Episode Transcript
Hello. My name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She's really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about
the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health. But when they listen to
the rare girls podcasts where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories,
Many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all insecurities they will feel.
It is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique beauty and to feel their self-worth.
And they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success and support their dreams.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Debangi Choudhury. Debangi is from Kolkata, India.
She completed her BTEC in computer science and engineering in the year 2021.
Her hobbies include singing, sketching and coding.
She is a self-confessed gym freak as well.
Debangi, how are you today?
I'm great. What about you?
I feel blessed. I feel very positive and curious to know much, much more about you.
So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is,
Deyabangi, if your friends and those who love you very much could describe your personality,
what would they say about you?
Okay. So the first thing they would say is that I'm a very jolly person,
like always happy and very enthusiastic about life, optimistic. That's all the good things.
Also a little impatient sometimes, that's the only red flag you can say.
So yeah, that's it.
And I always love to hang around with happy people and people who cheer me up.
So obviously they are also happy and they would obviously say always good things about
everyone.
I love that.
That's magnificent.
and I want to ask you because psychologically even the human brain was built for worrying
and negativity because when you're negative at least you survive because you're always
paranoid about everything but nowadays we don't need that. Did you have that experience where
at a point in your life you let negativity take over and you decided and said no,
I'm going to be a jolly girl or you're born this way.
And if anything, how did you develop and cultivate this happiness and optimism?
OK, so basically no one is like perfect.
Everyone has their ups and downs, even I have.
So since childhood, I have not had a very good environment at my house.
So since I've grown up in a very toxic environment,
So I have adapted myself like that, that I have to keep myself happy in my own space.
Doesn't matter what the world is doing. I have to keep my own peace. That's how.
But yeah, even to this day, I sometimes feel very low and overthinking is one of the worst
things I do in daily basis, even during the night before sleeping. So that gives me a lot
trauma but you know I believe I'm a firm believer in whatever happens in your life is everything for
your good even if today something bad is happening with you you don't realize it now but in the
future when you look back you will see that yeah that thing happened and that made me who
I am today that was for my benefit only. I love that and let's say it in a different way
Imagine there are some girls who are in a toxic environment and the toxic environment is robbing
them of their energy. How can they claw their way out into their own independent environment?
Is it like literally they should not talk to the people who are toxic even if they are
close to them and within their family and get angry? Or what would you do? Is it that they
should study far, far away from that environment.
And then as soon as they're out,
they're like, I'm done, I'm happy now.
Or how can they get enough energy to get out
so that they can build positive momentum?
Okay.
I would say that's exactly what me talking about.
So I have been in a toxic situation,
but what has helped me was my mom.
She's a hero in my life.
She like, she is a very positive person,
even through the darkest times of her life.
So this is all I have learned from her
and how she overcome was actually when I was growing up,
she looked towards me
that she had to survive all these things for me
so that I can grow up and be a better person for myself.
So for any girl who is in a toxic situation,
it's not that you have to stop talking to that person
because it's not that easy.
It's never easy. You have to survive in that but never feel helpless. You know that you are capable
of a lot of things without those people also. You need to know your worth, who you are, how you
were and you need to know that if in life you get a better opportunity to do something better
you will straight get the hell out of there.
Yeah.
So at the very first opportunity,
you don't have to leave them immediately,
but when you are stable enough, you can.
Thank you.
So they should focus on stability
and it makes me think and remember
that you mentioned something important,
which is that you surround yourself
with positive, optimistic people
who don't talk badly about others.
They're not overly judgmental
and you said one of your red flags is impatience.
Well, let's say there are younger girls
or even women who spend all their lives with family
and they went now abroad.
Maybe they, you or them, they go to Dubai
or any other place for university or for work
and they meet new people.
What are the things that let you know,
this is my kind of person,
this is a sincere and positive person.
And what are some red flags that you think,
Oh no, this is the beginning of something toxic.
Let me get the hell out of here, they are fast.
So how do you choose people?
How do you know them?
What are the green flags and red flags you look for
that other women can learn from?
Okay, so step one is when we get into a new environment,
we try to interact with as many people as we can.
At the first sight, we don't really know
who is good for me, who is bad for me.
So we try to interact with everyone. But the key here is to not make friends with everyone you interact with.
People can just stay your acquaintances. You spend some time around with some sort of people.
And yeah, you can realize like I have been in a situation where I've seen people bad mouthing about others for no reason.
Then I realized that if that person is bad-mouthing about him or her, he can do it at my back also.
This is one of the red flags. And other red flags, actually, it doesn't always have to be red flags.
It also can be conflict of interest. Like sometimes different people, opinions are different.
