EP9: From Bookstores to Bedtime Stories: Storytelling with Purpose ft. Preeti Vyas

How are the children today being impacted by the power of storytelling? Not everybody wants to read but everybody wants to consume culture. Did some of these books or compelling narratives or stories shape up your early career or rather childhood as well? There is no problem in the world whose solution cannot be found within the pages of a book somewhere. You just need to find the right book and you will get those answers. When I was growing up, I don't think so anyone spoke to me very clearly about bad touch. So these values coming out in books for kids

early it's so amazing to hear that when a child asks a question tell them the truth and get a good book and there's a diagram and show it to children let them be aware Raman Ramastra and what not right but I think sometimes they're misrepresented change is the way the world moves and moves forward and it has always been changing and it always will keep changing how do you foresee things would change for ACK and how do you want to work on that so just like I think every new technology that comes in that helps us to create better content, create content faster is never seen as a

threat. It's only seen as as an aid. But talking about very humanistic values which are being embibed in us, we have the trust of parents luckily. They open the door to us. No parent ever thinks twice before giving tinkle to their child. Under your leadership, could you talk a little bit more about, you know, how you've been depicting women, marginalized communities and so on and so forth. [Music] The Hustle Group Company. Let me introduce you to the Hustle Group Company. It's a lifestyle brand that's

redefining street wear through the power of fashion, self-belief, and resilience. The second one being Discover Dollar, which is an AIdriven tech company that helps brands and retailers recover hidden dollars from overp payments and leakages. Docs Now's intelligent platform empowers businesses of all sizes to rapidly collect, manage, govern, and collaborate on the data front, transforming your documents and making sure there's an impact on the business bottom line all in a secure and a single [Music]

environment. Hello everyone, welcome to yet another episode of the Innovators and Disruptors podcast. I'm your host Abhay Tundan and today's episode we're going to get you immersed in the world of comic books to graphic novels and the amalgamation of beautiful art of storytelling along with the rich culture heritage of India and how that has been kned together weaved together in the form of beautiful meaningful valu-driven stories and for that we have a amazing expert who's joining us today and we're going to also be touching about a lot of interesting characters that we have

grown up listening to or reading about them for example supundi or tinkle you know or punchantra and so on and so forth so it's a very exciting episode I'm very excited to welcome priti priti vias who is the co and president of amaritra kada thank you so much pri for being here thank you for inviting me pleasure to be here very excited looking forward likewise super excited I'm sure the people who will be watching us they're going to be super excited as well about the amount of uh you know interesting information perspectives uh and interesting facts that you're going

to share with us Very interestingly, I know your journey has been that of 30 years, you know, and a bunch of very very different things. So, we're going to get into some of those aspects about how have you been able to become the leader that you are today? How you've been able to create that impact? And before we go deeper into any of these aspects, I want to start off the conversation by asking a very simple question. How are the children today being impacted by the power of storytelling? I think storytelling has been has always

been I mean India has a 5,000 year tradition of storytelling right so storytelling is in our um it's in our DNA I think and uh whether it's this generation the previous or the future ones I think stories are what uh craft our personalities and they make us who we are uh and the impact especially at a young age is very very profound and uh the medium keeps on changing the the format might change but at its at its soul the impact a story has on uh development of character and personality is uh is one is is very foundational that's amazing to hear right in fact I

think when I was growing up uh punch tantra was a very very you know obvious thing in our heads because we read about these stories of uh you know through animal characters but talking about very humanistic values which were being embibed in Right? If you say lies then this is what happens. If you are cheating then this is what happens. So we were talking about the fallacies of the world and explaining that you know these are the things that we should not do. At the same time these are the right things to do right and that like you said so aptly creates the character and

the moral fiber of the society right as kids grow up. So so thank you so much for sharing that. Uh did did some of these books uh or compelling narratives or stories shape up your uh early career or rather childhood as well? Yeah. So that's that's a beautiful question cuz I actually grew up in a family of book lovers. Oh wow. Our home was filled with books and magazines. Uh my dad was a doctor by profession but a very very voracious reader. My mom was a lawyer by profession also a very avid reader. two elder sisters. So all the family of bookworms essentially. Oh amazing. And

my my dad was the kind of person that if you say you liked one book then he would next day go out and buy the entire series for you. Oh fantastic. Right. So he would never I mean I think my parents have never said no to a book. Never scrimp on a book. I mean uh we were like most of India middle class family. Right. But somehow books just had I mean I think I was the only child in my class who had a National Geographic subscription in those days. Brilliant. National Geographic used to have a magazine called world. So again for children I was the only one in our we

were the only ones in our school who had that subscription. So yeah there was a lot of reading and I think uh that kind of you know built in me this really uh very profound and deep relationship with books. True. Uh where I believe today as an adult that there is no problem in the world whose solution cannot be found within the pages of a book somewhere. Oh wow. Right. That's fantastic. You just need to find the right book and you'll get those answers. That that's amazing right because uh I mean I don't know what's the global volume of books that have been written over right you know

millennials but uh we have so much to consume books absolutely there's so many stories out there. Yeah. Now you mentioned the panchaandra you know and the panchaandra was written by Vishnu Sharma and it is actually just 87 stories right but with the world of animals in the jungle with humans also making their appearance it is so profound right and it continues to you know be relevant even today exactly some reimagination the language might change and how you tell it to a child but at its core it's so deep very true I want to go so much deeper into this

particular conversation but before that I do want to also understand a little bit more about uh you know you studied physics. Yes. Right. You had a love for books from childhood. You studied physics and now you're the CEO of a very iconic company. How what were the pivotal moments in your career you know that kind of got you through this whole journey and eventually into publishing and now into uh you know into Yes. Yes. So um I think when I completed my 10th in those days uh it was 1990 uh there was three streams available. It was arts, commerce and science and life was

very simple in that sense. You only had to choose one out of the three and I had good marks and uh you know since I was the youngest in the family and I always had was always known as Smitha's sister in school cuz we went with the same school and I got really fed up of that tagline of always being compared or being known as their sister. They were both super achievers. Okay. So my elder sister did arts, the second one did commerce. So I said my science. Okay. I will do something different. I will go to a different college. At that time of course retail was just coming up. Uh and

there was an econ economist uh cover story on modern retail and how it was impacting the world. And I got fascinated by the whole idea of of modern retailing and where it was in life. You would not be stuck to a desk. You know you would always be walking around. You'd be meeting people. you'd be changing things around and you'd be seeing and merchandising and category management. All of that seemed really interesting. So that's how I did my postgrad in retail management. I went to Australia and I was there for 2 years and I I started working when I was

there. So it was Toys R Us which was my first job. So uh it was an entry- level job. I was stacking shelves and uh you know being at the checkout and stuff like that and along with that I did a multiple other jobs including waitressing at an Indian restaurant on weekends and uh giving tions to younger students and multiple things right multiple multiple things and it was a fabulous two years and I came back in 97 and I then worked with Sony music um then with crossword uh then I went to Globus so it was all in the world of retail uh and a lot of

