AFTER GRADUATING with a Master’s degree in economics from Madras Christian College in Chennai, I worked at a market research firm, IMRB, in Mumbai. It was there where I found my passion for market research. I realised that I wanted to know more, specifically the psychology behind consumer decision making under different scenarios, including in a survey context. I applied to and enrolled in a doctoral programme in marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and minored in social psychology. I joined the Stern marketing faculty after graduating and have loved the entire experience of doing research, educating, and serving in leadership roles in the marketing profession at large and at NYU. I spent the first half of my life (and therefore my formative years) in India, and the second half in America. While in India, I moved a lot (10 schools in 10 years!) as my father was in the Indian Navy. This made me sensitive to differences in subcultures, and I learned to adapt to new situations. I have also been fortunate to be able to travel all over the world. So, culturally, I consider myself a citizen of the world. All of these experiences have helped me be flexible in my life and throughout my career, which is important because change is a constant. Regardless of backgrounds, people face different challenges that are unique to them as individuals. For me, I have looked at my life’s challenges as opportunities to break the mold in terms of expectations. I did this at a fairly young age, going through a divorce and raising a child by myself. Professionally, my challenges were more about living and working in a country where I had no family, juggling a demanding career in pursuit of tenure, caring for a child, and leading a balanced life, rather than my being “an Indian woman academic”. Throughout it all, I grew as an individual, flourished as an academic, and developed a great relationship with my son who is an NYU undergraduate student studying Film and TV at Tisch School of the Arts. I know there are many stories like mine—all different in the details—but all resulting in a sense of deep fulfillment in overcoming whatever challenges were faced. I have been a faculty member at NYU Stern for 22 years now and have taught undergraduates, graduates, and PhD students, while also conducting research and participating in professional associations. For five years during that time, I was the chair of the marketing department, which involved developing and co-ordinating a department strategy with my peers, the department’s faculty. I was also the President of the Association for Consumer Research, the largest international organisation of consumer behaviour researchers. My current role as Dean of the Undergraduate College is very different from any of these roles. While it also involves strategic oversight and co-ordination, and calls upon my experience as a scholar, researcher and educator, my focus is broader than ever as I work with my team to shape the entire experience of our undergraduate student body. My goals for the NYU Stern Undergraduate College are to ensure continued academic excellence, grow our global presence, and enhance community engagement. The biggest change for me in transitioning to the deanship is in how I spend my time. When I was a faculty member, I taught a full course load and had a prolific research life. As department chair, I had more administrative responsibilities, but I worked largely with my fellow faculty members. Today, my time is less and less my own as I work to balance the needs of many constituents: students, parents, colleagues and alumni. But it is all for the good of the students. I have a wonderful team and I know we can make positive change in our undergraduate community. The unique aspect of undergraduate students is that their college experience will stay with them for life. They are hungry for academic, personal, and professional experiences, so we can really make a difference. That belief has helped me make the shift. Every now and then, though, I still do miss being a full-time professor. I really believe in “the right place at the right time.” While I believe you have to set goals in life, there are opportunities that will arise for which you just can’t plan. In my case, my first job out of graduate school at a market research firm turned me on to a life-long professional passion that has guided much of my career path. It was this passion that spurred me to pursue a PhD here in the US, which has become my second home. I did not necessarily always envision myself as a professor, but after receiving my doctorate, I came to NYU Stern for my first job in academia. I have loved my time here and have grown so much as a scholar and an educator; it is also where I got tenure and raised a family. I also went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business for two years to try something new and different. I could not have predicted that I would return to NYU Stern and then become the Dean of the Undergraduate College. As with so many other things in my life, the deanship came at the right time in my life when I wanted a new challenge and to make a mark on the School I had grown up with. It was my turn to give back to Stern, which had given so much to me. My personal mantra has been “Onward, forward, upward!” I do not believe that there is a set path to becoming an administrator. However, there are a few keys to success, in my opinion: the primary one is to have a passion for wanting to make a difference in the world. In my case, I wanted to make a difference in undergraduate business education. I also feel an intrinsic interest in wanting to understand the inner workings of the institution in which I work. You never know where this will lead. Also I have always striven to view challenges as opportunities. And I have encouraged those around me to do the same. I believe it is also imperative to view every life and work experience as progress, and the opportunity to learn and move on. You can’t get stuck on what doesn’t work—there is bound to be something that will work! Also, respect the people around you, and surround yourself with people whose strengths complement your weaknesses. Learn to trust and call on them. As a Dean, I have introduced the Stern Programme for Undergraduate Research (SPUR). It is a priority initiative that supports our undergraduates' active participation in top-tier research with Stern faculty and reflects our ongoing commitment to academic excellence. There are three opportunities for students to get involved in SPUR: The Honours Programme which is a year-long one established in 2001 by senior faculty member Marti Subrahmanyam that gives our top students the opportunity to conduct graduate-level research. Students can take graduate course work, participate in a weekly honours seminar, and develop an honours thesis. Only the top seven per cent of seniors are invited to enroll. The SPUR Database which was launched in Spring 2012 to connect undergraduates with faculty conducting research. Students work one-on-one with faculty on projects that directly support NYU Stern's ground-breaking research agenda. As a visiting faculty in some Indian schools there are some things I would like to suggest to a Dean of an Indian B-school. Use research in the classroom to demonstrate effects; it’s a fabulous way to get students intrigued about research. I do that when I teach the marketing core, marketing research or consumer behavior. Using current articles from the press shows the relevance of what we study in the classroom to real life as well and whets students’ appetites to understand and/or read the original research. Make sure that the research opportunities faculty can provide are of interest to the students. Find faculty champions who will support your initiative. Make it easy for both your faculty and your students to participate by making sure you have the right administrative support, policies, and procedures in place. In our case, launching a website to bring students together with faculty on projects worked well. Besides the initial website set up, it has been fairly painless. Track the metrics/numbers to see what they say about the success of the program. Success needs to be advertised to continue to build enthusiasm.

