I am as intrigued by the stories of books as I am by stories in books. Especially with intensely researched projects, I am fascinated by the author’s impetus to launch on such arduous and even perilous quests.
… Continue reading “When a Scholar Dives Into Japanese American History”
I’ve always enjoyed Aparna Piramal Raje’s pieces in The Mint, her profiles of business icons like Rahul Bajaj, or her vivid narratives about workspaces, buildings and cities. While reading her latest book,
… Continue reading “Succeeding With Bipolarity: Aparna Piramal Raje’s Awe-Inspiring Account”
Reading Queeristan feels like you’re sitting across an intelligent, high-spirited and intentionally campy writer, at a friendly café, with Bollywood songs playing in the backdrop. Not just any Bollywood song, but Hema Malini in Naseeb,
… Continue reading “Journeying Into Queeristan: Ushering Inclusivity Into Indian Workplaces”
Pico Iyer has lived in Japan for more than thirty-two years but has consciously avoided learning Japanese. This despite, being married to a Japanese woman, whose grasp of English is as feeble as Pico’s knowledge of Japanese.
… Continue reading “Traveling To Japan With A Perceptive and Sparkling Guide”
My husband has long since snatched the cool parent title. Since my ‘kids’ are no longer, well, kids – they are both in their 20s – I thought I would dwell on one of the reasons for the crown slipping well beyond my reach.
Working for the thriving family business at Banswara Syntex might have been an expected or inevitable end for Dhruv and Udit Toshniwal, the grandsons of R.L. Toshniwal; striking out on their own with a new-age,
… Continue reading “When Bespoke Speaks Volumes: Insights From The Pant Project”
I have no intention of founding a startup. But I do dwell in a city that carries an exalted status inside the global entrepreneurial ecology. Because of this, I have friends and relatives who are associated with startups in various ways: as founders,
… Continue reading “When A Harvard Professor Studies Startup Failures”
When I started hearing a buzz about Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh from reader friends, I ordered my copy but allowed it to inhabit the clumsily stacked pile of “To-be-Read.” As an unabashed practitioner of
… Continue reading “Why India’s Young Women Still Seek Shah Rukh”
It’s been a while since I have formally inhabited an office. Though there are times, as a writer, when one constructs a make-do office, by heading out to a café or a library, to escape the ennui or annoyances of home: the doorbell,
… Continue reading “Reliving the Pleasures and Perils of Offices”
Ganesh Nair, also known as Rajesh among close circles, accomplished a feat that many midlifers might contemplate but are hesitant to pull off: vaulting from a reputed senior leadership position into the choppy terrain of a novitiate in a completely unrelated field.
… Continue reading “From The Corner Office to Remaking Interior Spaces”
Let’s start with a scene that might be familiar to many parents. Your teenage son returns after a decisive exam. His performance on this might determine the course of his future. You hear him stomp into the dining room.
… Continue reading “The Makeup of Reality: Why Other Senses Are Not Given Their Due”
An Urban Anthropologist Dwells Among Taxi Drivers
Tarini Bedi, author of Mumbai Taximen, starts out, as many of us do when traveling through Mumbai, feeling carsick inside a kaalipeeli.
… Continue reading “A Heart-wrenching Dive into Taxi Driver Lives”
I can’t sing. I can’t carry a tune, not even of a nursery rhyme or of any other ditty. For those of us who speak quite easily, it’s rather astonishing that the brain/body circuits that produce music are aggravatingly absent.
… Continue reading “Whiskey Lullaby: Inebriation and Love Woven Into a Song”
Gaining An Early Sense of the Fragility of Life
When Clare Arni was three years old, she moved with her family from Scotland to Peru. Her earliest memory in the South American country involves an earthquake,
… Continue reading “Using Her Eye To Remake the World: Clare Arni’s Inventive Career”
Psst, folks, here’s the lowdown: the brainiest and most reflective minds are not sniffing the stuff. Some, like Walter White in Breaking Bad, might even be involved in cooking the meth, but they’re barricading their own smarts and wits from Instagram likes or LinkedIn notifications.
Most of us struggle to find an ikigai – the Japanese term for work that melds passion and skills with what the world needs and more critically, is willing to pay for. Raja Ganapathy belongs to the fortunate minority who can claim to have lived a passionate life,
… Continue reading “Living Your Ikigai: Pointers From Raja Ganapathy’s Passionate Life”
Gandhi, himself, might balk at being called a “brand.” After all, the leader was very explicit about embodying the kind of life that rose above the allure and corruptions of commerce. Despite belonging to the bania community,
… Continue reading “How To Convey More with Less: Communication Lessons From Gandhi”
In Get Rich or Lie Trying, the author Symeon Brown dwells on the manner in which the “influencer” economy is goading many young adults (and perhaps older ones too) to resort to any means to grow their followers.
… Continue reading “Lying and Cheating: Fallouts of the Influencer Economy”
Like many others who are physically distanced from the war, I have been wrestling with my own scant knowledge about Ukraine. And belonging to a cohort that prefers to glean information from old-fashioned newspapers, books and experts,
… Continue reading “Understanding the Makeup of Ukraine Through the Lens of A Revolution”
In certain literary circles, it’s cool to breathlessly declare: “I love Murakami.” What you really mean, as a reader, is that you love the Japanese author’s surreal, dark, sort-of noir novels. Maybe you’ve read just one,
… Continue reading “The Reflections of A Bestselling Novelist and Marathon Runner”
Brinda S. Narayan