retail content, right? And at Crossword, I began to understand the importance, the love for children's books. And of course, I had always had that love. So could see how children were interacting and how modern retail was impacting children's content, right? Uh so that kind of those seeds were sewn and I decided I wanted to open my own store. So I worked at Globals for 2 years while I was saving up money to open my own. So when I was 26, I uh started my first store. It was called Kids Town. It was a children's learning store. So books, multimedia, stationary, all for

children. I ran it for 3 years. Um, and again it was a great experience but that experience taught me that uh in the world of retail is essentially a trading business. You're buying from someone selling to someone else. There is no IP you're creating. There's no IP that you own. Uh, and if you don't have your own IP that as a business model, it's always going to be weak, right? So I realized that yes, you need to have your own IP otherwise I can't scale this up. Um, and I couldn't see the scale up option of that business. So it was a very difficult decision. Uh so I decided to

close that store down. I didn't want to be I was always too ambitious to just be happy with a 500t store. I wanted to do too many things in life. Uh so then my ex- boss from globals had joined a future group as a CEO. So he said a you know come and work with me again. So I went back there. I did one year of operations which was a lot of customer experience management you know running the loss prevention cell doing a lot of operations summits things like that because future group that time already was a very large chain right uh and then at that time Mr. Siblani decided that

they wanted to get into the world of books retailing. So my boss said you don't have to look anywhere. It's Priti is here. She has all the experience, all the knowledge. So that's how that kind of came to me and we set up um which is chain of bookstores right and we added that we started from scratch and by the time we finished uh it was a 67 crore business. So it was it grew up it grew really really fast and built from scratch. It was very very satisfying. And then finally please happened and then Namacha happened. So that's the that's the journey. That's

fantastic. Right. So I So sorry I kind of the answer was a bit long to what you asked but I think to answer the original question is like uh when I meet my friends from retail uh ex-colagues they are sometimes surprised that oh how come you're running a publishing company now right? How come you're running Amachrakata? But when I meet school friends at school nobody is surprised because I was always so much into stories. I was a class storyteller. If the chief chief guest would be late, they would send me up on stage to tell, you know, assembly a story to keep them

quiet. True. So that relationship with stories was very is very very old, you know. So none of my school friends find that surprising. They're like, "Oh, that's a perfect job for you, Prii." Yeah. I mean, and I I I think uh sometimes uh people don't understand that in a whole supply chain Yeah. Uh there are lot of elements that you embibbe from different places. That's true. In my own personal jour uh journey, I did my engineering in biotechnology. Wow. Right. I was a lot into research. I was supposed to do my MS and PhD in human genetics. Cut to

today. I'm not related at all to that. But it brought a scientific temperament in the way I approach innovation today. Right. No experience has been um a waste or no experience has been useless. Everything has you know comes back to help me at some point of time. This happened all the way back in this place. Right. And you have a a learning from there. I'm sure and that's fantastic right because uh not everyone gets to experience all those aspects that you just mentioned right so you've had a very diverse career as well in fact very early like you mentioned you got into

entrepreneurship you had experience of setting up your own store and understanding how that details out as well right so that's fantastic and then how did that these experiences you know and including the setting up of 100 depot if I'm not wrong can you talk to us a little bit about that journey as well in future group because like you said it became a multi multi 20,000 cr business right very very quickly what was that experience like so yeah I was the first employee and I started of that business and the whole idea was the uh because the ethos of future group was

the mass market so the mass market of of books had not really been done in in the way uh that we were envisioning it and it was beautiful to build that whole chain so we had depot we had 100 stores which included stores like little shoppings like 500,000 square ft kind of shop and shops inside big bazaar uh one's inside pant lollons on one's inside central we had our own standalone stores we had about 15 standalone stores of our own and it was a beautiful journey because again it was uh in so many of the places where we opened it was the first bookstore or it was there

was no bookstore ever right and uh I was we were very clear as a team that we did not want to put the bookstore in a glass enclosed uh we didn't want to make it intimidating and we didn't want to make it premium so it was it was selling in a in a very democratic way, right? And I felt like, you know, there's an offer on tomato ketchup and there's an offer on surf and there's an offer on dictionaries right next to it. Pile them up and sell them, right? A lot of people from the industry look down upon it that you're disrespecting the dictionary. How can you sell it next to tomato ketchup

or how can you sell it? I said this is the ultimate respect for it, you know, because in a way with this pile of 200 dictionaries being here, 200 dictionaries have gone to 200 homes today which would not have gone otherwise, you know. So you're actually introducing um so we did that we did a lot of you know really large numbers in terms of number of books we were selling and that led us to think that why are we only buying and selling again right so why don't we do our own private label publishing that was my first experience with publishing as such so for example

you know Robin Sharma's monk who sold his Ferrari if you do nothing you're still going to sell 10,000 copies a year or 20,000 copies a year so why am I just buying from the publisher and selling it why don't I get them to make a special imprint for me right with my logo on it and have some uh control you know on the on the production values and then control the pricing to a certain extent and control the margin as a result. So although it is still the same book it stands out in its own way plus my margin has really improved and the publisher is happy to because he's getting a

confirmed bulk order uh you know where he can afford those margins. So we began doing a lot of so then we started working with Sanjie Kapoor and Tala Dalal and Nita do a whole range of cookery books which they made only for us. Wow. So that happened, private label publishing happened. We started one of India's first self-publishing platforms was Depo self-publishing where you know today of course it is very you know mainstream but in those days I'm talking of uh 2007 uh 2007208 was the first self-publishing platform available. uh we soldi large numbers. So Chetan

Bhagat's book five mistakes of my life. Uh I still remember my hand shaking while signing that PO because it was in those days I think for a long time we held that record of being the single largest PO placed by a uh you know retailer to a publisher or 75,000 copies in one PO. Wow. So those kind of crazy successes and it was very very satisfying. But then of course uh 2009 the subprime crisis and the recession and all that happened and then there was a decision taken to get out of all the non-core businesses. So unfortunately it was decided to wind up this business uh

and exit from that category altogether. Um very difficult heartbreaking but uh I also happened to be pregnant at the same time. So I was like okay maybe this is a sign from the universe to finally you know I was 35 and having a kid right. Uh so Neil was born in 2009 and uh then I didn't want to go back to full-time work after having worked continuously since I was 21. I was like out of I mean you're you're a parent so you know more out of greed than any kind of guilt you know just wanting to be having more time with this child. Very true. So that's when I decided to start something of my own

again and fun please happened. So fun please was uh contemporary Indian content for children and I ran that for I continue to run it. In fact, it's it's never been closed. It continues to run. Yeah. Fantastic. I mean, some very interesting takeaways, right? Uh one that I remembered very early in this uh particular point that you made was about uh you know, a cross between growth hacks and plan, you know, the dictionary use case that you spoke about. Yeah. Only someone with an innate sense of what how some of these growth aspects could be hacked. Yeah. And an

understanding about retail and panagrams could do that, right? Because today it's become a trend almost everywhere that some of the products which uh could be very fast selling are always kept next to cashiers but even then you do not think of books and dictionaries but it's a very usable product if of course it is in the line of sight and right at the billing counter so it becomes much easier okay I'm buying this in case of a future group there is also one is of course external customer there's also an internal customer you've got to navigate because books as a category was 1% of