Our expert’s top five tips for social media marketers

Managing and growing a brand’s presence, no matter the medium, is serious business. Yet, many still believe that the job of a social media professional is frivolous at best— simply to tweet once in a while, upload photos and videos, and get the brand to “trend” on these social networks. So much so, the term “social media guru” is heavily derided on these very social networks! The truth is that as fleeting as social media interactions may seem, they can have a pronounced impact on the brand and the business. Maybe it’s time for five commandments that social media marketers should follow to maximise the value yet adding value to your customer’s ‘social’ lives? If you’re managing a brand in the social space read on…

THOU SHALT NOT GO BY NUMBERS (ALONE):

While everything in business seems to be better measured by numbers, here’s one department where quality beats quantity. Yes, it’s great—almost an ego boost—to have millions of Twitter followers and Facebook fans, but this fanatic obsession of accumulating an online following will get you nowhere. Ask any seasoned professional— there is no value in a mob of fans if they don’t really care about what you have to say. More important is to engage your audience via well-produced, engaging content with a clear call to action that addresses their concerns or needs. This—rather than an overnight campaign that lands you thousands of followers—will build a loyal and committed fan following, nay even brand evangelists, the influence of which far surpasses that of casual, lesser engaged audiences.

THOU SHALT ALWAYS LISTEN:

While it may seem obvious to do, far too few social media marketers listen to their audiences first before broadcasting their messages. As with any social interaction offline, never forget that social is a two-way street, and no one, least of all discerning consumers, like to be talked at. Monitor conversations about your brand—they’re plenty of tools available that will do the job for you—and jump into conversations intelligently with a sincere offer to help, either by way of helpful or entertaining content or useful offers. If you are using social media for customer service, respond quickly and honestly, even if it is to say that someone is on the job trying to identify the cause of the issue and ask for the customer’s patience on the issue.

THOU SHALT BE LIKEABLE (ALMOST ALWAYS):

The days of stiff upper lips are passé—with a social presence, your business can develop relationships with the community on both the friend and expert levels, and your personality can shine through the information—free advice, funny “insider” stories, engaging conversations— you share. Don’t take yourself too seriously—while it’s great to have serious content, it’s all right to have fun when the occasion is right. This can help your brand stand out in the clutter of tweets and posts that crowd your readers’ timelines each day.

THOU SHALT BE POSITIVE AND UPBEAT ONLINE:

The positivity helps spread the good word about the brand in a far more lasting manner than momentary negativity (about the competition or the operating environment) ever will. And do good—post material that is useful to the reader rather than only posting promotional material. Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute suggests a 4-1-1 rule for Twitter engagement that can as well be extended to other social media channels - for every one self-serving tweet, you should re-tweet one relevant tweet and share four pieces of relevant content written by others i.e. share more non-promotional posts before you go in for a soft or hard sell. Plus it will help build social currency with other thought leaders in your space.

THOU SHALT RESPECT YOUR FOLLOWERS’ TIME:

Place yourself in the shoes of your followers before you hit the Post or Tweet button. Does this post add value to your audience— from their perspective? If not, delete and start over. Be brief—you only have a precious few seconds to catch someone’s attention— make it worth their time by using concise language, visuals (infographics, in particular) which have immediate impact. Do not spam your audience, inducing a negative reaction to your social presence and ultimately your business. Also, be wary of overusing hashtags—especially when using them in unrelated posts to drive additional visibility and traffic, which leads to viewers feeling cheated.

