"Oh yes. I actually got interviewed. When I came from Mumbai to Delhi, the first one month, I tried to work a balance between work and home. I just could not because I barely had six hours to go to Mumbai. I have two young kids, one is 11-year-old and the other is 13-year-old.
"For me it was difficult and I said come to Delhi and, mercifully, they listened. It was a difficult shift because my family never lived here and the first thing we did before we came is to give an interview as parents--got grilled by teachers and principal and then the children were grilled," she said.
She of course did not mind her grilling at the school. "I think processes should not differ just because you are a minister. This is a job, a responsibility, not a right to override the processes that every citizen goes through. So I gave an interview with my husband, got evaluated."
She said she goes to Parent Teacher Association meetings regularly. "I don't go with a barrage of cops. I think you want to give sense to your children that this is a job, not an entitlement."
"When I was born, all that my parents had was in Munirka, livable space above a 'tabela (cowshed)' and one could never envisage a future that I have today. So, for me I have never walked a path that has been carefully crafted or charted. I have gone into territory unknown on many an occasion," she said.