Big Bazar sales, right? You're tiny. So, how do you make it significant? How do you make it matter to the store managers and to the people who are actually executed? Because I'm sitting in a head office. I'm not going to be there at all 100 stores. And then um the food bazar team was also launching their own private label products, right? Were competing with all the, you know, uni levers and ITCs of the world and launching their own private label FMCG products. So we said okay how about we give coupons for your FMC private label FMCG so private label ketchup private

label whatever so inside the cookery book right so say the cookery book is worth MRP is 200 but inside you get coupons worth 300 rupees makes a lot of sense so the food bazar guys are happy because it's promoting their product so they are displaying the book come up front the consumer is happy because I'm practically getting it free you know and I'm happy because I've moved so many books out so you've got to you There are multiple stakeholders in any situation, internal, external, and it has to be win-win-win for everyone. Uh that's that's the way the growth happens the

fastest. Wow, that's amazing. That's that's amazing. It's it's you made it sound so simple, right? Uh I'm sure it's definitely not as simple, right? You've talked about multiple factors and coming with some background in it, I understand that how complex the situation can be, right? So many different stakeholders like you mentioned and even the financials of it being very complex, right? Right. uh you simplify it by saying that you know vouchers could work but internal calculations for the different P&Ls for different verticals and heads are so complex and you know to

account for every aspect right but that poor private label guy business head he also has a target right he has to ensure that the private label is accounting for x% of the consumer's basket he has target on comparing it with so he needs to do whatever he can to push that product out right so everybody's having their own as long as you can align with each other's goals magic can happen right amazing so after Neil fun okay please how did that transpire what did you do there you've been still running that running that business right so how was that journey

like so I wanted to do something of my own again and by this time I had so much experience with books with publishing so that was a natural sort of lowanging fruit for me to take on and um publishing of books has doesn't have a very high entry cost as well so you can put in a couple of two three lakhs and you can start off literally that's how I started Okay. So the whole idea was to do contemporary Indian content because there's a lot of I mean was there always to do the history mythology all that piece but where it's a contemporary Indian content you can uh it's very easy

to for example buy a book about London or Paris for children but there's there's no book about Mumbai or Bangalore today's Mumbai or Bangalore in which your child is growing up so how do they connect to the reality around them right I had a nephew uh he's half Australian his his mom is Australian and they you know they were moving to India and Tai was babysitting him a lot even when I was pregnant with Neil and he was obsessed with this Thomas the Tank Engine you know that character and used to make me read those stories over and over again to him and I'm like why isn't

there a book about an auto you know there should be an auto ricksha there should be a character that the kids are seeing around them so we have we made we started off with a series on an auto ricksha called toto the auto and we have a bunch of stories on toto the auto then we had a bunch of series on Indian uh cities uh we have a book that talks about embracing your skin color and like body positive about you know spreading kindness, random acts of kindness through a movement called your turn now which is you know created by so a lot of

interesting books all contemporary Indian content right uh a very difficult business to run publishing is very hard to make money and so I struggled a lot but finally after eight long years that business was profitable and it was doing well and that's when the amacha offer came so far please in addition to the books we published we also did a lot of books for uh schools, we made content for schools as well. Uh and we did a lot of co-pub uh co-publishing work. Uh so very very satisfying that as a startup, you know, we were doing work with Harper Collins, with Penguin, with Scholastic,

with the biggest names in publishing, co-published books with both logos on the cover. So I felt like okay, this is something that as a 7-year-old company, we are able to uh you know, collaborate with the world's largest publishing house and that's that's really good. It's giving it that that strength. So about 75 80 projects had already happened in funok please when the major came that's amazing I mean uh I I I was when I was when you giving me this answer you're sharing these perspectives there were couple of things that came to my mind right when you spoke about

cities I remember you know that I saw Mumbai through the eyes of books like the maximum city right if I'm not yes of course and shantam right where I came to know so much about dha Yeah. And Hungary and the whole underbelly of Mumbai. Right. Exactly. Right. And I was like, "Wow, this is such a detailed account." To be honest, when I first went I I started from SPJ in Mumbai. So when I went to SPJN and then we were traveling to France, uh, you know, we bought the leather jackets from Dharavi's market, right? Or somewhere around that. So I did not go

into the exact slums, but when I was passing by and I could see some of those things, I could relate. I'm like, yeah, this is what I read, right? So I could start seeing but but you know this is so fascinating because kids today like you said right two very interesting points that you spoke about one is the mode of communication because they're so exposed to that. Yeah in US there was a very funny uh survey result that came out a huge chunk of kids did not think about chicken as a bird. They thought of chicken as food. Food. Yeah. Today kids in the cities in the urban population a

good chunk of them are used to cabs. M they're not used to auto rickshas as much right and of course it depends from a city to city as well but uh you know train rides have reduced significantly because air airfares for the middle class is becoming much more affordable correct right so there's so many aspects about life that they do not relate with or as such or even as they relate with they don't have any readable material about them right so contemporary understanding of these plus skin color is so critical today why I mean I'm glad that you brought this up Because today

there are so many social stigmas that are getting gradually they're moving out of the systems right there's conscious effort to move away from that be it sexual wellness be it skin tonalities and so on and so forth and getting this information to kids very early on is so it is critical I would say it is critical absolutely you not said it better you know what is it that called bad touch right uh we see so much of negative news I mean it's not negative it's unfortunate that there's a lot of uh you know news around uh people behaving in

the most erratic and stupid ways possible. I mean it's almost not almost it's a criminal offense right and uh uh sexual education comes in so late in life bad touch when I was growing up I don't think so anyone spoke to me very clearly about bad touch and today it's almost necessary for kids irrespective of the gender to be spoken about this right so these values coming out in books for kids early it's so amazing to hear that and there are there are like today wonderful books available by Indian authors who have you know like Anjukkesh writes books for children on

sexual awareness right and when a when a child asks a question don't give a random answer that you know fairies and dwarves and gnomes are no just tell them the truth and get a good book and there's a diagram and show it to children let them be aware right and somebody who has dedicated her entire life to this subject buy a book written by an expert so you owe him an authentic authentic true answer right right that's that's that's what you owe him in fact recently two issues back in tinkle we did a whole piece on menstruation right