What our search history says about us

GOOGLE IS THE nickname of a close friend’s son. He is nine years old— that makes him younger than Google Inc. He was born in Stanford, a few months after the publication of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. When we came to know about his christening, we put it down to two things—the first was his having been born in Palo Alto, with its Google connection; the other we thought of as an appropriate next generational writing back to Lahiri’s ‘Gogol’, for with a software engineer father (instead of Lahiri’s storybookperfect librarian dad), it was only right that ‘Google’, and not ‘Gogol’, be the name of the non-resident child. It made sense to be Google than Gogol in early 21st century America. Every time I see him, I am reminded of Neil Gaiman’s song I Google you: I Google you late at night when I don’t know what to do …. I Google you Whenever I’m alone and feeling blue … The emotions are not surprising, being part of the ancient ‘search’ motif as they are, the search for the lover or the search for the ‘nameplace- animal-thing’. What is new is the methodology of course, the snooping and stalking going hi-tech, but what is most interesting is this reliance on a search engine to play the role of neighbourhood aunt, dating agency, investigator and shrink, especially the last. For that one ‘search result’ is what one is looking for: the name of the lover, with only some new details added on, a new job, a new address perhaps, but hopefully not a new lover. Until then there is hope—inside the computer, even if not in the sweaty life outside it. Almost as a kind of grass-on-theother- side relief, there Mel Nichols’s poem I Google Myself: I Google myself I want you to love me When I feel down I want you to Google me …. I don’t Google anybody else At home alone in the middle of the night I Google myself We should all be honest enough to confess that we have been guilty of both–googling our names and those of our lovers. To google one’s name is a bit like a child shouting in the hollow dark—it’s a need for reassurance of our existence. To not be a ‘search result’ on Google is an existential crisis. Some days I feel sad for my grandparents—that I cannot show my love for them by typing their names in the Google search engine. Then I have the sense of them actually being lost to me forever, a double death, their irrecoverability even as a ‘search result’. It is hard to believe in the emotional investment in such an action, but anyone who has been greeted with ‘no matches found’ to a Google search report would know what I mean. I ask my cousin, the resident troubleshooter of our technologychallenged family, about the seemingly neutral algorithm of Google search results. Does it mean that our dead grandmother means nothing to the world because she wasn’t famous enough? I ask, envying imagined people with famous grandmothers. Troy, my cousin, tells me that no search result on Google is ever neutral—it carries the baggage of our ‘search history’. I am worried, counting back to all the naughty words I’ve fed my search engine. Is that why my grandmother refused to turn up in my Google search? I also want to tell Troy about the many times I’ve typed ‘I hate ...’, the name of a current dislike, usually a superior in the workplace, but I hold myself back. In that penitent mood, I ask him if there was redemption, if all my search-sins could be washed away. The sad truth is that as in life outside Google, the adage ‘as we sow, so we reap’ holds true. For Google search, we are an assemblage of our search options. ‘I’m feeling lucky’ is a version of the comradely high-five, that great minds, like Google’s and yours, can sometimes think alike. There were things I learnt about how this search operation works: Google works for us by using a mechanism called ‘crawling’ which means the links we follow from page to page. So while our fingers get some exercise on the keyboard, poor Google is ‘crawling’ to get info-food to our table. How Google gets us back to our self—‘type your name and press enter’—is enabled by things that have erotic names like ‘String Theory’ and martial arts for the brains like ‘Algorithm’. The Search Lab—which is a bit like our kitchen, but with more than 200 ingredients that goes into every recipe, only here the cooking takes 1/8th of a second, works to restore you back to yourself, without spam. All this to satisfy your urge to that overwhelming question: Who am I? For Gareth Thomas’s The Google Song has these lines: I wondered what was where And what I was doing here At night I googled up my name I watched my name roll down the page From 1000 different towns and places And not one of me was the same There’s a banker and some CEO And some writer on some radio A broker and a baker And a booker and some barrister too Then my fears were growing active These other me’s were quite attractive But one thing didn’t ring true They don’t have you The song carries a generation’s insecurities: “Then my fears were growing active/These other me’s were quite attractive”, what most of us, with the exception of Barack Obama and Salman Rushdie, must have felt at some time or the other after a selfgoogle search. What saves the day is love: ‘They don’t have you’. There is a Tamil Google song as well. It’s from the film Thupakki. But in the song, the primacy of Google is challenged. Google told me that you are the most beautiful woman in the world, sings the man. Yahoo told me that no one’s quite mad like you, replied the woman. In this duel, there are other entrants too: ebay and Youtube too, all props in their repartee. I still don’t quite understand the relation between Google and love. What does it say about our cultural history of emotions that we invest an internet search engine with romantic love? There is something else that these poems and songs share in common: it is the invocation of the Google Search Engine at night. Is it loneliness alone, abetted by a neighbouring darkness that makes people play a digital version of ‘Search Me’? Someday, I will feel lucky. And then I will discover the answer perhaps. Am I not worth any human love at all if I am not a Google search result?

Media man, journo and BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli remembers his days as a telly newscaster

