Success Is a Journey, Not a Destination

Life is a journey, or so the poets and philosophers say. If this is true, some people travel further than others.

Meet Bidusi Rana. She has traveled further than most people can imagine.

Bidusi is the owner and designer of Bidusi Rana Jewelry, a fine jewelry company that offers bespoke pieces. Her jewelry is cool, timeless, and elegant, much like Bidusi herself. It hints of a story of a journey.

I sat down with Bidusi at the Café Modern on a beautiful spring afternoon. Over a Chinois chicken salad and a grain bowl, we talked about leaving Nepal, defying family expectations, and coming to understand and embrace a radically new journey.

photo credit: Fotopasal

From Nepal, Bidusi is the oldest of three children. Her father, Arvinda Pratap Rana, is the principal of the Parijat Secondary Boarding School in Nepal. Growing up, Bidusi was everything a good Nepalese child should be.

“Nepalese parents want their children to study science, medicine, or technology,” Bidusi said, looking out over the Modern’s reflecting pool. “There’s security in those fields… financial security. So that’s what I studied.”

Because her father was the principal of a school, Bidusi and her siblings had to be the examples for all the other students. “It is a very disciplined place. We had to be very good at everything. My siblings did better than I did in school. I always wished I could be as smart as they are.”

It has become a tradition for Nepalese children to come to the United States for college if at all possible. Well-meaning parents feel that their children will receive a better education in the States than they can find in their own country. “I was interested in art and fashion, but it never occurred to me as a career in the very beginning,” Bidusi said. “As a teenager, my areas of interest were vague. I wasn’t quite sure about my strength and passion, I got influenced by what I was seeing around me and ended up picking a STEM field. My uncle is a doctor. My cousins are doctors. My sister is now a doctor.”

So, at age 18, Bidusi set off from her mountain homeland for the prairies of Oklahoma.

If you sat down and thought for two weeks, you could not imagine a place that is more different from Nepal than Edmond, Oklahoma. “I knew no one in Oklahoma,” said Bidusi, a slight furrow growing between her brows. “I was 18 years old, and I was very, very shy.” She was alone, without family for the first time in her life in a foreign country, studying to be a physician’s assistant while yearning for her family. “Before I started working as an EKG technician, I never thought of having a career in fashion, though art and fashion had a great influence in my life.”

“When I was young, fashion was not important in Nepal,” Bidusi said. “Not like it is in New York City or Paris or London. The fashion industry in Nepal is growing, but when I was in school, the idea of studying fashion wasn’t heard of. Fashion was out of my parent’s comfort zone, and as my parents were paying for my university education and wanted the security of a science education, I went along with their wishes.”

But being alone in Edmond was tough. In Nepal, family means everything, and families are large. It is traditional for multiple generations of families to live together (although the modern “nuclear” family is becoming more common in larger cities). When we talked, BIdusi did not complain about her time in Edmond, but she did not start to smile until she talked about transferring schools.

Photo courtesy of Bidusi Rana

While in high school, Bidusi had met a boy named Manoj. “He was two years older than I was. We dated for a year in Nepal,” Bidusi remembered with a smile. “He had come to the United States for his higher studies.”

According to the Pew Research Center, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is home to the largest community of Nepalese in the United States. (Edmond doesn’t even crack the top 50.) The idea of being close to her boyfriend and being part of a large ex-patriot Nepalese community proved to be irresistible, so BIdusi transferred to UTA to be a pre-med student.

“I worked so hard in college,” said Bidusi. “I decided I wanted to be a physician’s assistant, maybe in cardiology. When I was an undergraduate, I became an electrocardiogram (EKG) technician. My first day in the emergency department was completely overwhelming. I saw surgery. It was complete chaos… I realized that maybe this wasn’t for me.”

After eight months as an EKG technician, Bidusi was more certain than ever that a career in medicine was not for her. “I had always been fascinated with art, architecture, fashion. I wanted to apply to fashion school in New York City, but again, that was outside of my parents’ comfort zone. And my boyfriend didn’t understand it, either.” Instead of pursuing fashion, Bidusi went to Southern Methodist University for graduate school in information engineering.

After graduate school, Bidusi moved to St. Louis. Again, there are few places in this world more different from Nepal than St. Louis. “I worked in information technology (IT) for almost six years,” Bidusi said. “I enjoyed the first year or two, but it became boring after that. It wasn’t a challenge for me.”

While Bidusi excelled in IT, she continued to dream of fashion.

The idea of leaving the IT world was daunting. Bidusi’s younger sister, Asmita, is a medical doctor. Her younger brother, Alok Pratap, is an entrepreneur. The thought of leaving a comfortable, six-figure income and its associated lifestyle for an uncertain future in fashion was scary.