for children and surprisingly the letters that came in from children and we got a lot of lot of love from children thank you for explaining this and letter from a boy saying that you know I'm 8 years old and I did not know and I didn't know whom to ask and when I asked I was told that this is not for you this is for girls right and thank you for explaining it In tinkle we also had an angry parent writing in that whose permission have you taken to write to publish and talk about menstruation in our children's magazine you know so those people are also still there in

society you have a problem with it right there sigma associated with that yes yes and that's even so and I I told Gatri who's editor-inchief that congratulations she was worried about the letter I said congratulations because this means you're doing your job right our job is to push the envelope and our job is to help children so very happy to share that you V at the age of four has probably more books than we do. I mean he has a library. We've done the monty style. So it's no height. So nice. You know he can parents because this is when I do

workshops for parents on how to encourage children to read. One of the things I say is that don't make a fancy bookcase and put the children's book somewhere on top. It has to be accessible. He the child has to be able to access it. And please update that library. Yeah. So the child physical growth is visible to the eye. So you keep buying new clothes every six months because oh this has become short this has become tight but remember the brain is also developing at a similar space at a similar pace sorry so you need to stimulate the brain and the mind also

with fresh content you can't keep like saying this book you've had since oh this is a favorite book since you were 2 years old so keep reading this no you have to keep updating that library in our case we had to uh try to create a balance with some physical games as well because he was a lot into books he still is right so we are glad about that because that's something that we both are very proud of Right. And you will now he's only four, but you wait and watch because my son is 16 now. And I I can visibly of course I'm a proud mom and I think all parents think their kid

is the best and you know he's my kid is very cool. But I genuinely think that the reason Neil is so calm, cool, confident, does so well in things is because he reads so much right that things just his awareness of the world is just different, his maturity is different, you know, his consciousness is different, things he can absorb things very quickly, right? No, that's amazing. It makes a big impact. No, I'm so happy to hear that because one of the things that I did want to ask you is as a single parent, how difficult was it to raise Neil specifically considering that

you know you've been running so many things on the side but some of the pointers you just shared they're so beautiful right and and I'm I'm so happy to hear that considering that you know you're so proud of Neil as well and I'm sure that you know I I would love to meet Neil sometime. Definitely. Yeah. This is brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing that as well. Uh you also practice Buddhism. Yeah. All right. what how did how did that uh change your uh thought process or way of doing things? Do you want to share something? I'll answer the first question first about

the single parenting journey, right? And uh so I have been a single parent since he was seven, right? And now he's 16. So it's been uh a long time. Um I think it's it's I think any parenting journey is going to have its ups and downs, right? Whether you're a single parent, whether you're co-parenting with separated or you're a married couple, I think and there's always going to be some challenges and some things which are smooth. So, it was the same. There were a lot of challenges and there were equally satisfying times as well. I

would say uh in terms of challenges, it is hard and it is uh a little bit scary, I would say, to think that you're the only one. Right. Right. So, the buck stops here. There's no fall back. Right. But the kid is 2 a.m. and the kid is burning up with 104 fever. There is you can't even catch a nap in that moment, right? You need to be alert and you need to be there and there's no fall back. So those are the really hard moments, right? Or as a working parent, you know, you have a really big client meeting or a big presentation the following one. You've pre prepped up

completely. You've been up till 1:00 a.m. getting your slides ready, clothes are ready, you've done, you know how it is, right? You've prepped yourself up fully. And then at 7:00 in the morning, this kid says, "I don't feel well." and you're like, "Oh my god, no, no, no, no, you don't get to be sick today." But these things happen and you've got to completely think on your feet and figure out, you know. So, those were difficult moments. But in in terms of um the positives, I think it's also that feeling of both of us knowing we have only each other at home, right? Uh so

there's no I mean the fights don't last long, the anger doesn't last long because we know eventually we've got to go back to each other. So we forgive each other quickly. You know, we have a great friendship between us, right? You know, like last night, I had two, three important meetings. At 11:00 at night, I was talking to him on the phone and he asked me, "How did that meeting go and did you guys get that contract?" And I'm talking to him like a friend and saying, "Can you believe this happened?" And he knows all my team members. So, he says, "Oh, what did this one say?" Oh, that's

typical of him, you know. So, he's very much a part of my world. I'm very much a part of his. And I think that single being a single parent has given us that that closeness and that that trust with each other. That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful and commendable for you to have done that because uh I I can't say that I'm an equal parent because no matter how hard I try, I always see Akanga's role as at least 75% of the parenting than mine, right? Mine probably doesn't exceed 25%. Probably it's also the age thing, but he's also very close to his mom, right? He loves

playing with me. I am the guy who he has a lot of mischief with. Unfortunately, it's not that I don't have a heart. Yeah. But that keeps changing, you know, that keeps changing as they grow. Uh but yeah, I mean I can't imagine because some of the incidents you spoke about that happens so often you know that you know we both have important days at work and then we take a call about who's going to do what right because if he has fallen sick and he can't make it to school today then someone has to be at home even though there's a nanny at home correct someone one of the parents has

to be at home right so we take turns and stuff and managing it alone is going to be a very difficult task and I think for for me um I mean we separated and immediately like within two year within a pandemic happened. Oh yeah. And Neil's dad was in London. So there was like really no one you know and I was so scared at that time. What if I get co initial days when you have to be hospitalized? I'm like what if I have to be hospitalized? What I mean you start thinking all these things and it's really frightening but uh touchwood it's

you know it's been he's an amazing kid. I think that's made the job uh a lot lot easier. know we human beings especially the modern uh life that we have and the western education we've had we selectively question things right now whenever you put a switch the light is going to come on every time put the switch on you're not thinking consciously yeah the electrons moving from negative to positive you're not thinking that you just know that when I put the switch on the light is going to come on true right so you don't question that but then something else you want to

question at every interval right true in fact a lot of science fiction movies today uh are not so meaningful Because even books, a lot of science fiction books are not meaningful because they talk about building up the whole plot. You know, a lot of depth into that and suddenly the solution to that is, you know, this scientist created this device and you press the button and boom, you're right. It changes, right? Everything is sorted. Exactly. I'm like, dude, what the hell? There's no scientific basis to what you just said. You built a brilliant plot and then you

just threw it away, right? Very true. Uh there's a very interesting book called as the hieroglyphics stories of the future right which is written by Neil Stephvenson okay uh Neil is the same guy who is also the supposedly coined as the father of metavors right he uh you know kind of got a budget together to bring in a lot of interesting writers plus a lot of scientists to talk about science fiction in 2050. So it's not far futuristic but it's futuristic enough with the underlying principles of science to actually talk about science fiction

