Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
About the Course
This is how the course was presented to the Executive Post Graduate Program (EPGP) at IIM-Bangalore. Companies spend enormous amounts of money each year in soft skills training. Many have realized that in additional to core competencies, employees need to improve their Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ). Consider this scenario: you are hosting a client dinner to initiate an important project or deal. Executives from Europe and the U.S. have flown in. You have hired a private dining room at a luxury hotel. Food and wine are in place. There will be no business presentation; no obvious talk of deals. Instead, [...]
Future of private equity in India may be a pipe dream
The business column I write for The National every week is really tough for me. This week was no exception. I learned about private equity 101 and talked to about half a dozen players in Mumbai and Bangalore. No one would speak on the record and it was all very interesting. I turned in the piece after my deadline and Rupert, my editor, tried to be gracious about it. Next week, I start again. Here is the link Future of private equity in India may be a pipe dream Shoba Narayan Last Updated: Feb 20, 2011 Last week, after a [...]
EdelGive Social Innovation Honours
Last week, I attended an event that was very inspiring. I was part of a jury that judged about a dozen humanitarian organizations to figure out which ones to support. The whole thing was organized by Vidya Shah (wife of Edelweiss founder, Rashesh Shah), a lovely grounded woman from Dharwad. The others in the jury were Zia Mody (very irreverent and funny), Mala Ramadorai (wife of ex-TCS chairman Ramadorai) who has the sweet voice of the singer she is, Roopa Kudva of Crisil, a journalist, Kalpana Sharma, Chandra Iyengar (ex- Home Secretary, Maharashtra) who knew a lot about these NGOs, [...]
Can you survive a year without shopping?
My latest Mint piece is a topic that I have been thinking a lot about. Can you show affection without buying people things? How to use the most precious thing we have-- time-- to tell the people we care that we care about them.
Podcasts you should listen to
My latest Mint column It started with children’s audiobooks—abundantly available on the Web. Storynory.com offers free pod casts, in which a chirpy woman named Natasha tells stories suitable for children aged 6-16. Try it when your children come home from school. Along with their tiffin, you can serve them up a story. I have become hooked to podcasts. As someone who spends a lot of time staring at the computer, listening to stuff gives my eyes a rest and gets me moving. I wear my earphones as I walk my dog, or do chores. Here then are some of my [...]
India Inflation
India must reduce inflation or it risks stunting its growth Shoba Narayan Last Updated: Feb 13, 2011 Some economists predict India's growth rate is likely to overtake China's this decade. Prashanth Vishwanathan / Bloomberg Recently the Indian Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) forecast that the Indian economy is projected to expand by 8.6 per cent in the current fiscal year to a record US$1.73 trillion (Dh6.35tn). At this level of nominal GDP, India's per capita income inches up to above $1,200, putting it on the path to becoming a middle-income country. These numbers have been gleefully trotted out by every policy [...]
Washington Post review.
"Monsoon Diary" is the first book she has written, but doubtless not the last. It is notable, by the way, not just for its own quite irresistible charm but also as the perfect companion piece to Mira Nair's exquisite movie "Monsoon Wedding."
New Yorker Book Currents section review of Monsoon Diary
In South India, as Shoba Narayan relates in her memoir Monsoon Diary (Villard), food is enriched by ritual importance, from the choru-unnal (the first meal of an infant) to the elaborate feast that commemorates a marriage. When she left Madras to attend school in the United States, Narayan craved bowls of yogurt and rice to ease her homesickness: “While the foreign flavors teased my palate, I needed Indian food to ground me.”
Book Stuff
Articles about Shoba Shoba beats Jhumpa in Writing Sweepstakes Shoba beats Jhumpa in Writing Sweepstakes by Aseem Chhabra When the editors of Gourmet assigned journalist Shoba Narayan to write a piece for the magazine's January 2000 issue, they virtually gave her a carte blanche. The editors had seen some of Narayan's writing and had liked her personal style. Of course, she was told to weave in descriptions of Indian food, cooking and kitchens in the article. "I find that I write best when I am given that kind of a broad mandate to write whatever I want," Narayan, 34, says [...]
Book stuff
Books General - Monsoon Diary Apart from the rest of her literary works Shoba has also been involved in writing books. Shoba's first book, "Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes" was published in April 2003 by Random House. Monsoon Diary has received praise and acclaim from many who have read it. Praise for Monsoon Diary... "An entirely enchanting look at growing up in South India, in an exotic world populated by the iron man, the flower woman, maamis, and the colorful and opinionated members of an extended Hindu family. Food and recipes are a powerful element in Shoba's story--tokens of [...]