To say that women have had a major impact on my life,

would be understating the visceral change they have allowed me to undergo

over the past three decades.

At the start, it was my Mother.

And later, it has been those I learned from

and experienced during my boyhood and beyond.

One such Woman was Ayn Rand.

Before I was exposed to her writings, I was a feeble and meek boy,

who was trying to cope up with the reality around him.

After a couple of years under her "tutelage",

and actioning that out in the real world,

I was exposed to the other side of being a boy -

an ego-driven, ready to take on the world, "man".

Though her Mind came in the way of allowing her

to see the real picture of man,

her writings were what I needed the most when they found me.

Dear Ayn,

I know you are not reading this,

but I salute you for the one of a kind Woman you were.

Your philosophy on man in "Atlas Shrugged" awakened something deep in me.

Perhaps no one understood the power of man's ego as well as you did.

And it is okay that you saw an incomplete picture,

and even bashed selflessness in your first book "The Fountainhead".

But independent of the criticism and praise you received,

perhaps something that no one noticed was this...

You did what was needed to be done through you.

Being a woman and going against the grain in the manner you did,

in not just your country, but later in the powerhouse United States,

was not something that anyone else had done during those times.

You were a Legend.

You are a Legend to this day.

But I cannot help but reveal to you what you missed.

You saw the power of ego, but you undermined its perils.

You saw some men steal and borrow, while others build and make money,

but you did not understand why it was so.

You ended up judging the former for being "bad" and "coward",

and the latter for being "good" and "glorious".

You could not see that they were merely the two opposite

shades of the same entrapment.

Your notion of "free man" is not one of FREE Man.

It is one of "ego let loose" protected by values.

There exists a far superior way, Ayn,

a far superior way to leverage the ego,

and yet not get consumed by it.

And you totally misunderstood selflessness.

You went as far as depicting a villainous role based on it.

Oh dear Ayn, how could you not see?

The protagonist of "The Fountainhead", one Howard Roark,

himself was the embodiment of Truth and Selflessness!

Unknown to you, the ideal man is not the man of ego,

but the Man who is Free from all the taints of it.

Because it is not that ego is the "good side" of the Mind.

But that ego is the Mind.

And man is much, much more than his Mind.

Thank you.