I was born in Mumbai. My father worked in the government so we moved a lot. First seven to eight years were spent in Rajasthan, in a place called Khetri, which was a copper area, a year in Malanjkhand. That was a wonderful year because by the time my sister and I shifted there, there were no schools. And by the time we were ready to leave (as my father had completed the project) a school—the first school of the area— had come up. So for a year we were home-schooled. The best time ever! Mid 1980s, my political consciousness was stoked. My father got associated with Pu Laldenga in Mizoram. He was the adviser development in the rank of a minister in his government. When defections brought down the government Laldenga became the Leader of the Opposition and that when he would visit New Delhi often. I was jobless at that time and would double up as my father's chauffeur, driving Mr Laldenga and my father around Delhi. I would have the privilege of being part of the conversations. Fresh out of school and just into college, it was an idealistic time and I was greatly influenced by what I saw and heard. They would meet the top leadership of the country— Atal Behari Vajpayee, VP Singh and L.K. Advani—the whole works. I was privy to conversations which were politically enriching and stimulating. I was close to the political process, the political personalities and as a young adult, I realised I wished to be part of the Indian political system in some manner. However, before I could be a part, there were preparations that needed to be taken. The idea of studying history struck me because I wanted to be a part of the civil services. The subject seemed to be perfect fit! Also, I enjoyed history at the higher education level. It was a departure from what we learnt in school; just a chronological tally of dates. When you get into the socio-economic and political aspects of it, do you really, truly get to realise how beautiful and relevant the subject is. When I was in college, which was Sri Venkateswara College, problems over the Mandal Commission broke out. And one Rajiv Goswami, the youth who immolated himself, changed the course of my life. I witnessed the incident. As a result, the UPSC lost its charm and as a result I also abandoned my pursuit of history. But how did I meander towards MBA and law? MBA seemed like a natural progression because my father was an alumni of IIM Calcutta. Actually, he was a part of its first batch. My father and sister are the brilliant and academic ones in the family, while I have spread my interests; be it theatre or music or any cultural activity I have been equally invested in those. I studied hard for my management studies and though I did decently in most written examinations, even those for the IIMs, I believe that I truly shine when I have to talk before people. Jokes aside, I completed a course from Ford School of Management. Law happened later, a manifestation of my desire to be a part of the political system. And it seemed like a robust professional career. But both of us siblings have our parents to thank for providing us with a well-rounded upbringing. We received piano lessons, were encouraged to act on stage, sing and read as much as we could. By Class IX, our parents told us that we were free to choose our career paths; as long as we did not do too badly in studies we were free to do as many things that we wanted. I believe our personalities really came up as we participated more and more. Of course, the times were different then and numbers did not matter so much. As siblings we started to anchor for Doordarshan right after school in 1989. My sister and I had entered a competition and were selected for a programme called Youth Forum. Our producer, Mr Ashok Buddhiraja, made it clear that it was “our” programme—we were its faces. So, we did more than just anchor for the programme, involving ourselves in its creation, ideation and planning. We would talk to the editor, sit with the photographer. We really learnt on the job. We were young, enthusiastic and eager. In 1993 when Doordarshan started to look for empaneled producers I applied. It was serendipitous that I met danseuse Sharmistha Mukherjee, my neighbour, at a wedding. She was looking for an empaneled producer and I was looking for a meaningful programme and thus Taal Mel, a series looking into the heritage and history of classical dance, was born. We gathered 30 of the best dancers of India and based on the success of that programme I started Kalashetra— focused on arts of India. Mind, Body And Soul was my last programme, I used to anchor and produce it. In 1993, Doordarshan was also looking for newscasters. It seemed but natural that I should apply. I am told that 10 of us made the cut among 12,000 aspirants. For a long time, Suneet Tandon and I were the two English newscasters on the national channel. I was a broadcaster till 2003. Between 1997-1998, I was also a special correspondent for MSNBC on the internet. I met one of the top personnel at a seminar in Sarlsberg and we got talking. He said that he wanted someone from India to talk about the relevant Indian issues. I proposed a few stories and we began. In retrospect, topics I wrote of were relevant. I had no formal training in journalism and yet, my instincts worked. I had written a story on Indira Gandhi being at the helm of the Congress, months before she assumed power. My editor sent me a single-line e-mail, “you are clairvoyant” when she took office. So, at the risk of sounding immodest, I was pretty all right as a journalist. I wrote on the automobile and telecom industry as well. I started to contribute for ABC Radio. But by 2000, I was so tied up with Mind, Body And Soul and the news anchoring that I had to abandon all the rest of the writing assignments. At our time, journalism was not a career that people studied—you became one by default. As did I. The closest I came to structured journalism when I helped set up the International School of Media and Entertainment Studies (ISOMES).

If I Could Be...

When I look back I always wished to be an entrepreneur—I never wanted a regular job. I have seen my father in the public sector and I knew that in a “job” there was no disposable income. And when I was a young man I wanted to have disposable income and a comfortable life. My Calcutta days made me aware of how important disposable income was because I was near Marwari boys who came from business families and they had economic power. My intention was to get into exports because it was a good possibility. In the early 1990s, I really targeted Israel and Russia. However, this is were you truly believe in destiny. While I had to make no effort for television and continued to move ahead in it, when it came to business, geo-political circumstances made it difficult for me to start any type of business.

