Grief arrived early to Ankita. At just 20, when she was finding her footing in the world outside, the guiding light of her life was gone forever. Depression gripped Ankita, and laid her heart in pieces. At the edge of an unseen storm, Ankita watched her life drift past a haze of fated pain. Life went on, forever finding new ways to test her ethics.
Getting to step inside IIT Delhi is a dream that burns in the hearts of countless young aspirants. For Ankita, it was the very first place she could call home. She didn’t have to earn her way past its gates as she was born inside them. Her father, a respected professor of Biochemical Engineering at IIT Delhi, lived with his family in self-contained quarters nestled between the campus’s green pockets reserved for faculty. Tree-lined roads, geometrically trimmed gardens, and amenities that made life feel almost weightless. The air was thick with the scent of old books and a gentle trace of ambition lingering in every hallway. “I had the most privileged childhood ever” she chuckled.
Ankita’s pre-schooling began at Kendriya Vidyalaya tucked inside the IIT campus, where her earliest lessons were in Hindi. In time, her family sensed the need for a school with English as the medium of learning. She soon switched to the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Delhi, where her formal schooling began. “Every afternoon, I’d come back home, the sun still warm on my face, I’d change in my white tracks and be out again, running to my friends on campus. We’d head to the art room and start painting any object. Then dash off for badminton or drama rehearsals. I’d get a front row seat for any drama and shows happening on the campus, and quite often than not, it’s me performing. If it weren’t for the coolest projects i got to do in my campus science lab, I wouldn’t have earned straight A's in school.” Ankita’s recalls with the excitement of a five-year-old. You could say she grew up with a foot in two classrooms and got the best of two worlds. “School gave me reading and oratory skills, but home got me out of bed each day.”
Time, like sunlight on the campus lawns, hurried into evening. Five of Ankita’s closest friends prepared to become engineers. Surrounded by an elite group of coders throughout her early teens, Ankita could have followed her friends and her father into familiar careers. But there was an invisible thread pulling her apart from the rest. Ankita’s life grew around the principles her dad laid down for her: “You should be unreplacable”, “You should be a value asset” and “Never do things principally wrong.” She carried them like notes folded in her pocket, every day.
Ankita’s parents wanted her to learn to live independently. She saw her father as someone who could mentor her for life’s toughest situations and give her the most logical answers. After her 10th boards, she went on to pursue a five-year dual degree in BBA and LLB at Symbiosis International University, Hyderabad. Flying away from her hometown was a simple yes to her father’s faith in her. She carried a small suitcase and a few seeds of courage into her hostel room. College gave her an outlet to see the world beyond the glass walls of IIT. She learned to socialize, joined intercollege debates, and did very well. “My parents did a good job sending me to a hostel. It opened doors to try different things, and manage my life and my day to day”.
You don’t happen to notice how fragile life is until it reminds you otherwise. After her second year, Ankita flew back to Delhi at her home for Holi. She sat with her father and spent the whole day ranting about her college stories and little pieces of her world. The next day, she went to play Holi, came back and watched a movie together. The next morning, Ankita did not get to sit with her father anymore. “He was just waiting for me to come home.” Her father was taken away by tuberculosis, worsened by the city’s pollution. This devastating loss threw her into a year-long void. “Though I’ve come a long way since then, I still sometimes miss his presence. Some days at work, I face situations and feel like Baba had told me this would happen.” Her voice trembled with emotion.
Ankita returned to Hyderabad to complete her degree. She interned on various law projects and also carried out research. “I love research. It’s in my DNA!” She co-authored a book on the digitalization of law, even presenting her paper at Oxford University. Her interest naturally gravitated toward tech law space. A brief stint at a think tank gave her a taste of that world, but the pandemic paused everything. With frozen hiring, Ankita refused to let her degree collect dust. She cleared the Bar Council exam and earned her right to represent in court. But as she stepped into practice, the cracks in the system grew visible. “There are times when your client is guilty and your job is to prove him less so.” The paradox sat heavy on her chest and her ethics felt tested. Since she was already interested in tech law, one of her close relatives suggested she check for open-source licensing. Sometimes, the path finds you at the least expected timings.
“I happened to come across a very interesting post on culture and democracy by Rushabh Mehta so I followed him.” It all started with that single post. “On December 11, 2020, Rushabh posted that he was looking for a tech lawyer and I knew that was my calling!” Three days later, Ankita found herself on a video call with him for an interview that began with, “Did you read the newspaper today?” It went all the way to many situational questions in data and privacy. Within a week with the offer letter in hand, she was introduced to the very culture she initially got hooked at. The first few months crawled by as she began to understand the business. “I initially felt overwhelmed but everyone from the team helped me understand everything so well.” This time, Ankita felt seated at the right place at the right time. “For me to do the legal work here was very easy because Frappe will not do anything that is principally wrong.”
Two years flew by with Ankita grounded in legal work. In the thick of times, she felt that she can also test her ability in other areas and grow out. Since Frappe allows you to switch and do what you’re interested in, she took the safest risk. Seeing the potential of growth in sales for the African market, she decided to take that up entirely. Three years into the role as Partner Manager, Africa, she grew the business tenfold by breathing sales and partnerships day in and out, and standing tall on her principles. “Today, I know the African market better than anyone at Frappe.”
She often turns to Ratan Tata’s values in business. His work sometimes gives her a lens to weigh her own choices. "I always want to be surrounded by influential people because they remind me how much more there is to learn.” At the edge of doing, Ankita also enjoys living. So, after work, she immerses herself in attending cultural and pop concerts. “In a Bengali home, art is always around, so my fascination with them began early in my life.” Ankita loves history and the intersection of history and food. So, given an alternate life, she dreams of becoming a Food Historian.
At the crossroads of intent, life tests you. You can bend to the world, or stand by your ethics and walk your own road. Ankita, at every point of her life, was aware of what she was doing. The going in her life was less difficult because she held fast to her father’s simple lessons. And if you were to take away something from her story, let it be this: “Stick to your principles, and the rest figures itself out.”
