Archana Garodia Gupta, a Noida-based businesswoman, is Mastermind India 2001, the third woman winner of the BBC quiz since it took on its Indian avatar in 1998 In the finals held at the historic Fatehprakash Palace, Udaipur on December 9 last, Archana beat a male-dominated field in style, to become Mastermind India The other women to have lifted the Mastermind India trophy are Dayita Bira Datta, a school teacher from Dehradun, who won the quiz in its inaugural year, and K E Priyamvada, a copy editor with Britannica India, who emerged Mastermind India in 2000.

An LSR and IIM, Ahmedabad alumnus, 35-year-old Archana, however, refuses to see the victory as a win for the fairer sex. "I wasn`t representing womanhood in the quiz. I saw things only in terms of being either good or bad at it irrespective of whether one is a man or a woman. I was out to prove myself and nothing else," said Archana emphatically. Bureau Report