correct which will still have creative liberties but it will motivate a lot of people to now solve for those problems scientifically having said that historically and since we are talking we're going to talk about Amaritra Kata as well our history talks about Raman Brahastra and whatn not right and I always wondered If a lot of these stories that I hear, they're beautifully crafted stories, but I think sometimes they're misrepresented because what if they're talking about science and technology and the people who were translating it for all these centuries

have not been able to comprehend properly. Maybe when they are praying before releasing that or energizing that bal right, the arrow, they are releasing that energy into it, they're collectively sourcing that energy and pushing it out. And we think I don't know whatever is happening and you know a ban is going and how it's so silly that you're in today's DN world we talk about guns and bullets and rockets but that seems to be much more powerful because maybe it was not represented well and that brings me to my next perspective as well that in the changing

day and the world the way it's changing digitally how's your experience sorry if you want to talk about that perspective first too but uh you know kids are going from comic books to graphic novels. Is that a change that you observing? What are the other changes? The you know the way we a lot of these characters are being represented as well. It's no longer the representation of the 70s and ' 80s or 60s. Right. Things are changing quite significantly. What do you think about that? So yes, absolutely it is changing. But I don't think that this is the first time this

change has happened. Of course, right? uh change is the way the world moves and moves forward and it has always been changing and it always will keep changing right um the beauty of uh the entire you know India and our storytelling and our stories our mythology our culture our history is that it's like it's like the ultimate open-source uh platform right so we've had you know so many versions for example the Ramayan there's 150 versions of Ramayan true now which is a valid one all are valid all are valid true Right? Nobody will say this version is not

valid or this is wrong. Right? They all exist. They all have very differing story lines and some of them Sitha's the one who who kills Rahan at the end. Yeah. So there are those versions, there's tribal versions where multiple things are happening, right? Ultimately, I think the point of the story is to learn something from it, right? And to interpret it in your own way. So I think one of the reasons why Indian mythology or Indian stories continue to thrive is because they have been the most flexible. They've adapted with times. They've adapted with with age. Adapted

to the needs of the current needs of the population and that's why they continue to remain. So sure it could be oral storytelling to honor some scroll it was being written. Then printing technology came in. So books came in. Remember when books came in it was also considered to be uh people were very scared uh that what will happen to you know the how can anybody just read you know you need a special skill to read. you should be able to only the wise can interpret the written word. You can't democratize it. you can't print books like that for everyone right it was looked down upon

or similarly when uh when audiovisisual medium came in we thought books are going to die right so I think new forms new formats that's the way of the world that's the way of progress new forms and formats will keep on coming up right uh whether it is at amach we look at ourselves as we are storytellers brilliant we are not worried about what is the format that the consumer wants to consume the story in we are agnostic wherever you are we will make our story available and if there's a way like digital is big okay we'll be on digital there's audio was happening okay we'll

be on audio if 5 years or 10 years from now there's a way to digitally stream directly from our server to your brain we'll do that you know true the point is the story the point is the story should continue the point the story should reach the end consumer should reach the audience whatever way or form it reaches so comic book becoming graphic novel becoming something else becoming interactive book becoming a uh digital only thing becoming an e-reader. Fine. All of that is fine. Fantastic. I mean, I'm not in the least worried about it. It doesn't cause me any anxiety at all.

True. I mean that that that again is very profound, right? Because you said that you know your job at ACK or Amashitra Kata's job is to make sure that the stories continue continue. Yeah. It's beautifully crafted. It has a lot of values to it and they continue. Dissemination across platforms remain agnostic. So irrespect of wherever the reader wants to read it or absorb it, it's up to them and the way the story is being told or what part of the story is being highlighted at different ages that will change right. So for example 50 years back or 20 or 30 years back even

in Hamacha comics you would have uh you know some warrior winning some battle and then ask the king will ask him what do you want and he'll say I want your daughter's hand in marriage and the next scene would be this guy and this guy girl getting married right that was a standard next frame right now in the newer comics we released celestial beings in July where a similar thing happens and then the next frame says with ha's consent the marriage took place right right so we brought in the angle of of her agency in her own marriage. She used to say yes. So now

this as a concept maybe it wasn't relevant 30 years back in society right maybe fair skin was that's how we've looked at you know there was a product most popular product was fair and lovely now today's modern sensibilities doesn't I mean shuns that so the so the way we tell our stories the themes we pick the angles we choose to highlight it also has to evolve necessarily it has to change because that's the only way you will be meaningful to the current generation Otherwise becomes a nostalgia brand right which is a collector's you know

edition for people in their 40s and 50s and you don't want to be that right because a tintin and an asterisk it it's now become a classic right the whole Indrajal comics which were there when I was a kid you know Mandre and Phantom now today's generation doesn't know them true and if we were to even republish them they would only be bought by people for nostalgia no child of today's generation is going to find that phantom interesting to True. Very true. So if you don't adapt, if you don't modify, if you don't become relevant and play in

the world of the child, you will never be able to connect with that generation. True. Fantastic. I mean, that makes sense. You can't a high horse and say, "Oh, this is the story of our gods, which means you have to read it." It doesn't work like that. It has to be you have to engage the child's mind. Very true. Makes a lot of sense. And I think that is where the illustrations being more modernized as well also makes a lot more sense. A lot of purists look down up are very upset by it that how can you do this to the classic amachutakata and how can you change the style so if you

are so passionate you can go and buy the old comics we still print those right but with due respect I'm not creating new comics for 40 year olds we are creating new comics for today's 10year-old 10year-old who's consuming Marvel and who's consuming the best of the world if I have to compete with that we have to make it relevant true very true that that's a fantastic point and I think couldn't agree more because more often than not I see uh in my child's play group or age group as well the the friends that he has they're all inspired by a lot of uh western characters not as

much by the Indian characters because uh you know it's it's gradually fading away and it's almost imperative that you know and I'm glad that you know for example when I was at comic con I saw there and I saw a lot and you know we made sure of course we in our household at least we make sure that you know did you like our booth we We had a large booth back. It was a very large one. It was a big surprise. I did not see that coming in. Right. And I was like, "Wow, this is like me and my wife here because we grew up in that environment, right? We loved it." And

then we realized, you know, that you know, there's so much more happening at ACK. In fact, very interestingly uh you know we saw that I when I was doing some research I realized on the Instagram page as well that it was the first Indian publishing house uh which was representing represented at the San Diego Comic-Con as well way back quite a few years back right 2023 2023 two years back that was fantastic because uh you know I think this this information these formats these stories need to be disseminated globally as well and in But uh fantastically I was noticing that you

know uh during co this was a very uh while you know it was a difficult time for you know the world at large I realized that you know under your leadership ACK was going digital first very quickly they were able to you know change that approach and that led to a lot of positive outcomes for ECK. Can you do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yes of course my one of my favorite stories. So uh actually I had joined the company in August 2019 and in March 2020 the pandemic happened. So I had I was literally just settling down and understanding how things worked. So

