India, May 30 -- "Every step in my career has been unplanned," laughs fashion designer Vino Supraja, 45, "but it has prepared me for exactly where I am today."

Her journey is testament to the power of serendipity, she adds.

How else could a girl who "spoke almost no English", growing up in the small temple town of Vandavasi in Tamil Nadu, end up winning a trailblazer award and delivering a speech on India's culture of sustainability, at the British House of Commons?

"I've grown to accept that when I'm willing to let go, be dismantled and reassembled, good things happen to me," she says.

Supraja started out, for instance, with a degree in architecture from Chennai. It was there that she met and fell in love with her husband "and best f...