New Delhi: Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani on Sunday shared a personal reflection on women who shaped his life as well as those he valued. Sharing the message on the occasion of International Women’s Day, he also described them as “architects of my conscience”.
In his message on LinkedIn on International Women’s Day, the billionaire businessman talked about how women in his family played a crucial role in his life. He wrote about his mother, who introduced him to India’s epics and values embedded in them.
“I have always lived between two worlds, work and family. And everything I have built in the first world was made possible because of the strength I draw from the second. Thus, on International Women’s Day, I want to acknowledge the women who shaped my journey,” he wrote.
First classroom was mother’s lap: Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani added, “Before the world taught me anything, my mother, Shantaben, did. My first classroom was not a school. It was my mother’s lap. That is where I first heard the stories of our epics — stories that carried lessons far deeper than any textbook ever could”.
“One story stayed with me. The story of Kaushalya from the Ramayana, a mother who watched her son, Lord Rama, give up the rights to his kingdom and leave Ayodhya to walk into exile for fourteen years. As a child, I did not fully understand the depth of that sacrifice. I could not yet grasp what it meant for a mother to stand there and watch her son walk away into an uncertain future,” he wrote
Talking about how later in life he started understanding the moment differently, Gautam Adani noted, “Many years later, I began to understand that moment differently. At sixteen, I left home for Mumbai with almost nothing in my pocket and only a young man’s belief that he must try to build something of his own. My mother let me go”.
The businessman further observed that while his mother gave him values, his wife has been the keeper of his conscience. “If my mother gave me my values, my wife Priti has been the keeper of my conscience”.
Gautam Adani praises wife Priti
He further said, “When we got married, Priti was a qualified dentist with a promising career ahead of her. Yet she chose a very different path. She stepped away from her profession and in many ways from her own identity to dedicate her life to building the Adani Foundation”.
“What began as a small initiative has today touched over 10 million lives across 22 states of India, spanning education, healthcare, sustainable livelihoods and community development,” he noted.