the app uh ACK app and the Tinkle app already existed. They were made much before I joined. The company's always been ahead of its time. So they were already existing. We had some 65,000 odd users across both the apps and they were nobody really cared much about the apps because we were a very print heavy company right all our revenues came from 95% of our revenues came from print channel. So this was not something we took seriously but then the pandemic the lockdown happened and we felt like as a content company as a media company we should do something. The first thought

was let's make a comic on co then we said no let's not because we're not medical experts and who are we to make a comic and you know there is enough misinformation already so let's not do that. So what else can we do? So then we said as a response that app so how about we open up the access to the app for 15 days right know let let people read as much as they want free access our goal at that time was if those 65,000 users could become one lakh users it would be a good outcome right we never realized it was going to go viral I think viral campaigns don't announce themselves that

hey I'm going to be viral right that's the nature of it being viral so before we knew it in a span of um some 15 days we acquired half a million new customers. Wow. It was completely crazy because the links were circling back and they were coming back to us. People checking is this genuine, is this authentic? Um and a large portion 30 40% of those users were outside India as well. So the Indian diaspora was you know we began doing online workshops for you know children on on storytelling on how to make comics. Uh the workshops became popular with the global audience.

So my team was doing them. We were all doing workshops at 11:00 at night, 12:00 at night for US kids. So, it was um and then luckily that entire cohort of customers that we acquired through the free campaign uh our really brilliant digital team was able to convert them into uh subscribers into pay not all of them of course but a good percentage of them and that's how we became uh you know a digital company and of course digital the margins are amazing and you're able to uh you know offer the entire library. Sure. So yeah, that was quite a pivotal moment for uh ACK's

digital future. It continues to be a very vibrant uh channel for us. No, that's that's that's amazing, right? And I think a lot of other amazing partnerships also came in, right? Uh while you were at the helm of it, right, when you were leading uh ACK's journey into the digital side as well, uh there was this partnership with various other publishing large publishing houses as well for distribution, right? Uh there was this partnership with SOTC, right? And I think that was mind-blowing for me because I was like that's so experiential. Now you're talking about a

lot of uh history accounts I mean historical accounts of stories and you're saying that you know with the partnership with SODC we'll get people to go and travel to those sites as well. Right. Those are fantastic examples of how you know you think about creating better and more meaningful customer experiences. Do you want to share some perspectives on those? Amach so again as a content company like I was sharing earlier you have to be trans media. You cannot be restricted to one medium and say this is there will always be of course print will always is a primary

channel for us but we need to exploit all the all trans media opportunities right so um not everybody wants to read but everybody wants to consume culture right true you might not want to read the Hanuman's story but you want to see Hanuman on your car when you start driving in the morning there is some something you get in that exchange right in that millisecond maybe strength, maybe it's courage, maybe it's that positive boost that you need and Hanuman gives you that. So, you want a piece of that, right? True. So, uh the whole strategy has been to go trans media. So,

we've of course we do our books physically as well as digitally. Uh we've done a lot of merch. So, whether it's t-shirts, you must have seen them at Comic-Con, whether it's t-shirts or it's bobbleheads or it's soft toys, it's it's all of that. We've done audio with Audible, with Wubble, with multiple audio, you know, platforms. Uh animation is happening now. So we've done a partnership with Zebu Animation here in Bangalore. They're doing Supundi and Wingstar. So two of our characters fantastic in 3D animation and Applause Entertainment um in Mumbai has licensed

the entire Amaja catalog. So they're doing all the Panchcha Tantras and they're doing ACK Juniors and the Mahabharat and they're doing that whole piece. So that is all under production and will be coming out soon, right? Uh there's a biopic on Uncle Pie which is going to come out. Uh it sounds amazing. So that's that's live action. So a lot of things uh which have happened we've tied up with an airline called Fly 91 which services all the smaller airports of Maharashtra and Karnataka and they have ACK comics as they're in flight entertainment. Oh brilliant because all

short flights you know they're all just like 45minut 1 hour flights and it's a perfect time to read one ACK and you know they keep them in the seat pockets. They also sell them on board. So I think it's the first time a comic is part of an inflight entertainment you know anywhere in the world. uh super dancer we had a special themed episodes KBC we are the knowledge partners so a lot of you know partnerships which have been win-win all of them have been win-win for both partners right no it's so fantastic to hear uh we spoke about global I mean getting this content out

to the whole world as well could be Indian diaspora but I think uh the world sees a lot of culture elements coming from let's say Korea China right so they they market that a lot uh how's AC ECK looking at getting this out there beyond just the Indian diaspora because I think these are beautifully crafted stories very valuedriven right and also gives a very strong sense of the Indian heritage Indian historical accounts right uh so is there a way that you know you're trying to get these stories out there to the world because then one as Indians we go out there knowing that people know

where we've come from we of course should know where we come from but so does the world Two, I think there's going to be they're so beautifully crafted that, you know, people should be able to read it. It's not about religion, but at least people should be able to absorb those stories. So, at Comic-Con San Diego, standing at the booth over there, I realized that of course there was Indian diaspora who were seeing the booth and people were like, "Wow, in tears, so emotional. this is my childhood you know introducing the brand to their children or to their

non-Indian spouses that this is what I grew up on you know or people coming and giving us hugs saying like I don't even know you but because you know you are people bringing meals from home for us those kind of things right happened so that was the first but then I realized there was a lot of non-Indians so Americans with no Indian descent at all but they have exposure to India either through uh Osho or through the art of living or through yoga or through the you know autobiography of a yogi there have Indian subculture has somewhere you know reached in some form or the other

right uh our books are published in multiple languages so for example all the Buddhist folklore the jataka tales and all they travel very well to Southeast Asia because that's a common uh common link uh you know Mahatma Gandhi's story does really well in South Africa right so there are pockets where they do very well but I'll be honest with you that's not been our focus at all. Okay. Our focus, the reason this company exists is to acquaint Indian children with their Indian roots. I don't think we have achieved that. I think we have a long way to go in doing

that and uh that remains the focus area. It's a machakata is a route to your roots and uh we need to continue doing that in and take that responsibility very very seriously and not uh scatter our energies into doing other things. Having said that, yes, the books are available. North America we are also in comic book stores physically plus we are on Amazon Prime in the US we have a US partner so if you order an ACK on Amazon in the US you will get same delivery so those things are there those partnerships are in place but from a brand strategy perspective it is very

much the Indian child that we are focused on makes a lot of sense and and in fact uh impact is not just measured in the form of how this is being distributed but also the kind of content that you're talking about the values that come with that right in fact uh under your leadership, could you talk a little bit more about, you know, how you've been depicting women, marginalized communities and so on and so forth, right? Uh, you know, through various stories and formats. Yeah. So, uh, you know, Machutra Katas, Reina Puri is our editor and chief, executive

