Tell us about your career journey.

I joined the Boston Consulting Group right after completing the Young India Fellowship in 2015. While I come from a business family, my academic background is in (English) Literature and the Humanities. I also briefly worked in a marketing role, but it was at the Young India Fellowship that I was introduced to management consulting. While a Fellow there, I interned (called the Experiential Learning Module) in the government consulting space, and it was the business of problem-solving that appealed to me: it was a different way of thinking and making decisions from what I was used to. I was among three people who were picked by BCG during campus placements, and I believe I was amongst the first English Literature graduates in the India office to be hired in the consulting track!

At BCG and onwards, my experience spans across public policy and project implementation (with the governments of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan), university administration and strategy, as well as teaching and research (at Jadavpur, Ashoka, and Yale universities). Currently, I am a PhD Candidate researching urban water at Yale University, jointly in the Department of Anthropology and the Yale School of the Environment.

You chose “water” as a research topic for your PhD program. Can you speak to how you arrived at that choice?

My thesis focuses on the urban waterscapes of Delhi, one of the world's most populous cities that is grappling with water scarcity. One objective is to investigate and develop the concept of “waterscapes,” which has gained prominence in sociocultural studies recently, and examine how water serves as a medium for various forms of interaction between citizens, the city, and the state.

For me, water was something that I was subliminally thinking of during different phases of my life, but a specific moment that helped me decide was when I was doing a consulting project with the government of Himachal Pradesh. I was conducting a district meeting, which concluded earlier than I had planned. Then, I was able to return to my hotel, which was on the banks of the Beas, a beautiful river. I remember feeling peaceful, and content. And suddenly, I was struck by how beautiful the sound of water was. I could see the water; I could smell the water. And the river in question is an important river. Essentially, these relatively small mountain rivers are tributaries, which later join a bigger river, that typically cuts through big cities, such as Delhi and Kolkata. Most cities have historically been built along riverbanks and apart from daily life rituals, people congregate here for religious reasons or for leisure. Over time, rivers are featuring less in city life or in urban consciousness and are often spoken more in the context of pollution and water shortages.

This got me thinking about how something so pure and beautiful becomes so degraded by the time we move downstream, and what does that attendant degradation do for social relations. When we talk about water being studied in social sciences, it has mostly been done in the context of villages, in agrarian settings. However, considering the massive increase in population in cities and urban expansion, I wanted to understand water systems in urban India from a lens which was more than just a systemic engineering point of view: what can water tell us about urban life, about citizenship, or civic duty? How do people relate to water? One of the objectives, thus, is to shine a light on approaches to water management which are more inclusive and equitable, especially when we talk about water resilience and water security.

Do you have any advice for young adults who might be keen on exploring different career options?

It is beneficial to explore, to a certain extent, different opportunities especially early in one's career. Consulting offers valuable exposure to various industries, allowing individuals to experience and discover their interests while giving them a glimpse of the world. If it keeps one motivated and inspired, they should continue with it, but always prioritize their health (physical, mental, and spiritual). However, after trying out different opportunities, one must make a decision about where they want to progress, and accordingly focus their efforts. They should choose something that fulfills not only their financial aspirations, social duties, and personal ambitions, but which brings them happiness and satisfaction. It is advisable to ground oneself in a specific field in the medium term rather than frequently switching between different sectors, roles, or professions too quickly—although other opportunities will arise as life goes on.

You mentioned that you have many outside interests that keep you busy apart from work. We would love to hear about them.

Before joining BCG, I was heavily involved in theater and some sports. Unfortunately, some of these commitments had to fall away as life went by. Nevertheless, some things that continue to rejuvenate and motivate me include music, conversing with people, discovering their aspirations for the world, and reading comic books. I also love teaching which I find is very invigorating. While I enjoy nature and looking at plants, I wish I had a better eye for birds—but I can develop it over time perhaps. I have an abiding interest in language(s) and am trained in a few classical languages. Knowledge of the classical languages aids in comprehending and speaking other languages descended from those classical languages.

I have translated works between Indian languages and also English, as it helps me stay connected to my roots and heritage, and indigenous visions of the world. Translation is not just a creative exercise; it is also an analytical one. One of my past projects was translating Virgil's Aeneid from Latin into English. In a parallel moment two hundred years ago, Henry Sargent had translated the text into Bengali prose in the early 1800s. This Bengali translation had been lost for many years, and recovering this text was crucial to understanding the history of Bengali language and publishing. With the understanding that the Bengali reader would not be able to read the Latin, our new English translation from the Latin was meant to act as a comparative text to Sargent's Bengali version, allowing readers to appreciate the unique features of his translation decisions as well as the Bengali of the early 1800s.

I took up another project when I had just left BCG. As it happened, I planned to meet with a friend who had just joined BCG in a bookstore in New Delhi. While chatting about work and life, I stumbled upon this little treasure called The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō. The book explores the beauty and philosophy underlying tea, and explores tea as a symbol, as it were, of positive aspects of Asian culture. Okakura-san was writing against Western colonialism and its orientalist representations of Asian societies. As a big chai-lover myself, the message of the book resonated with me, and I wanted to translate it into Hindi. I felt Hindi readers would also appreciate the anti-colonial politics and advocacy of inter-Asian and eastern traditions in the book, messages that continue to be very relevant even today. It was a very challenging book. The translation took me four years to complete, and I continue to feel a deep connection to this project.

Nevertheless, it has been challenging to sustain all the things that inspire me simultaneously at various stages in my life, but I am hopeful that I will be able to come back to them as I pursue my journey in academia.