Both Sides Fighting Over Half a Point

INDIA’S VOTE AGAINST Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 21 was ill-advised. Of course, some would argue it was inevitable, given the political influence of Tamil Nadu on the UPA government. Indeed, it is a bit of a cliché that diplomatic outreach to India’s neighbouring countries lies through its states. There is reason for this. Economic integration of our subcontinent is unlikely to be a dramatic, top-down event. As things stand, there seems little chance of south Asian nations signing something like the Treaty of Maastricht, the 1991 agreement that created the European Union. It is more probable that localised initiatives could be the bottom-up trigger. Take greater trade between the two Punjabs, commerce between West Bengal and Bangladesh or a river-waters compact that will benefit Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Could these lead to something bigger? To be fair India has not arrived at this question due to some grand strategy or theoretical construct. Like so much else in the recent past, it has been an accidental implication of coalition politics and the rise of regional and state-specific parties. They can pursue or block foreignpolicy proposals from New Delhi. As such, the Union government has grudgingly come to see it as useful to make them partners rather than bypass them. Sri Lanka offers the other side of the picture. Historically, India has seen Sri Lanka almost solely through the prism of that country’s Tamil minority and the politics of Tamil Nadu. In the final months of the battle between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in 2009, the UPA government took a pragmatic decision. It refused to succumb to interest groups and provincial politicians and recognised Velupillai Prabhakaran’s elimination— rather than a ceasefire and a safe passage for the LTTE chief—was the only solution. Today, that moment of enlightenment seems so far away. Small-scale bickering has returned. There is a perception in India that the Sri Lankan government hasn’t done all it can to help Tamil civilians, picking up the pieces after two decades of civil war. Disturbing stories of internallydisplaced people and their health and civic conditions have been recorded. Indian officials also say Colombo doesn’t seem as keen as it could be to develop infrastructure in the Tamil areas. For example, India has offered to help develop the Palaly airport in Jaffna from a military to a civilian facility but has been left disappointed. The Sri Lankan contention has been that India, like Western countries, underestimates the degree of development work the Sri Lankan army has been engaged in in the Tamil areas. Indeed, redeployment of troops for this purpose has been a practical solution, Sri Lankan sources say, because if thousands of able-bodied troops are suddenly demobilised it will pose a social challenge of quite another nature. Colombo also insists “settlement” with a Tamil civilian leadership is not easy to achieve because no such credible leadership exists. The LTTE had wiped out its moderate opponents. Further, a caste conflict has complicated internal dynamics within the Tamil community. Both sides have half a point. What hasn’t helped is the absence of chemistry between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The two are very different individuals. Mr Rajapaksa is a provincial politician, distinct from the cosmopolitan elite of Colombo. He responds to international politics in quite the same manner as he looks at domestic politics. He also has a strongman streak, drawing from his electoral strength in a post-war Sri Lanka. For instance, he got parliament to impeach the Supreme Court chief justice on rather flimsy grounds. Sensing a policy paralysis and a weakness in the upper echelons of power in New Delhi, Mr Rajapaksa has pushed his Indian interlocutors. He has flirted with the Chinese. Beijing has been only too willing to play along, providing cheap capital and loans that have paid for much of Sri Lanka’s reconstruction and boom. At the MEA, the absence of a strategic reappraisal of the bilateral relationship has led to confused responses. It has had some sections—and these include sections not even remotely sympathetic to the LTTE—wondering if the effacement of the Tamil insurgency has left India without diplomatic leverage. In terms of pure power equations this has happened. After the civil war, Sri Lanka has more options and more operational autonomy in its external relations. A segment of Sinhalese political opinion is relishing this liberation and more than happy to stand up to Big Brother up north. In all this, it is important to not lose sight of the broader picture. With the Indian Ocean emerging as an area of 21st century geopolitical competition, with growing Chinese footprints, it would be short-sighted for India to look at Sri Lanka solely in the context of Tamil politics. There is no doubt that Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority needs to be guaranteed its political space, legal equality and cultural dignity. Aggressive ethnic nationalism, especially of the kind previous generations of Sinhalese politicians encouraged, has no place in today’s world. India is within its rights to argue and fight for that principle. Yet, that principle is only a parameter in India’s Sri Lanka outlook; it is not the be all and end all. In that sense, far from outsourcing Sri Lanka policy to Tamil Nadu politicians, New Delhi’s establishment would do well to recover some turf.

Anshul Tewari and his Youth ki Awaaz are giving the Indian youth what it never had; a podium to raise their voices

In 2008, when Tewari had just finished his board exams and was wondering what career path to tread, he was also writing letters to editors of national dailies, expressing his views on the country’s relevant issues. Letters, which no one published—no one was listening. The attitude of the Fourth Estate frustrated the younger Tewari and so, he began putting his thoughts on a blog. “Whenever I expressed my views and opinions on political issues, my elders would always ask me to worry about my career instead of wasting my time in these things. Moreover, I noticed that most of the things being talked about in the mainstream media were things I could not relate to. Frustrated with the situation, I decided to write about the issues which mattered to me and started a blog called Youth Ki Awaz.” Initially, he says, he was not sure if he wanted to give the blog an organisational turn. “I was blogging and making a few friends of mine read the posts. Then in few months time, I realised that some people were regularly reading my blogs. I started to receive messages from people from different parts of the country, who said that they could relate to what was being written. One day, I got an e-mail from a reader who said he wished to write something on the blog.” It was then that Tewari realised that he ought to open his blog to other writers as well. And the podium was given shape. When they started the website, most people did not think it was for the long haul. When Tewari approached prospective clients with an investment proposal, they refused to pay him attention. Again, his age was his Achilles heel—he was too young. As the portal caught momentum, perspectives began to change. The same people who avoided Youth Ki Awaaz at the beginning, now showed interest to be a part of it and advertise. As attention increased, it began to be a smoother sail. For the first few years, Youth Ki Awaaz was forced to accept a lot of advertisements to stay afloat. But that is a thing of the past. The website today is squeaky clean—devoid of the clutter of meaningless adverts. What the portal does instead is orgnanise sponsored events to help engage with readers at various levels. That also brings in the moolah. Today, Youth Ki Awaaz is one of the most read opinion portals in India—not without a reason. They have done what the bigger media corporations were supposed to be doing. They have given citizens of our country a voice. During the Libyan Civil War, in which several Indians were left stranded in the war-torn nation with the country’s administrators paying no attention to the crisis of its citizens, a reader whose father was also stuck in the crossfire, wrote to media organisations with a plea—to bring the issue to the forefront. None heard him out. After writing to almost every media company, he got in touch with Tewari, who encouraged him to write an open letter to the Ministry of External Affairs. The letter, the moment it got published, went viral on Twitter. This made other organisations take notice. “Rajdeep Sardesai, contacted me on Twitter asking about the article. That day, CNN IBN carried a huge story as well and that put tremendous pressure on the Indian Government. It was then that they decided to send ships to Libya to bring Indians home,” he tells us. There are many who still don’t take citizen journalism seriously. But look closely at Youth Ki Awaaz’s stories—perhaps, we are not as helpless as we are led to believe. Tewari, with his ‘mouthpiece for the youth’ is empowering millions, exercising his power as a citizen and asking you to do just the same—after all no one is too young to care about his or her country.

