The Defiant Bet
- Albert Schiller
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
My NoSmalltalk session with Dr. Deepa Sharma
A Single Stroke
A single moment, sometimes a single sentence, can establish a family's legacy. It can be a quiet resolve or a loud declaration, but it draws a line that defines every subsequent action. For Dr. Deepa Sharma's family, that moment came at her birth. As the third daughter in a society that prized sons, her arrival was met with unapologetic "condolences" from the community. Faced with pity, her mother went on the offensive. She made a powerful and defiant bet, a single stroke of rebellion that would become the elementary principle of her daughters' lives and, eventually, the core of Sharma's professional conviction.
Rejection of Establishments
The terms of the bet were a challenge to the patriarchal status quo. "You pitch your sons down the line with my daughters," her mother declared, "and we will live to see who does better." Her statement was no emotional reaction but the calculated declaration of a family owning its declared doctrine. It was a conscious rejection of the societal narrative and the establishment of a new one, built on the defiant premise that a person's potential is independent of their localization on a gender spectrum. This single moment reframed her daughters' identities. They were no longer a disappointment to be contained. Deepa was free to wield her potential into her own path.
The Gender-Agnostic Curriculum
This new doctrine was immediately translated into a practical and demanding curriculum. Sharma describes a "holistic, well-rounded, upbringing, gender, agnostic." The goal was to equip her and her sisters with a broad set of skills, completely untethered from what was considered culturally appropriate for girls. Her father taught her to ride a motorcycle. Her grandfather taught her to shoot guns. She learned to milk cows. This was not a symbolic education. It was a tangible, skill-based regimen designed to instill an abiding sense of pure capability, free from the constraints of gender expectations.
Defiant Empowerment
The most integral outcome of this upbringing was not a set of skills, but an altered set of reflexes. Sharma recounts the powerful story of a man inappropriately touching her friend on a Delhi street. Her friend, conditioned by a different upbringing, did not react. Sharma’s immediate impulse was confrontation. Her friend's explanation was a crude diagnosis of two distinct social programs: "I have been brought up to accept things... whereas your headspace is what the hell! How dare he?". Her parents' defiant bet had installed a new reflex that met injustice not with passive acceptance, but immediate action.
The Ripple Effect
That single stroke of rebellion has now rippled outward, becoming the foundation of Dr. Sharma's professional mission. The "privilege" forged in that moment is the "baseline" she now fights to establish for others. Her story is a testament to the fact that systemic change does not always begin with slow, institutional movements. It can start with individuals' immediate, unwavering resolve to create a new standard, beginning within their own homes. A single defiant bet, made in a moment of frustration or pride, can create a legacy of empowerment that has the potential to influence generations.
5 Lessons with practical values-
Open Questions
Dr. Sharma's story is a testament to her parents' "defiant bet." Reflect on your own upbringing or leadership philosophy. What was the "elementary principle" or single guiding doctrine that has most profoundly shaped your own reflexes and decisions?
Her friend's reaction to harassment was to "accept and continue," a "social program" installed by her upbringing. In your professional life, what is one accepted norm or "way things are done" that you suspect is a form of collective, learned passivity that needs to be defied?
What stood out most for me was how the doctrine wasn’t left as an idea but translated into a daily curriculum. That’s where so many families and even leaders fall short.