COVID-19 has made many of us reassess the meaning of life, and with it, the meaning of ambition.

Our cover girl had to reconcile her own ambitions through this time. In a year when shooting with big crews was impossible, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja embraced a slower, more conscious pace in Notting Hill. “I make my own food, clean my own space, shop for my own groceries,” shares the Bollywood actor in our cover story, even as she shot for one of her toughest roles in Shome Makhija’s Blind when lockdowns in the UK eased.

In our Beauty section, the story of a model-turned-monk shows that ambition can be seen as a state of mind that changes with every goalpost as we mature. And from the 19-year-old para shooter and law aspirant Avani Lekhara, you  can learn how mental and physical endurance go hand in hand: “If you are passionate about something, just go for it.

Even if you fail, you’ll learn so much from it,” she tells Sheree Gomes Gupta as she heads to the Olympics. Their definition of ambition may differ, but what all these women share is a focus to persevere and pursue. 

In ‘Keeping it real’, as Never Have I Ever star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, another wise 19-year-old, puts it: “We have to keep  adapting to accepting ourselves as we grow.”