A hilarious, easy read which can impact a reader tad too strongly, as our reviewer found out...

I ALMOST did not write this book review. That is not to deny the fact that I had actually volunteered to write it, or that— once I had committed myself to it—I did not want to write it. The truth is I am a procrastinator; and, after reading this book—by a Stanford University professor and acclaimed author, no less—a proud one at that. The book, quite simply, is a step-by-step coming to terms with dragging your feet over supposedly urgent tasks, something like Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve Steps. It explores the concept of ‘structured procrastination’—words that would be sweet music to the ears of dawdlers like yours truly. The delightful 92-page book was born from an essay that Professor of Philosophy John Perry wrote to analyse and explain his own delays in dealing with pressing matters that ideally should not occupy the troubled thoughts of a highly ‘productive’ faculty member of an Ivy League university. Without going into a spiel on how procrastinators can help themselves kick the habit, the book encourages them to embrace it, instead, and cultivate it to work to their advantage. Simple self-help tools like making to-do lists are given a makeover to assist the deadline-challenged. You find it difficult to keep up with lists? Then make bitesized ones that make it easy to cross off items at a speed that would make the ‘vertically-organised’ jealous. Sample: Don’t press the snooze button; Get out of bed; Make coffee. There, three items crossed off in the span of five minutes, and all this before breakfast! Do all this to the tune of music that makes you want to shake off the lazies and just get to it. Not only did the book make a chronic procrastinator like me feel part of a wider community of well-meaning, goal-achieving perfectionists, it also helps us dawdlers take a long hard look at the long-suffering colleagues or spouses who have to put up with us. Like the poor editor, who I have been avoiding for the past few days. No amount of mail or SMS reminders help, as, in the words of the author, “the psychology of the structured procrastinator has easily outwitted modern technology”. In the end, I have to admit that apart from the self-affirming nature of Professor Perry’s confessions and those of his readers the book was a surprise in itself. Psycho-philosophical depth apart, it’s a breeze to read, and difficult to put down, even by a classical procrastinator like me. And as you’re currently breezing through this review, you know I am on my way to reforming myself. Or at least I will get to it eventually.

Powerful, whimsical and hard-hitting, an interesting second novel from a young writer

DISPLACEMENT AND identity. I and you. Them and us. Violence and inner peace. The prison one flees and the land of second chances. Ties to one’s soil or land, the repulsion of the new terrain. Sense of family, suspicion of nationality, push of leaving and the pull of curiosity—The Walking is a balance of opposing elements, deriving its voice from a number of players across tenses, timelines and voices. Khadvi’s first novel The Age of Orphans started a trilogy. The Age of Orphans followed a Kurdish boy in Iran in the 1920s. That boy is left orphaned by the Shah’s army. He is then abducted and taught to hate his own people. The Walking, the second book in the trilogy starts in 1979 with Ayatollah Khomeini taking over the reigns of Iran with the boy—now an older man—standing at its margins. Like before, the theme of displacement and geopolitical turmoil continues as two Kurdish-Iranian teenagers are forced to flee, now from Khomeini’s Iran. The two brothers are as different as you can imagine; the younger—Saladin—is a cinema buff and dreams of Amreeka, while the older, Ali, pines for home. The central story of the boys’ journeys is related in the third person— which lends the book its unique flavour. To read what is cardinal in the third voice is disconcerting and arresting at the same time. Sometimes, the boys’ stories seem just as incidental as the other stories of immigrants that run parallel to Saladin’s or Ali’s, or those that are snatched from the past. And there are smaller side-stories galore—of families and loved ones left behind, of people who manage to escape, of emigrants finally learning to live in the land of second chances which is America. Ultimately, the effort is to fit in and to blend in as mush as possible. In doses, The Walking is also a tale of horror—of war—in a land where the head and its power changes hands, but the realm of absurd violence continues with a thematic emphasis; it is also a story of an Iran where multiple communities are paying the price of being born in specific cultural identity—be it as a Jew or a Baha’i or a Kurd. Khadvi does not really dwell on atrocities of war, stoning and other sorts of medieval punishments, but brushes over them in a poignant fashion, which manages to leave a dent on the reader’s mind. The book is a comprehensive history of the war-torn nation—there is the mention of those who died in the cinema fire in Tehran (now known to have been started by fundamentalists and not, as decreed by the mullahs, by the Shah’s supporters); the American hostage crisis; the Iran-Iraq war; the tens of thousands who were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. In bits and pieces the book does seem tad slow and a bit too descriptive, however the lack of pace is more than made up by the prose. The book is essentially about migration— a theme that must be close to the heart of the Kurdish-American author, whose family was forced to flee in similar circumstances. The physical movement of a being from one place to another and severing of mental, emotional and geo-political ties are explored throughout the book. Fortunately Khadvi does not mince her words and the writing is taut, bereft of sentimentality but laden with emotions. In attempting to cover both the fictional story and the facts, details of the former slip and become implausible. Credulity is stretched when crop-gatherers deviate into some sort of an archaeological excavation and lead both the boys to a dig where Saladin finds a valuable gold object. And the brothers are allowed to keep it. Despite its flaws, there are several bits to love and rant about—its characters, the way it was written, its geo-political context and the lucid connections that Khadvi draws between political history and personal journeys. Though this is to be the second book in a trilogy, however, readers can pick this one up as a standalone. All in all, The Walking is definitely one of the best reads of this month.