It's not like that opinions can be different. You can think in a certain way. I can think
a certain way and I respect everyone's opinion but it always makes a good choice to be around people
who are like you so yeah it doesn't mean I don't have friends with different opinions I do
definitely do but you have to know that who respects you that is the first thing which
person respects you. And actually, to think that way, usually when I go into a new environment,
I meet with people who are not very judgmental. Not very judgmental. They are like, and intelligent.
You're smart as people. I love being around them because you are the average of people
you are around with. And to say I can't recall anymore, it flies as of now. But
yeah, I'll say that one thing I've said that people who are always happy and love to see people
around happy as well. Mostly that's all. And yeah, people who also like love coding.
I tend to be into that group most of the time.
Thank you. We will speak even more about that. But for now, you are a self-confessed gym freak.
We live in a time where because of social media, many women and girls grew up watching other
photoshopped women who seem to look perfect compared to them. They forget those girls,
their unique beauty, they feel depressed, they hate their bodies. Is it for you something
that you recommend, you believe that you working out was big part of your healing,
your mental health and your love for your, how you look and your body.
Is it something you're still struggling with?
And you believe that social media can be a gift and occurs.
How was your own experience with this?
Because too many women, it can be depressing and it makes them lose any
potential for confidence by comparing themselves to unrealistic,
like impossible Photoshop photos.
First of all, the beautiful, pretty women you see in social media, that's not reality.
Even they have their problems, if you dig deep into their lives, they always have problems.
They just don't show it.
And you have your problems, you don't need to compare yourself with them because they,
you are seeing only what they are showing you, right?
Yeah, there are perfectly pretty women in the world.
And I would say that it never affected me in such a way because I never really focused
on looks that much.
I always focused on because my priorities are different.
I always focused on my education, how am I going to do better in life and not really
on how I'm looking. Yeah, looking presentable is always recommended, but not more than that.
So yeah, it never let me down to look at the women in social media, how pretty they are,
because I know that however pretty or successful they might be, they had their own share
of struggle as well, which we don't know. Coming to the question how Jim helped me
was yeah, so I enrolled into gym like a year back
and it definitely helped me
because I can see myself getting stronger.
My only goal to go to gym was to get fit and get strong,
not to get a perfect body.
Yeah, that will come itself.
That's not the goal,
but the goal was to be fit and be stronger
and I can see myself being better physically,
mentally. Jim is helping me a lot in that. Thank you for that. And how is it then
related to coding? What part or what fascinates you about coding?
Especially you spoke about that you worry a lot even as you are drifting to
sleep. So I imagine that you are more emotional, that you're affected and
are sensitive by emotions while coding is all about suspending emotions to be
How does that work?
So basically, yeah, you are right there.
I am very emotional.
I do think about a lot of stuff too much when I get emotional, but coding helps me
in a way that it keeps my mind away from those things.
Yeah.
It acts as a shield, like it can be anything, not only coding for me, it's coding for
other people.
It can be some other hobbies or something they like, but what it is that it keeps
my mind at work, which is a good thing. And my overthinking process, I don't appreciate
it. I hate it. I want to eliminate that thing from my life because it's not doing any good
to me. What happens is like, when I like I'm a working professional, so I code during
my work as well. And when I'm even not working after the eight hours of work shift,
I'm also like practicing some coding and doing something else. So that totally keeps
my mind away and keeps me emotionally stable
so that I don't think about all the things
that are not useful to me.
Thank you so much.
And you are a woman in IT.
In India, which is an IT country,
you can say it has a lot of powerful ability
to have businesses in IT.
There are many jobs.
And at the same time,
India is more of a conservative country.
How is it that a woman is being able to make her mark within the IT field in India?
Is it commonplace and already normalized?
Are you struggling with some stereotypes?
Tell me your experience, especially that you love it,
which means there are parts of it that you love more than any negative parts.
Yeah, you're right. India is a conservative country.
But, you know, India is a very big country and in every part of India,
you will find different types of people
with different beliefs and different mindset.
I live in a city.
Here, people are very encouraging, even my parents.
My mom has always wanted since childhood.
The two professions parents prefer
are like doctor and engineer in India.
These are the two things.
They don't know anything apart from that.
So when I grew up, I got into an engineering college, of course, so no, not really.
I didn't face any negative.
I only faced appreciation for it.
And when I got my job, also to mention I am in India, but I actually work for a remote.
I actually work for a startup in US.
So it's a remote job.
So basically, I have, I can tell you what I've heard from my friends who work here in India,
but none of us face any judgment or so. But one thing is that the number of women in IT
are very less compared to men. That's one thing. But no, India is, maybe it's conservative,
but people are very supportive for rising women.
I like that. I support that as well. And you as someone working in an IT company,
a startup in the US, well, it means you could live anywhere in the world. You could be in Bali
and then the next day you can be in Tokyo and then the next day you can be in Hawaii.
