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Have all of you
suffered from TEDx [unclear]

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(Laughter)

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One of the most
ridiculous questions

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that I get to hear from many people
at different times

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is "who is superior,
a man or a woman?"

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The idea of gender discrimination,
it frustrates me.

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It baffles me.

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At times, it really
makes me sad.

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So, there is almost
divine irony in the fact that

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I was born in Rajasthan
which is north west India.

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It's a beautiful place

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with rich culture,
colors, and history,

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but the sad thing is
that a lot of people decided

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to stick with a lot of
damaging traditions.

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One of the most damaging
from them is the idea

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that a woman has a very
belittling place in society.

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I go to villages, and one of the things
I see there is

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10, 12 year old girls who are
playing outside their house.

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Except a few months later
when I go there, I don't see them.

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So I asked somebody. I said,
"What happened to them?"

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They said, "They've attained
puberty now,

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so they are not going to be allowed
to step out of their house."

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I see eight year old girls
getting married.

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Marriage is not always
the solution as well.

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It's not always a guarantee
that your life will now turn out to be ok.

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So, this notion which is not just
an Indian thing

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I see it outside India as well.

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That the dignity of a family or society

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lies on the shoulders of women

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while a man can get away
with absolutely anything.

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I find it very, very
humiliating sometimes.

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So, all these ideas put together,

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sort of came together to me
when I was growing up.

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I grew up in Dubai,
and I live in London now.

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When I was growing up,
I learned something.

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I learned that we can have
two realities, two different realities.

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And, I learned that they can coexist.

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Some people have
more than two realities,

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which is fine, I guess,
if it works for them.

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But, I realized that I was not okay

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with these realities
being completely separate.

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I wanted to find a way
to bridge them.

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I wanted one
to transcend to another.

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So, my journey took me
back to India

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at the age of 26
3 years ago.

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Did you notice how nicely I put my age 
in there making me look young?

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So 3 years ago,
I went back to India

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and I wanted to answer this question

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"What is the meaning to my life?"

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I have the luxury to travel
to education.

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"What is the point of all of this?"

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I started doing work
in the field of education.

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When I was doing that,

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I thought what if we do
a TEDx event in the village.

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It will be really fascinating.
I've been to TED events.

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I love the whole atmosphere.
It's fabulous.

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I was thinking
"Can this work in a village?"

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"Can we get the same feeling
that all of you are feeling here today?"

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"Can I get the same thing
in a rural context?"

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So, I was in this idealistic trance,

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and I thought you wanna do
something good for people

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they're gonna welcome you.

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So in 2010, I decided
I wanted to organize a TEDx event.

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My TEDx event is called
TEDxShekhavati.

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I started running into problems.

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Some of them, things
that I got to hear, were

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"Because you're a woman
organizing this event

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it's a bad thing.
It's against our religion.

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You are corrupting
[the moral] fabric of our society."

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And after all of that,
after working on this for like a year,

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7 days before the event, they finally say,
"Okay, how do we stop her?".

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They tell me, "if you
wanna go on stage,

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you have to wear niqab
to cover your face."

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I said, "No! Because I wear
the burkha for myself.

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I don't wear it for other people."

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I don't like the idea
of wearing a niqab on stage

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and talking to the same people
without it.

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So, after I refuse this,
they say,

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"Well, we're taking away the venue.

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We're not going to let
you do the event on that venue."

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So, I had 300 people,
had speakers coming in,

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and I didn't have a place for them.

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In a couple of days, I managed
to organize another ground.

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By then, I was so demotivated
that I thought,

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"I'll have 20 people. It's okay.
We will just have a nice time."

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And, on the day of the event,

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we had 1,200 people
who came for this conference.

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(Applause)

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So, the next year 2011, I thought
this time I'll pick a school.

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I took a school which is a school
for Harijans.

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Harijians are
the untouchable people in India.

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They are not untouchable because they
have got an illness or something,

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but because they come
from the lowest caste.

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They are stuck in the cycle of poverty,
can never get out of it.

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They are denied
education as well.

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So, that school is
almost a 100 years old.

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It has slowly become a school
where poor children go.

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So, when I went to the school, this was
one of the classrooms in the school.

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What we did with that school,

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-- I went to that school recently and
couldn't recognize it's the same school--

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We built toilets. So, finally there were
toilets in the school after a 100 years.

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We painted the school.

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On the day of the event,
I remember

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we had 5,000 people
who came for this TEDxShekhavati.

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(Applause)

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Some of the really good outcomes
from [this].

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The 1st one was youth leadership
to groom youth leadership in villages.

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So, what I did was
I had an idea of the event,

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what I wanted to be like.

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I took a guy and girl who I've taught
through my other education initiatives

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I told them "This is the work that needs
to be done. Now, you do it your way."

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They went and made
teams and sub teams.

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Basically, what this event looks like
was created by them.

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So, the women went house to house
telling people about the event

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'cause we don't have social media.

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People don't really, completely rely
on newspapers.

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So, the women
went to the beauty parlor.

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And, they spoke
to the main lady there.

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So, when she was threading eye brows,
she was like,

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"So have you heard of TEDxShekhavati."

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That's how everybody
got to hear about the event.

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There was a woman who came to me
after this conference.

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She said, "I'm so impressed

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that I have enrolled
5 of my daughters in the school."

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One of my favorite moments
actually is

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that one of our speakers, she spoke
about women's rights.

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-- Sorry, that's the school

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that's what it looked like
from outside. --

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So, one of the speakers,

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she spoke about women's rights
and place of a woman in society.

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I didn't have any woman who came to me
and said, "That's really good."

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I had so many guys and men
who came to me and said,

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"I'm so glad.
That had to be said."

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So, when I looked at all of this,

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I feel that TEDxShekhavati
is just the beginning

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to change a mind-set
that is hundreds of years old.

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It's very, very difficult,
it's not easy.

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And, it's not going to change
in 2 years.

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But, what TEDxShekhavati has done
is that it is a window of change

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to not only the incredible changes
happening in India, but around the world.

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I feel very stubborn in bringing this
to my people [and] to my community.

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A lot of people asked me
"How did you do this?

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How did you face
all these problems?"

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When I look back, I have just one
and that's my true answer

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and I tell them, "What you are seeing is
the oppositions and problems.

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But when I was there,
I couldn't see them.

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The only thing that I could see
was a time when people were happy,

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they were positive
and they were open-minded.

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I feel after everything
eventually

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this is what makes
all the difference.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)