Where turquoise has a different meaning—Istanbul

It was on the last day of my trip to Istanbul that I discovered quite why I had developed such a powerful bond with the city. The country is called Turkey, and the signature colour—if you go by the glazed tiles and the evil eye talisman—is blue. The French called it “blue of the Turks” or, as you would say it in French, “turquoise”. It happens that my favourite colour is turquoise. And in Istanbul, there was plenty of it in the landscape. The sea, for example, was unalloyed turquoise. But to tell you what sea it was is to reveal the very location of the city, perched famously between Europe and Asia: the westernmost point of Asia and the easternmost point of Europe. On one side is the Sea of Marmara; on the other is the Black Sea. Joining them both is the Bosphorus; while to the south is the Aegean Sea that continues southwards as the Mediterranean Sea. That’s quite a lot of water, and the sprawling city lies across hills that dip into sparkling turquoise waters that funnel up the breeze that keeps the city refreshed. Considering that it was the capital variously of the Romans, Greeks and Ottomans, it has a style that is a synthesis of all these, woven into a whole that is identifiably Turkish. “That Istanbul famously straddles two continents is a symbol of something else: its ability to be in two points in time simultaneously or to occupy two opposite ends of the social spectrum,” Gulgun (a local friend) tells me. We were sitting at a bakery that had exactly two tables on the pavement, between a dry cleaner’s shop and an automobile work-shop in the uber traditional Fatih area. Gulgun with her trademark short dress and hand-rolled cigarettes stood out in the area; other ladies wore burqas. Nothing gave my friend more satisfaction than shocking those around her. I was shocked too—at the quality of the coffee before us. The delicate thimble-sized cups were mismatched and ever so slightly grimy, yes, but the coffee in them was pure elixir. Gulgun said that it was because of the low temperature at which the water and coffee powder was heated. We had connected over a Turkish music site a few months before my trip and had formed a close bond. It was she who sent me scurrying to all the most unlikely places in her city—corners that I would have never got to see on my own. Rather tumbledown Fatih where Islam was proudly worn like a badge, was just one example. Still, I did get to clamber onto the tourist treadmill, much to Gulgun’s disapproval. My trip to the Dolmabahce Palace confirmed all that I felt about Turkish style: Bohemian and Baccarat crystal vases and chandeliers, the trappings of wealth and style that were from Europe and a setting by the Bosphorus in gardens that could only have been in had a quality of being a natural part of anywhere in the world. I found that intriguing even while I stared goggle-eyed at the lavish wealth displayed tastefully in front of me. Neither museum allowed photography, so I tried frantically to capture the image of pure gold sword sheaths and emerald casks of the Topkapi in my mind’s eye. What appealed to my sensibilities the most was that while I viewed the treasures of the Muslim world and heard the 24x7 recitation of the Quran by a team of young men, outside church-bells pealed. That was the true Istanbul spirit! The vast kitchens of both palaces have sections for the making of sweets. It is a sign of how seriously the city has always taken its confectionery. I walked around the Eminonu district—I loved it for its slightly rakish air, the squealing seagulls, the bobbing boats and the presence of the New Mosque and the Spice Market side by side. A short walk uphill was the Mecca of confectionery: Hafiz Mustafa on Hamidiye Caddesi (Caddesi means road). Once you stepped in, you are guaranteed to go stark staring mad trying to decide what to order from sesame halva, dozens of varieties of locum (the local name for Turkish delight) and countless types of baklava, each more irresistible than the last. There’s a whole universe out there, which goes under the heading of Turkish cuisine. There are the seafood restaurants of the little pedestrianized lanes off Istiklal Caddesi. Tables with red and white checked tablecloths dot the pavement and the menus are short with each restaurant boasting of a few specialities. Except in the specifically seafood restaurants, you order a panoply of cold starters, most of them vegetarian. Usually only the main course has an element of meat—beef, lamb or chicken. You cannot do better than the street-side doner kebap (like they say) made on a vertical rotating spit. And Turkey is one country that really is vegetarian-friendly: every last restaurant has stewed vegetables, including the giant green chili that is packed with flavour but not with pungency. If there was one aspect of the city that outshone the cuisine and the sight-seeing, it was the shopping. Or rather, for nobody can accuse me of being a shopaholic, the window shopping. Forget modern all glass malls. In the centuries old Covered Market, which, for all practical purposes was a mall, had over one thousand shops. Some of these, it has to be said, are doner kebap stalls and kiosks selling the ubiquitous evil eye talisman. Others are in-your-face carpet sellers and still others are purveyors of impossibly exotic mustbuys, like the solemn gentleman who sold me an intricate work of calligraphy. “Where has it been done?” I ask breathlessly. “In India”, he replies, supremely unconscious of the fact that I come from there. “In a city called Jaipur.” As my heart sank to my boots, the kindly old man realised he had made a faux pas and proceeded to cheer up with a story about how the colour turquoise acquired its name. That was when I had my Istanbul moment.

