My husband Farhan Azmi is a restaurateur and owns three

Ayesha Takia, with the candor of one who has walked the path of labor and learning, declared: “My husband Farhan Azmi is a restaurateur and owns three restaurants in Mumbai. After we got married, we started planning a cafe, Chai Cofi, and got busy in executing it. It is not easy to open a restaurant. I always wanted to get into the business of restaurants and was fortunate enough that Farhan’s knowledge taught me a lot of things.” These words, though spoken of earthly enterprises, reveal a timeless truth: that success is not born of desire alone, but of union, planning, and the humble willingness to learn from the wisdom of another.

In her words, we see the noble principle that dreams, though bright, demand toil. She confesses, “It is not easy to open a restaurant.” This is the heart of her teaching. Every endeavor that seeks to serve others, whether food, craft, or art, requires a heavy investment of patience, discipline, and knowledge. Desire is the seed, but labor is the soil, and only when the two are joined do the fruits appear. Just as the ancients taught that the harvest is won not in the wishing but in the plowing, so too does she remind us that every dream worth having will test the strength of our hands and hearts.

There is also the wisdom of partnership in her words. She speaks of her husband, whose knowledge became her guide. This is no small matter. In the chronicles of history, many have stumbled because they spurned counsel and believed themselves sufficient. Yet the wise know that to walk with another, to receive instruction, to honor experience—this is the surest path to success. Consider how Alexander the Great, though mighty in conquest, honored Aristotle as his teacher, and through that knowledge, carried the torch of Greek learning across the known world. Ayesha’s acknowledgment of her husband’s role echoes this same principle: that greatness often comes from learning humbly at another’s feet.

Her tale also reminds us that enterprises of the heart are stronger when they are shared. The cafe, Chai Cofi, was not merely a business, but a vision born from marriage itself. In this, there is beauty: two lives joined not only in love but in purpose, weaving together their strengths to bring forth something that serves the wider world. The ancients often said that harmony in the household creates harmony in the kingdom; so too do her words reveal that harmony in partnership creates strength in the business of life.

The lesson here is clear: every dream demands both desire and discipline, both vision and knowledge. It is not enough to wish for success; one must prepare, one must learn, one must execute with diligence. Nor is it enough to walk alone; the wisdom of others, whether mentors, partners, or teachers, is the compass that keeps us from losing our way. As she herself admits, her fortune lay not merely in her passion for restaurants, but in her husband’s knowledge, which sharpened and guided her own.

Consider too the broader story of Ray Kroc, the man who expanded McDonald’s into a global chain. He was not the first to dream of hamburgers, nor the first to sell them, but he combined vision with discipline, knowledge with execution, and built an empire of service. Like Ayesha, he knew that ideas are plentiful, but execution is the fire that refines them into reality. His tale, like hers, is a testament that business is not built on dreams alone but on the fusion of wisdom and relentless labor.

So let us take from her words a charge for our own lives: if you long to build, whether in business, art, or service, embrace the hardship without complaint, seek the knowledge of those who have walked before you, and honor the partnerships that strengthen your journey. Begin not with pride but with humility, for it is in humility that we learn, and in learning that we rise. In this way, like Ayesha and Farhan, we too may see our visions take shape—not as fleeting wishes, but as living works that endure.

Thus, her words, though clothed in the language of the marketplace, are a teaching for all: dream, but also plan; desire, but also learn; walk with others, and labor until your vision stands. For the table of life is set not by wishes but by the bread earned through effort, shared with those who walk beside us.