Why are you staying in Kolkata? Is it related since you spoke about your mother a lot? Maybe
have family, friends, and all those people you want there? And why not go spend a couple of years
all over Europe and different parts of the world just to live while you can have that digital
nomad lifestyle? That's a very good question you have asked. So basically I've been working for
not long, like since one and a half years after my graduation. So and since you said
I have talked a lot about my mother since you have said that I have talked a lot about my mother
it's because after I got my first job actually my second job this one so I have started my whole
life as a new with my mother me and my mother we have started a new life we have settled together
and I'm financially not that well right now because starting a new family
is a totally new process and I'm the only earning member in my family and the only income source.
So it will take some time to save a lot of money to go be a digital nomad.
I'm planning on that, but it will take some time. So I'm waiting for that day.
Thank you. And to understand you're involved with a startup in the US,
do you also have dreams of building your own apps, of being your own girl boss,
of having some leadership within that, or you think it's too stressful,
it's better that you divide labor, focus on coding and not like do those other things.
How is your attitude and your personality related to that?
Yeah, definitely. I plan to build something of my own in the near future,
but I haven't thought about it yet. I'm learning new skills every day to upgrade myself
so that I can build something myself and I haven't yet come up with the idea so I can't
share with you but I will I definitely will I really want to my actually the goal behind
that is to build something of myself and that serves the purpose only when I can
give employment to a much larger number of people because in India jobs actually population
is very high and the job availability is low. So if you can give opportunities to a lot of people
that makes a huge difference for the country. I understand and I know that you have an Instagram
page where you are sharing insights related to coding. Can you share the story? How did you
get that idea? What is your vision for the project? Where can people find it to find out
I'll make sure to write in the description the link to the page as well.
So to start with it, I started this page one and a half years back, yes.
The objective was not to share everything because that time I was still in the learning process.
I was learning new technologies.
So one day I came up with an idea that since I'm not able to keep up with the schedule every day,
I should make something more strict, a strict schedule.
So I can make a page where I can share every day
what I'm learning and that will keep me focused
to post every day.
And that will force me keep binding to the schedule
and learn every day.
So when I started this page,
every day I used to do a campaign of 100 days of code.
Hashtag, you can search on hashtag 100 days of code.
So there, people post every day.
It's like learning in public.
You learn and you show the world what you are learning.
So that helps a lot of people.
So I started that page with that intention.
And then slowly I started to realize that,
yeah, since I'm learning and I can see
that people are also reaching out to me,
like beginners are reaching out to me,
asking for help, asking for someone to guide them.
So I thought, why not make these concepts easier for people and share them on this platform.
So if you see my page now, I post different topics every day and in a very simpler languages
for beginners to understand.
Basically one post every, I make two posts every day, one for what I'm learning each
and one for like simple topics where I like it's like a guide it's a like short
summary of the topic where you can read everything about it so that's how I do
and now I have recently crossed one 10,000 followers there and since I have
seen people still reaching out to me about where to start how to start
that really motivates me to keep going with this page.
And I am looking forward to reach more people
and soon I'll be starting my own mentorship programs also.
Thank you so much for that.
I encourage all your success.
I wish you to impact even more people and to finish this.
Do you have any advice for women
who might feel stuck in their comfort zone,
they're living to other people's expectations and family,
but their heart wants to do something else
and then their worry keeps telling them,
oh no, what if you don't do what your parents want
and then you do it and then they don't help you
and then you die or whatever it is.
So how can they get the confidence
to go out of their comfort zone,
go after their big dreams and live their potential
rather than sacrifice their life
because they cannot say no to some people
who have expectations for them
that they don't really want.
it applies to a lot of women here in India. People are mostly bound to listen to their families
because parents here think that they are the wisest ones. But yeah, they may be wise according
to their time and what they face, but they don't know what is going on in today's world.
You know that. So for that to work, it's not always easy to convince your parents
that you want to pursue your dreams.
So basically, suppose you want to be an actor.
That's a really tough job in India
to convince your parents to be an actor.
But okay, suppose if you want to be an actor
and your parents are not giving you permission
or not agreeing to that
because it's not a stable future for you.
It's very unpredictable, not stable
because parents want the best for you.
why they stop you. They want a stable future and a stable profession for you. That's why
they always ask to be doctors and engineers. Okay. So what you can do is you can hide it
from them and do some gigs on your own and then show them your success that look,
I have done this. I am capable of this. So you can let me do this. And one of the things is
you can ask for some time. A lot of people use this like give me one year and I'll do this
okay and I'll show you if I don't succeed it's fine I listen to you but if I do you have to
listen to me and let me do this. Thank you so much Debangi. It was my privilege and my honor
to have you here to share your voice your perspective and I encourage you to keep going
to reach all your dreams and to make enough money to take care of your mother and live
your digital nomad life and keep going higher and higher
and have your own startup in the US as well in the future
and make it a big dent and transformation in this world.
Thank you again for participating.
Thank you.
I'm honored to be a part of this project.