Bill Marchetti talks of love—for cooking, travelling, and the country he now calls home

In a dimly-lit corner of the otherwise bright room, sits a portly white man. He wears a rather mean beard, the kind which the gora Bollywood baddies, such as Bob Christo, are known to brandish. Had it not been for the Santa Claus belly that he sports, Bill Marchetti, the Head Chef of Spaghetti Kitchen, would have made a glorious villain, for his mannerisms, the way he talks, his hand gestures, and his expressive eyes, all have a theatrical quality to them. However, do not fall for the beard; there is not a single mean muscle in Marchetti, even if he insists that you believe otherwise. “I am scary person inside the kitchen. There I am Genghis Khan,” says Marchetti, and looks at another chef (Tejas) sitting right across the table. Breaking into laughter, Tejas declares that he is really scared of Marchetti when he’s in action. As if to make his point clearer, Marchetti narrates a story. A story, he has no memory of. It is a rather old tale of a time when he was still in Australia. It was one of those days when all the chefs of his restaurant had called in sick. Marchetti and his Head Chef were the two people managing the kitchen, and they were flooded with orders. There was a particular waiter who was giving Marchetti a hard time. The Chef, neck deep in work, was too busy to react then. “Every time, he came to the kitchen he would annoy me. He kept taking panga.” Finally, after taking care of the last order, Marchetti lost it. He picked up his chopping knife and ran after the waiter, chasing him throughout the dining area. “I have no memory of this incident. All I remember is waking up on the cold floor, with a splitting headache,” he reminisces. What had happened was that his Head Chef, afraid that Marchetti might end up hurting the waiter, bludgeoned the Chef with a frying pan, and knocked the air out of him. The impact was such that Marchetti’s mind wiped the memory of that particular incident off. “That, however, was the last time that I murdered anybody,” he adds with a wink. The almost-criminal record aside, Marchetti is a compassionate man. He believes in pushing his junior chefs beyond their boundaries, but in an encouraging manner. “You have to make sure that they feel encouraged. If they don’t feel like coming back to work the next day, then what is the point?” When Marchetti first entered the kitchen he was just 13. It was his mother who introduced him to the kitchen, and what he saw there, “an atmosphere of madness and chaos, where the mercury was boiling at 50 degrees”, made him fall in love. However, the decision to be in the hospitality industry was made a long time ago. “When I was eight years I used to read a lot of biographies of popular restaurateurs, that influenced me a lot and I wanted to become like them.” He moved to India 12 years ago, to run away from a broken marriage. “I was getting out of a nasty divorce, my second in six years, and at that time, Australia seemed smaller to me.” So when the ITC Maratha Sheraton’s GM offered him a job, he took it up. “I had offers from Japan and China and had I moved there I would have made more money, but I chose India, because the people here are warmer. In a matter of few years I made some very good friends,” he says. The good people of India, however, are but one reason for his stay. Marchetti’s “love affair” with India dates back to 1981, a time when he used to be a “spiritual” man. When asked why the word spiritual was put in quotes, he says that, “Everybody was spiritual in those days.” Whether or not you believe it, but Marchetti has made India his home, truly and completely. When asked what his comfort food is, he says it’s a “bowl of pasta”, pausing for a moment he adds, “It also is daal chawal, just depends on what mood you are in.” The conversation, though in English, is sprinkled with Hindi. Words like panga, shanti, jeera often make way into the chat. When asked how much Hindi he knows, his answer is: “all the bad words”, a thing common in most non-Hindi speaking Indians. If you find the Spaghetti Kitchen’s food exceptionally delicious, it is because Marchetti is growing all the vegetables in a farmhouse, and ensuring you eat just food and not pesticides. When he is not cooking, he is travelling. If cooking is his second nature, then travelling could come third. Marchetti has been to all major travel destinations in India, but he says that there is a lot more to discover, after all—“it is a freaking big country.” In this ’freakishly large’ country, he has found his home. “I think I am good here,” he says. “I will be staying here for the rest of my life.”