SARIC Rising Tide

28 RA S H I T YAG I I ND I A R ashi Tyagi speaks with the easy elegance of someone who understands the sheer beauty of well-composed connections. Indeed, she is both a hydro-electric engineer and a poet—seemingly dissimilar fields that both look to create movement and a powerful grace. “I’m lucky,” she says with a smile. “As a child, my parents nurtured both sides of my personality. They were both engineers, and my mother was also an architect. She was my inspiration for finding and nourishing a work-life balance. As for engineering itself, how could I stay away? I was very inquisitive, always helping my father take apart and fix things around the house. 29 engineering , as poetry You could say I’m a born engineer. I really didn’t want to study anything else! That passion led Rashi to a degree in electrical engineering at Nagpur University. Carefully avoiding the many IT companies who arrived for on-campus interviews, she held out for—and got—a job with the power sector utility, SJVN. “I cannot imagine progress without electricity, and I can proudly say I’m working in my core field today.” Rashi’s career has grown with SJVN. Her first projectwas the1500MWNathpa Jhakri hydropower project, the largest on the Sutlej River in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. “I was given the option of working in the office or heading out into the field as the only female engineer working with a team of all-male colleagues. I chose the latter and I am so proud of this experience. I wasn’t immediately accepted on site—I earned their respect by believing in myself and my ability to work hard. The experience gave me a confidence I could not have earned otherwise, especially since this also involved working in an underground powerplant during its commissioning phase, interacting day and night with global experts.” ENGINEERING, AS POETRY