On March 8, Women's Day, we invited readers to celebrate the woman who made a significant difference to their lives. We asked them to tell us why this woman was special and send us a photograph. This series features the best entries.

I met her seven years ago in my engineering class. For a month, we only looked at each other. Finally, just as we were entering the exam hall for our first internal exam, she spoke to me about someone we both know. She had a gentle smile on her face. This was my first ru-ba-ru with her. Hr name is Deepa SS; as her name specifies, she lights up the life of every one around her.

As time progressed, we became good friends and then jaan-e-jigar friends. We had great fun together. Finally, after six months or so, on July 15, 2001, a very windy and gloomy day, I proposed. After a brief moment, she accepted.

In the next two years, we broke off for a thousand times but united again because we were addicted to each other and could not stay separated for more than a few hours.

What inspires me about her is her energy level.

She was a middle class girl and used to travel almost 80 km every day in ordinary Hyderabad city buses. Yet, she never showed a sense of fatigue. She was always vivacious, lively and ready for anything exciting. She was ready to work for hours even if it was late at night.

She never sits idle; she is always full of ideas for doing things differently. It was her ambition to do some sort of event management for charitable causes. I tried to discourage her ideas by saying that, being in the software sector, managing events would be an impossible task.

I also used to tell her we could do such events after five years when we were more stable in life. She would chide me saying tomorrow never comes; besides, who knows what will happen after five years.

Being a determined woman, she started gathering her friends for an event without my knowledge. One day, she called all of us to a park. She carried a book with her where she listed all the activities to be done with a perfect plan and a noble cause of promoting a blind school through this event. The idea was fantastic; it was a mega dance competition event with a cause.

I instantly liked her idea but still opposed her. But she was very adamant and went ahead. She even talked to a few sponsors without informing me. When she got the first sponsor for the event, I realised my folly and started supporting her. I stepped into this event and we named our organisation 'Ballyhoo' (sensational publicity) and our catch line was 'Our events promote a cause'.

She did all the branding & conceptualisation. We held our first event on September 16, 2006, at Shilpakalavedika Hitech city, Hyderabad. The show was a runaway success with over 1,200 software professionals attending. Every one at the venue appreciated the way we managed the show for promoting a noble cause. The local news channels interviewed us; articles about our show articles came in all the newspapers. We became famous overnight.

From here a new journey started; recently, we managed one more event (a rock band competition). This time we helped two more charities (an old age home & disabled kids' school) by partnering with Svechha, a non-profit organisation (incidentally we are also one of the founding members of Svechha). This was also a great success.

Kudos to Deepa, my darling dearest. She is a great inspiration to be with. One will find very few girls in this world who have such an appetite for doing something of this sort when you are working. She is girl with rock solid determination and loads of energy to fulfill her dreams. I feel I can conquer the world if I am with her. Her motto in life is: Do it now or never.

Celebrating Women: The series
'She refused to be orthodox'
'My sister created my future'
'My wife taught me responsibility'

Don't miss!
Women's Day special