editor. She's been with the company for over 30 years. Uh, and she was chosen by uncle as the next editor. So, she kind of the craft remains, you know, uh, the way we tell stories, that craft has not got, you know, diluted at all. Um and credit goes to her and the team actually um with choosing the kind of themes that will take uh a lot of themes which are relevant for today. So we did for example um tribal folklore of India. So the Siddhi Airani and Nahali tribes uh and their folklore uh never been published before. Wow. Right. So we had to go and talk to the tribal leaders,

the elders in the tribe. M they told the stories orally we wrote them down came back and made an ACK out of it and they were so amazed and they were so thrilled that oh our stories are finally going to be in a book right otherwise once those elders pass away they're lost exactly stories go with them so we've done tribal folklore we've done a lot of books on whether it is social leaders we did Savatria and Joti last year a lot of the women pathbreakers of India uh the ones who were part of uh the constitute assembly when India's constitution was made there was 200 people in the

constitute assembly and 22 of them were women. Who were those 22 women? What were those stories? Uh valiant women of India. So lesserk known freedom fighters of India whether it is Jalcari Bay or Arunasafali and the role they played in the freedom struggle talking about them. Uh folktales from every corner of we've done a whole series called legend and lore and buying a song. These are whether it is you know Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat we all know but then the book also contains folktales from Nagla land from Ladak from Spitty Valley from Anderman Islands. M so

folktales from every state of India done in an art style from that state. The skin color is a very important uh topic for us. So depicting goddesses with dusky skin has been accused in the past of having all the absuras and all the beautiful women looking very fair always having fair skin. So we've changed that very Indian they will have Indian skin tones. So using Indian skin tones for all villains need not necessarily be ugly and badl looking. They could also be good-looking. It's just a personality which is that way. So nothing to do with the physical form. Right? So don't judge

people by the way they look. Right? So a lot of these things small and big whether it is uh agism or know marginalized communities in tinkle the kind of work that Gatri and her team are doing talking about teenage depression amongst children. uh nobody will talk about this because it's like a taboo almost to talk about it but it is it is real and children have questions what is depression is it that I'm sad is that what depression means so doing a whole story on a child going through depression and how the family and how the school support him right it's an

important story a very very important story or gender stories or you know what it means to be why do in a family if it's a boy and a girl why is a boy given the video game and the girl given a dollhouse so there's a story where she's saying I don't want the dollhouse. I like playing video games video game and you know or depicting single parents, divorced parents. So again tinkle having that mirror to reality which children want to know about. Very true. Yeah. So this is the new ACK and the new tinkle. Um you know we have the trust of parents luckily uh they open the door to us.

They don't no parent ever thinks twice before giving tinkle to their child. True. So we have that trust. So we take that trust very seriously, very responsibly and push the envelope on giving children what they need and what they want to hear about. Makes a lot of sense and that that's so brilliant and so happy to hear that. Right. Uh if you were to write a letter to Uncle Pi today talking about you know how the current situation is and you know how the company is doing. What would you tell him? I actually do do that. It's uncle Pi day on 17th September. It's his

birthday. So we celebrate his uncle P and we write a letter to him and we give him a report on everything that's been happening. So yeah, so I think I mean I never unfortunately never got a chance to meet him. Uh but from whatever I hear from the team who has so Reena, Savio, Gatri, all three of them have worked with him. Plus there are still people in the company also other people have worked with him. Um he again was not a religious person. Uh he was a great storyteller. He was very very knowledgeable and he believed uh in the power of stories and he believed in the

importance of Indian stories for children. So I think in that sense he would be happy that we are still not just and for us as a team it's we've been very passionate that we don't want to just live off the legacy created by him. What are we doing then? Right? We're not here to just repackage and sell old content. So creating new is sort of our thank you gift through him. Right? Saying that you gave us this treasure which we are protecting, which we are preserving, which we are continuing to cherish. But at the same time, you're taking that legacy forward

by doing new by doing new stuff. Whether it is new channels of distribution or it is new kinds of stories or new imprints. We have an ACK junior. We have a my first comic which is actually I can send it to you. It would be for your son for a 5-year-old. So it's really simple stories, right? It's really like two three word kind of in a speech bubble. It'll just be two three words or it'll be a panel without any words on it. So that child gets confidence of early reading. And also as you know today's children are growing up much faster. So I think my Neil at 16 is more informed

than I was at probably 25. Right? So from a value dissemination perspective, we need parents feel the need to start a lot younger. True. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for that. Uh one last question. Right. uh how do you uh see uh you know pri that ACK will adopt emerging technologies or you know in the next 5 to 10 years things might change quite significantly again right there's a lot of uh uh you know change being brought in by generative AI and AI at large right how do you foresee things would change for ACK and how do you want to work on that yeah so I think I always

like to say that I'm the current CEO there were others before me there'll be others after me similar so it's 58 years old when uncle pie started they had a 24 watercolor palette everything was done by hand if you made a mistake you had to use writing to correct it lettering was done by hand so this team has seen even computers coming in and creating things on Photoshop itself was so dramatic right can you imagine today that's how we work we can't even imagine doing it any other way so just like I think every new technology that comes in that helps us to create better content create

content faster is never seen as a threat. It's only seen as as an aid. It's only seen as an enabler. For example, today AI is we're already using AI. We're using AI to do a lot of promotional work which was taking up the artist time unnecessarily. Now, a lot of that can be done by by AI. Uh we're using AI for translations and that's really sped things up. uh when when AI or new technology can help take care of a lot of those tasks, the team can use their own genuine human creativity to create more. Makes a lot of sense and that's how we will always look at it.

Brilliant. Yeah. I mean that's that's the whole advantage of uh humanistic skills of creativity and storytelling. Correct. that no matter how advanced AI gets that creativity is still going to be our differentiator and the best part is aware that there is no um the appetite for stories is infinite true today I'm doing one tinkle a month because that's all we can create in terms of our bandwidth in terms of the market dynamics in terms of everything this is one seems to be 12 issues a year seems to be a good number right but if AI can help us and can help us do three

issues a month is there a market for it of course there's a market for it. Why would a reader not want to read read more, right? Consume more stories. Why would you not want to see more? You know, imagine the amount of video you're consuming on Netflix. True, right? I mean, 20 years back, you went to a movie once in a maybe if you're a movie like buff, you would go once a week to a theater, but today we are watching like 8 10 hours, right, in a weekend. Yeah. The time is infinite. True. Very true. That's just create more. Just create more. Amazing. And on that note, I'm

going to be going into the rapid fire segment. Let me have a sip of water before that. Please do. So, it's going to be a bunch of fun questions. I hope and you like them, but we would love to get your answers to those for sure. Okay. I will try my best. Awesome. Physical book or e-reader? Um, actually, I read on the e-reader. I have my Kindle. Okay. But I think for comics, it's still physical. Nice. Your favorite ACK book? a lesserk known title called Gopal and the cow herd. It's a Bengali folktale about a little boy who is uh brought up by a widowed mother and

he has to go walk through a jungle and he's scared to go to school and how Krishna comes and takes him every day to school. Wow, that sounds beautiful. It was a beautiful story and it still gives me so much uh courage and strength to think about little Gopal, you know, walking through that forest and Krishna's with him. Wow, that's amazing. And I'm sure a lot of people would now read that book as well. I would want to do that. You must. You must. I'll send you a copy. Thank you. Your favorite character from ACK that you would personally identify with.

