I had just spent two of the most intellectually charged days of the year at the 34th Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum at the Fairmont, Mumbai. The theme this year was "Tech-Driven, Human-Centered" a call for India's technology leaders to think not just about what comes next, but about how we build it, and for whom. (Nasscom) Over 1,600 CXOs, founders, and thought leaders had gathered to wrestle with questions about AI, agentic systems, digital sovereignty, and the future of enterprise.
The sessions were sharp, the conversations were energising, and the ideas were still swirling in my head as I made my way to the airport that Wednesday evening.
The forum had covered everything from leading in a world of exponential change, to whether human decisions still matter in the age of AI, to how agentic AI is reshaping enterprise operations. (Sched) Big ideas. Bold framings. And yet, the most lasting lesson of the entire trip was waiting for me not in the Infinity Ballroom, but on IndiGo flight 6E 5074 — the Mumbai-Bangalore service that, that evening, was packed almost entirely with delegates heading home from the very same event.
I boarded early — unusual for me. I had a colleague with me and we were still in conversation as we joined the queue. I settled into seat 7D, my usual aisle preference, and looked around the cabin. Familiar faces everywhere — technology leaders, entrepreneurs, senior executives, all winding down after two days of intense engagement. The flight felt like an unofficial closing session of the forum.
The last to board were a couple. They walked in unhurried, talking to each other, until — just as they reached my row — the woman stopped. A sudden pause. She turned to the man with a look that needed no words. Where is the bag? He looked back blankly. Clueless.
She turned around and walked back toward the door. From my seat in the seventh row, I had a clear view of what unfolded. She spoke to the ground staff in their green reflective vests, clearly wanting to return to Gate 23 to retrieve the bag she had left behind. They wouldn't let her. The pilot's announcement came soon after — the flight was ready, doors to be closed.
As one of the attendants moved to shut the door, the woman asked desperately, "Could you please tell me what's happening? I was told they are looking into it." Whatever the response was, it didn't comfort her. The door closed. The flight began its taxi to the runway. The couple sat behind me in heavy silence.
That's when I first noticed her.
The senior-most flight attendant on board — Rosymint, as I would later learn — walked up to the man seated behind me. What she did next was something no keynote that day had demonstrated quite as clearly.
She didn't stand over him. She knelt down — right there in the aisle — and spoke to him at eye level.
"Sir, I am really sorry I couldn't help you earlier. Let me try to make up for it. I was busy ensuring the flight took off well."
She collected the details of the bag. Went to the front. Came back. Asked more questions — where they had been seated at the gate, the colour of the bag, any distinguishing features. Returned again to assure him she would do her best to locate it.
No fanfare. No script. Just one human being fully showing up for another.
A little later, dinner was served. Two junior attendants came by with the trolley. I asked for water — it arrived. I asked for tissues, my fingers sticky from the mayonnaise in the sandwich — no response. I waited, then asked again. "Give me a few minutes, I will," she said. She didn't come back.
I sat with sticky fingers, quietly waiting.
Then I noticed my reading spotlight was still on and reached up to switch it off. In that moment, Rosymint appeared beside me — smiling, asking if I needed help, assuming I had reached for the call bell.
I said, "Could I get two tissues, please?"
She returned in moments with three.
One of the key discussions at NTLF 2026 was about Human-Centred AI — building trust, inclusion and wellbeing at work. (Capgemini) Speakers across sessions debated how technology could be designed to serve people better, how enterprises could build with empathy at their core, how leaders could balance innovation with human impact. These are important, necessary conversations.
But here is what I kept thinking about on that flight home: we were a cabin full of people who had just spent two days discussing the human-centred future — and it was a flight attendant, not a keynote speaker, who made it tangible.
Nasscom President Rajesh Nambiar had set the tone at the forum by saying that in an age of exponential change, leadership is about sensemaking — connecting the dots between technology, trust and transformation. (DATAQUEST) Rosymint didn't use those words. But she lived them. She sensed what was needed. She built trust in under five minutes, in an aisle, on her knees. And she transformed the experience of two distressed passengers without any technology at all.
The difference between good service and great service is rarely about systems or tools. It is about the person. Whether someone sees their role as a job to get through or a responsibility to a fellow human being. Rosymint carried a quiet mastery — born of experience and genuine care — that no AI can replicate and no forum can teach. She made people feel seen.
In a flight full of India's technology leaders, it was the most human person in the room who delivered the most powerful lesson of the week.
I made sure to find her before I stepped off that plane. I wanted to say thank you. I wanted her to know that she had, without realising it, given me something to write about and something to aspire to.
The theme of NTLF 2026 was Tech-Driven, Human-Centered.
Her name is Rosymint. She already knows what that means.
