frank approach to the problems that women face in the contemporary workplace as well as in life, at home and in office, in colleges and schools, and at the playground, on the International Space Station, or deep underground probing for imprints of creatures that once walked the earth, Purie makes for a fine role model.
A role model who puts forward her own journey, her own travails and conflicts, her doubts and guilt trips, her smile and ambition, and all that making up a woman of the new India.