“I was making very good money working in IT… It took me a while to realize that money is not everything,” said Bidusi. “But working in IT, which is so much a man’s world, gave me the strength and the confidence to do something outside my comfort zone.”

photo credit: Fotopasal

Now married to Manoj and with a newborn son, Bidusi was determined to follow her fashion dreams, Bidusi started looking for experience. She applied for and got a job as a stylist at J. Crew in University Park Village. The manager of J. Crew was a friend of Carly Burson, founder of LAUDE the Label (see page 4). Carly encouraged Bidusi. “She has given me so much emotional support and uplifted me.”

While listening to podcasts about the fashion industry, Bidusi heard an interview with Bjorn Bengtsson of UNTUCKit (who is also an adjunct professor at the Parson School of Design) about “How to Get Your First Job in the Fashion Industry.” “He said that you have to be born with style, to be born artistic. You can hone it and make it better, but you have to have it first.” Inspired, Bidusi looked him up on LinkedIn.com and reached out to him. To her great delight, he replied.

“I was told that I needed a design portfolio, so I learned how to create one from YouTube.” When I expressed my amazement at the idea of learning a brand-new profession from watching videos, Bidusi was very nonchalant. She said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “Oh yes. I learned a lot about design from YouTube. I taught myself [various design programs] from watching how to do it on YouTube!”

With her new portfolio of designs, Bidusi went to New York City. “I was so nervous. But he liked my portfolio! He like it… and although the time for applying was closed, he opened up a place for me!”

While the certification course was an incredible opportunity and a dream come true for Bidusi, it came with its own set of obstacles. When Bidusi’s son, Sauryadeep, was born, her mother, Sabitri, came from Nepal to help. “I had a brand-new baby. My husband was in real estate here [in the Dallas-Fort Worth area], and he couldn’t just move to New York City. So I traveled back and forth for some time.”

When I said that she had quite a commute, Bidusi laughed. “Yes, it was a rather long commute. My plan was to bring my mother and my son to New York City while I continued my job and my studies. But that wasn’t workable, so I came home.”

Right around this time, the pandemic hit. Bidusi had gotten an internship with The Apparel Group in Lewisville, but with the continuing restrictions due to COVID-19, that soon disappeared.

“That was very difficult,” said Bidusi. “But my husband’s cousin is a diamond wholesaler, and he said that I could learn the business.” Bidusi was soon applying what she learned at Parson to a new field of design.

Applying the same mental toughness that took her from pre-med to IT to the fashion industry to this new field, Bidusi taught herself all about the jewelry industry, from design to production to distribution. “I decided to keep the jewelry production here in the States. The pieces are made in Houston and New York. I decided to keep the jewelry production here in the United States as an homage to exquisite craftsmanship. And I even designed the boxes the jewelry comes in. I wanted them to be as beautiful as what is inside them.”

Photo courtesy of Bidusi Rana

I asked Bidusi about her design inspiration. It’s obvious her pieces have stories behind them. “I created a series inspired by my son’s love of celestial bodies, you know, the stars,” Bidusi said. Her smile grows bigger as she talks about her son. “It’s hard starting a business as a woman, you know. It’s even harder with a little boy always wanting to play!”

I asked if Sauryadeep had ever been to Nepal; at this, Bidusi grinned. “My brother got married in Nepal in 2019. We went back for the wedding and stayed in Nepal for a whole month. He [Sauryadeep] turned one there with all of his cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.”

Now Bidusi is settling into designing fine jewelry, and she has discovered a real love for it. “I like to think I’m creating future heirlooms,” she said with a smile. “These are pieces that will have history behind them. They aren’t fads.”

And the jewelry isn’t just pretty. It is helping others. Bidusi and her sister, Asmita, are working to create a non-profit organization in Nepal to help girls achieve their goals that is partially funded by the profits from Bidusi’s jewelry.

There is a distinct gender gap in education in Nepal, especially in the rural areas. Traditional gender roles are still enforced, and even in the cities, if a family has to choose between educating a son and a daughter, the son will always be sent to school first. Families are also more likely to enroll sons in private schools, while daughters must make do with a public school education.

Bidusi and Asmita want to change that. The sisters recognize that they were fortunate to have a father who runs his own private school. The non-profit organization the sisters have founded will fund scholarships for girls to attend their father’s school. Bidusi said that she and her sister want to give girls in Nepal the same opportunities they had. “Our family has a tradition of giving back,” she said. “These girls will be able to change their communities and maybe the world.”

While Bidusi’s journey has taken her halfway around the world and far from her original career path, she has used the wisdom gained on that journey to fuel her creativity, inspire her jewelry designs, and, more importantly, to help others.

photo credit: OMG PhotoStuff

Please note, the original version of this article contained some imprecisions.