Mr. Joydeep Dutta Roy
Executive Director
Indian Overseas Bank
(Formerly also ED, Bank of Baroda)

NIKITA, for me, has been and shall always be someone whom I can easily associate with when I think of the word “inspiring”. Her journey so far has been nothing short of this and I am sure that much of what she will and can do is still to be unravelled. 

As one of her first bosses when she joined Bank of Baroda as a young management trainee fresh from Campus, I could see that she did not fit into any stereotypes. Being associated with the HR Campus recruitment process then in Bank of Baroda, I did come to know that her candidature and visual impairment had raised many discussions amongst the companies who had come for the campus hiring and that was because life tends to often rely on stereotypes. But I am so glad that BOB went above that and we saw the qualities in that young girl who inspite of her visual handicap, had been able to secure a seat in a top ranking B-School of the country like JBIMS, had topped her class, had multiple distinctions to her credit, had many extra-curricular achievements in fields like singing and also had great ideas on how to transform one of the most critical functions of an organization like HR. 

As she joined us, we soon realized that she was different, not because of her inability of sight but because of her “in-sights” of character, strength, positivity, determination, compassion and a belief that says whatever be the odds, “I will make it possible”. Her keenness to learn, solve issues and change ideas immediately marked her as one who could be given new things or new initiatives to work on. She excelled because of her innate nature to always move forward, learn and try out new things. I always found value in whatever she did and the Bank’s reliance on her and confidence on her abilities kept growing. That is how she rose quickly through the ranks to become one of the youngest serving Dy. General Managers now in the history of the Bank, so much so for stereotypes. 

She has handled a lot of key assignments and portfolios, largely in HR and training, as that was her forte but what stood out is also her active championing of the causes of people with disabilities, and how to make them included, skilled, deployed suitably and mainstreamed. As a society, I can see that this is one area clearly where there’s still a lot of work to do but people like Nikita show us the power, the ability and the resolve that’s there inherent in them too. Nikita has done it alone fighting her own battles, and that is why she is even more special. Her recent focus on DEI (Diversity, equity and Inclusion), including her recent book on the subject takes this movement further. 

Never allowing her visual impairment to come in the way of her work and progress, she mastered the hearing software “JAWS” to such an extent, that she was able to hear the same words and text that others read through their eyes but at around 3-4 times the speed or even more. I once tried her headphone once to have an experience of how documents were heard through the software but to my utter jaw dropping moment, I couldn’t understand a word of it as the speed at which Nikita used to listen was so high that for a normal person like me, it was all garbled stuff. That is how she had heightened her other skills and senses and made them work much more for her than that one sense that she did not have. My respect for her grew manifold that day. 

I am not just so proud of her and her achievements but I indeed feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to know her so closely. She was also our own Lata Mangeshkar and Tedex speaker, both rolled into one, and that enchanting voice, clearly captivating could also be so deeply motivating. Had I not known her, I may not have realized the innate power that resides in any human being, something which Nikita embodies. Nikita has always been a very special person and she will remain always SPECIAL. Nikita was also bestowed with the President’s medal and National Award in the year 2020 for her achievements. Its a distinctive honour and a rare privilege for any citizen to receive the President’s medal, but, Nikita is indeed rare. God bless her and may her inspiration touch many more countless lives with the belief of what “I CAN” and not of what I can’t.