I believe in never giving up, no matter what the odds. My mantra

Host: The rain had stopped, but the sky still hung heavy with gray, like a bruise that refused to heal. A faint mist rose from the streets, softening the edges of the city’s cold geometry. Inside a half-finished construction site, where steel beams stood like skeletons, voices echoed between the walls of ambition and exhaustion.

Jack leaned against a rusted column, his hands streaked with dust, his shirt half-unbuttoned, the weight of the day settling in his shoulders. Jeeny walked toward him, helmet in hand, her face streaked with rain and resolve.

They had been working together on this project for months — a startup teetering between dream and collapse. And now, as everything seemed to slip away, she had brought with her a single sentence — Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw’s words — like a spark to a dying flame.

Jeeny: “She said, ‘I believe in never giving up, no matter what the odds. My mantra is, failure is temporary. Giving up is permanent.’”
(she paused, her eyes locked on his)
“Do you still believe that, Jack?”

Jack: “I used to. Before the bank calls. Before the investors pulled out. Before every plan we made started to feel like a bad joke.”

Host: A drop of rain slid down the metal beam beside him, falling to the ground with a sound too small to matter, yet somehow it did. Jeeny set her helmet on the floor and crossed her arms, her voice low, steady — the kind of steadiness that isn’t born of calm, but of choice.

Jeeny: “You talk like you’ve already buried it. Like this dream was a person and you’re standing over its grave.”

Jack: “Maybe I am. Maybe I finally learned when to stop pretending. There’s a line between perseverance and denial, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No. There’s a line between failure and surrender. And you’re standing on the wrong side of it.”

Jack: “You think not quitting is always noble? Sometimes quitting is survival.”

Host: The wind blew through the open beams, carrying with it the faint sound of traffic below — the hum of a city that didn’t care who failed or who rose again. Jeeny stepped closer, her boots crunching against gravel.

Jeeny: “Survival isn’t just breathing, Jack. It’s fighting even when the odds are ugly. Kiran built Biocon out of a garage, with no investors, no credibility — just will. You think she never wanted to quit?”

Jack: “She’s an exception. People like her are built different.”

Jeeny: “No. She just kept showing up. Every time the world told her she couldn’t, she said ‘Watch me.’ That’s not genetics, Jack. That’s defiance.”

Jack: “Defiance can only take you so far. Eventually, the math wins.”

Jeeny: “The math? You mean the odds? Since when did you start worshipping probability instead of possibility?”

Host: A faint smile tugged at her lips — not mockery, but challenge. Jack looked away, rubbing the back of his neck, his breath visible in the cold air. The silence between them tightened, full of the weight of everything unsaid.

Jack: “You talk like persistence is magic. But I’ve seen people burn themselves out chasing something that was never meant to work.”

Jeeny: “And I’ve seen people succeed on their hundredth try because they refused to die on their ninety-ninth. The difference isn’t luck. It’s stubbornness.”

Jack: “You sound like faith dressed as logic.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like fear pretending to be reason.”

Host: That struck him. His eyes lifted, meeting hers — a storm behind grey glass. Around them, the unfinished building creaked, as if listening to their argument. The light outside shifted, breaking through the fog in thin, fragile lines.

Jack: “You don’t get it, Jeeny. You still believe in happy endings. I’ve seen how this story ends — not with triumph, but exhaustion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the ending isn’t the point. Maybe it’s the refusal that defines us. Failure is just an event, Jack. Giving up turns it into an identity.”

Jack: “You really think failure is temporary?”

Jeeny: “Of course it is. Every failure is just data. It’s the permanence of giving up that kills everything.”

Host: She picked up a small piece of rebar from the ground, twirling it idly in her hand, the metal catching faint light. Her voice grew softer, almost reflective, as if she were talking to herself as much as to him.

Jeeny: “Do you know why I love Mazumdar-Shaw’s words? Because she didn’t speak them from comfort. She spoke them after rejection, ridicule, sexism, debt. And she still said — failure is temporary. That’s not optimism. That’s rebellion.”

Jack: “Rebellion against what?”

Jeeny: “Against the voice inside you that whispers it’s already too late.”

Jack: “And what if it’s right?”

Jeeny: “Then fight it anyway.”

Host: A faint rumble of thunder rolled in the distance — a sound that belonged both to the world and to the tension between them. Jack took a long breath, walking toward the window opening, where the cityscape spread like a mosaic of light and fog.

He spoke quietly, almost to the skyline.

Jack: “You make it sound so easy. Just keep trying, and everything will fix itself.”

Jeeny: “It’s not about easy. It’s about necessary. The world doesn’t reward the comfortable — it remembers the relentless.”

Jack: “You sound like a motivational poster.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like a man waiting for permission to stop.”

Jack: “Maybe I am.”

Jeeny: “Then you’ll regret it. Not because you failed — but because you’ll never know if one more try would have changed everything.”

Host: The rain had started again — light, patient, insistent. Each drop tapped against the steel beams like a metronome counting second chances.

Jeeny walked beside him now, looking out at the same skyline. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

Jeeny: “You know, the first time I tried to start something on my own, it fell apart. I lost everything — my savings, my confidence. For months I thought I’d made a fool of myself. But one night, I realized something… I wasn’t afraid of failure. I was afraid of beginning again.”

Jack: “And what changed?”

Jeeny: “I began anyway.”

Jack: “And did it work?”

Jeeny: “Not at first. But I learned. And that’s the point, Jack — failure teaches what success hides.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying the scent of rain and steel. Jack’s expression began to soften — the defiance still there, but laced now with reflection.

He leaned his hands on the railing, watching the city lights flicker below.

Jack: “You really think giving up is permanent?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because it doesn’t kill your dream — it kills the part of you that dreams.”

Jack: “And you’d rather live haunted by failure?”

Jeeny: “Absolutely. Because failure hurts for a while. Regret hurts forever.”

Host: Her words hung between them, heavy and raw, like the last sound before silence. Jack exhaled, a slow surrender, as if his stubbornness had finally met something stronger than reason — truth.

He looked at her, the faintest trace of a smile finally breaking through.

Jack: “So what now?”

Jeeny: “Now we start again. Not because it’s easy. But because it’s not over.”

Jack: “You think the odds are on our side?”

Jeeny: “They don’t have to be. They just have to exist.”

Host: The rain had eased, leaving behind a faint glimmer on every surface — steel, stone, skin. The city below breathed again, its lights flickering like countless small affirmations that life, no matter how battered, refuses to quit.

Jack reached for the project blueprint lying near the column — wet, smudged, nearly ruined. He smoothed it out with his hands, as if resurrecting a dream.

Jack: “You know, you really are impossible to argue with.”

Jeeny: “That’s persistence, Jack. Not pride.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s contagious.”

Jeeny: “Good. The world needs more infections like that.”

Host: The two of them stood together under the half-built frame — rain, sweat, and resolve all the same color now. Somewhere beyond the mist, the sun broke, casting a faint beam through the metal grid — a reminder that even through gray, light insists on returning.

And as they looked at it — tired, trembling, but unbroken — the meaning of Mazumdar-Shaw’s words settled in the air around them:

Failure is a bruise, not a scar. But giving up — that’s burial.