Uh difficult. I would say a lot of characters whom I get inspired by and every time you release a new book, you get inspired by a new by the new character. So recently I would say Jalcari by a story from Valiant Women was again she's lesser known but she was Rani Lakshmi's doppelganger. She looked exactly like her and how she went into battle pretending to be a very inspiring story. Wow. Yeah. Or Vikram Sarabay's book we released and that was an amazing story. We released Adisha and Posha Godidge and how nation building right when they created that Godidge Navtal

they were told to write made in uh England on it because the Indian market will not consume anything that's made in India. It will be as an inferior product and they refused to market it. They refused to say we will not please it at all. Right. So the kind of contribution towards nation building that has happened not just from the freedom fighters but from so many different people. I've always been inspired by all those stories. Fantastic. And that's amazing again to you know make a list out of these and read those as well. Thank you so much. Uh a mythological

figure that you think would make an excellent CEO. Oh that's a good one. [Music] Um, you know, I like to think um of Ganesha. I know it's not the first name that comes to mind, but I think Ganesha is the vignah, right? And I think that's what a CEO needs to be. Makes a lot of sense. Uh, that's what I like to think of my role as that, you know, you have you have teams and you have people doing respective jobs in a team in a company. You have to trust them. Uh, you have to have faith in their ability to do their

own job. But you have to be standing behind them as a vignah. Whatever obstacles, whatever challenges come their way, it's your job to remove them and allow them to do theirs. Makes a lot of sense and that's amazing. Uh the mo most unusual place you found yourself writing or editing. It would be I think under the table. Okay. My son had got into a phase of going under the table to read. Right. He found it very fascinating and I had work to do so I joined him over there. That's nice. That's very sweet. Uh complete the sentence. The secret to great

storytelling is authenticity. Wow. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense and that that Yeah. A book you recommend that most people haven't heard of. You mentioned that, right? Yeah. I think that would be a good one. Gopal and the coward is a very sweet book. Yeah. Uh, if ACK were to create a comic about your life, what would the title be? Oh my god. No, I haven't thought of it and I don't think I'm so great that ACK should create a book about me. So, you have a very very strong leadership style and very prominent one. I mean, if if at all. Do you have any title in

mind? She worked hard. She worked hard. Wow. Okay. Uh, okay. So, that that is going into the biography stage, right? Okay. Got it. Uh if you could have dinner with three authors uh who are living or dead uh who would they be? Okay. So uh one name I can think of is uh President Dakuika who is uh who was the president of uh the Soka Kakai which is the Buddhist organization I'm a part of. He passed away just last year and he has left a very profound library of books. Uh he has authored I think two 300 books. uh beautiful books and I would yeah he

would definitely be one of my top guests. Yeah. And um Anandpai would be definitely a second one uh just to have a conversation with him about everything that he has that he has done and continues to inspire us with right and um amongst the you know current authors one of my favorite Indian authors is Amitav go uh it's his trilogy itself is so amazing if you've not read it I would highly recommend I will for a walk into Indian history and how I mean the kind of worlds he he can build uh it just incredible. Yeah. Fantastic. And I can't imagine the three of them having

conversation actually. Could be very interesting. I'm sure. Yeah. What's your favorite Tinkle character and why? My favorite Tinkle character is Shambhu. So he's not Shikari anymore by the way. He's just Shamboo. He dropped the gun many years ago. He now has a camera. Okay. He shoots animals with a camera because of course hunting is banned, right? Uh but otherwise I think he's adorable because he's such an unlikely hero. He's actually quite scared of the animals. But he's bumbling around now. He loves his food. He loves to nap, you know, and he just always

makes me smile. Uh I love Shamboo in in all his adventures. Amazing. Yeah. Amongst the newer characters, we have a superhero called Wingstar. So she's a superhero from the northeast. She's from a mythic in a fictional town called Aizwa uh which is in Misoram and in fact her story is going to be on screen soon. Okay. And she's a feisty female superhero. So I I really like her a lot. Wow that's amazing. I would love to see the trailer of that. Yeah. Uh uh you have won so many awards in accolades both domestic and international right. What is that one

one or two of them which resonate the most with you? Um honestly awards and accolades I'm very grateful to receive them. Uh but I don't take them very seriously. Okay. I feel like it's uh it's a part of your professional journey and it's for me uh actually the most the one that means the most so we have an annual day uh in the company uh it's called the ACK Jashna which happens in April. So the end of the financial year where we celebrate you know the all the all the effort and all the achievements of the past 12 months and last year so we had a lot of

awards which happen in that ceremony. We have the action hero award and we have uh the superellers and we have the best it's like a proper awards function with the best writer and the best artist and all that right. So after we gave away all the awards there was a surprise award which the team had made for me which was the Rani Lakshmi by bravery award which was given to me for you know fighting on multiple fronts. It was a difficult year for us for fighting on multiple fronts and able to you know bring it all together at the end and I

think that is really the most special award I've ever got because um it was so genuine like I never asked for it and they all had signed it and everything you know so it was not kind of hastily put together award it was very well written I'll send you a picture of it was very well beautifully written signed framed with you know a proper ceremony for it. Oh wow. So I think that was yeah that's the best award. So well deserved as well. So that was the best award. And then of course when Neil was young, he used to keep coming and giving me this best mom award

which was always also very special. I'm sure. Well, thank you. That that's so beautiful. Uh one last one, right? What's a fun fact about you that most people don't know about. I'm not sharing that on camera. Let's let's keep it that way. Let most people not know about it. All right. Well, thank you so much for being fantastic. Absolute pleasure. And we don't have a coffee with current hamper, but we do have a hamper that we would like to give you. Right. This is a personalized hamper and it's uh coming in from Cupcake Design who's a proud sponsor and uh they do a lot of

personalized stationary and gifting, corporate gifting as well. So this is for you. It's highly personalized. So yeah, I am actually a fan of their products. I've been using them for a while for my son cuz they do personalized stationary and very very high quality and beautifully designed. Yeah. So, yes, this is a real treat. Thank you. Thank you so much. Lovely hosting you and I'm sure our audiences are going to love it. So, thank you so much for such amazing perspective. So many interesting points. Pleasure. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Guys, [Music] [Music] Feel free to share your perspectives through comments. Subscribe to the channel and do send us some suggestions as well. Thank you.