October 22, 2021 • 31 mins
Host Neha Sampat, CEO of Contentstack, and Author and Journalist Gayatri Rangachari Shah get together over a glass of wine and discuss gender roles, the evolution of the media landscape and Indian culture.
Gayatri is co-author of Changemakers: 20 Women Transforming Bollywood Behind the Scenes, a contributing editor for both Vogue India and Architectural Digest India, and she writes a column for one of India's largest English-language newspapers, The Hindu. Gayatri and Neha first met when she interviewed Neha for Vogue India. Now, the tables are turned and Neha is the interviewer.
Neha and Gayatri discuss:
- Bollywood behind-the-scenes
- How stories can be inspirational
- Indian culture
- Taking a leap of faith in your career
- The evolution of the media industry
The Dreammakers enjoyed a glass of wine while they talked: Arros Wine from York Winery in the region of Nashik, India. A blend of Cabernet and Shiraz, it’s a bold, fruity wine with hints of oakiness. York Winery is family-owned and run and Chief Winemaker Kailash Gurnami is India’s youngest winemaker.
Other show notes:
- Sunshine Reggae is Gayatri’s wake up song
- We Should All Be Feminists is Gayatri’s book recommendation for her 19-year-old-self
- Didyme is Gayatri’s wine recommendation
Follow Host Neha Sampat on LinkedIn and @nehasf
Follow Guest Gayatri Rangachari Shah on LinkedIn and @GayatriShah
Follow @Contentstack
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Neha Sampat (02:14):
I may have Sam pat a three time tech founder and CEO, with a focus on companies that are places to dream big build up and be a good human.
i'm CEO of content stack and also a certified suddenly So yes, we drink wine here, regardless of the time of day.
i'm joined by Gaia three regen chatty shot, a journalist, based in Mumbai.
(02:35):
she's co author of change makers 20 women transforming Bollywood behind the scenes, a contributing editor for both India and architectural digest India.
And she writes a column for one of india's largest English language language newspapers, the Hindu, today we're going to talk about gender roles, the media landscape and Indian culture let's get started hi gaya three.
Gayatri Shah (03:04):
I may have, thank you for having me.
Neha Sampat (03:06):
i'm so excited that you're here you're officially our first journalist guest, how does it feel to be the one that is the focus of the interview this time around.
Gayatri Shah (03:16):
feels a little strange, to be honest, you know it's definitely a role reversal that I haven't sort of played very frequently i'm used to asking the questions, not necessarily answering them.
Neha Sampat (03:28):
I am when we had the interview together for both India, I had so much fun in our conversation that I felt so compelled to have you on the other side.
and learn more about you and your journey so i'm super super excited that you're here, and it is eight in the morning, my time what time is it for you.
Gayatri Shah (03:45):
It is now 6:45pm in the evening in in Bombay and actually it's interesting because we have thunder and lightning as we speak.
Neha Sampat (03:55):
Oh well, we had rain overnight here in Austin Texas as well, so similar weather different time zones for sure you're in a much more respectable time zone for drinking wine.
But.
In order to accompany you I have broken my rules, and I am going to have.
A few tastes of this wine with you so both guy three and I have a bottle of arrows from work winery with us mine is a 2015 vintage and died three is a 2018. 2:18
(04:24):
And this is actually one of my favorite Indian wines, we were talking about it before we started the show.
And it's interesting i've kind of watched the journey of Indian wines over the last 15 years since we started doing business in India.
And every year it's sort of evolved a little bit more and more and it's become a lot more enjoyable over the years and actually something that I look forward to now when I go to India and so.
(04:47):
This wine is actually one of my favorites from from all the red wines that are available in India again it's called.
arrows i'm going to try to show the bottle for those that are following along on video it's hard to see with the background.
But my background here on the zoom is also a background of the winery where this comes from.
(05:09):
And I think one of my favorite things about this is it's a family run family owned winery and the original founder of this winery had a dream of building out.
A nice winery in this region in Indian nashik and they had a few children and wanted one of them to take the lead in in turning this into a world class winery.
(05:32):
And so the father asked 16 year old kailash Gordon me who at the time, you know didn't really know a lot about winemaking or wineries are viticulture.
If he would be willing to take the lead, for the family and learn about winemaking, and so a few years later he went to Australia to learn about winemaking came back at 23 years old, to India.
(05:53):
And he became india's youngest winemaker at the time and has since gone on to build a beautiful wine and so we're going to taste it now, and this wine is mine is 90% cab 10% sure as yours will probably be a slightly different blend it might say on the bottle.
Gayatri Shah (06:10):
yeah i'm just looking at up nima it says it is 24% cab and a 76 year olds land.
Neha Sampat (06:18):
Okay, so completely flipped actually in terms of the the the blend so that should be interesting cheers Thank you again for being on the show.
Gayatri Shah (06:29):
Thank you and also thank you for introducing me to a red wine that I would not have otherwise come across anything.
Of course.
Neha Sampat (06:42):
it's a it's a pretty big wine and for early in the morning and.
And normally when I do an international guess i'll try to do a white wine, but I had to.
I had to have you tried this one, and also, I happen to have carried a bottle with me from India getting an Indian wine in the US is actually not super easy, so I wanted to have something that we could both compare.
(07:05):
And, but this is a big a big enough wine to have with like a pretty large meal, I do like to have a glass of it just by itself as well.
And, or even with like you know some like really sharp cheese, or something to cut through it, but it's a big bold wine and lots of lots of fruit and the punch a little bit of oak as well, are you getting some of that openness.
Gayatri Shah (07:25):
Definitely getting the fact that it's quite okie and I probably should have.
Just regulated the temperature a little bit more, you know so, because here now it's actually quite humid and warm in India in Bombay rather so perhaps this wind could have just it's actually very drinkable very nice but maybe I would have killed it slightly.
Neha Sampat (07:46):
make sense yeah awesome well let's jump in and learn a little bit more about you and will continue to revisit the wine, I know you had your breathing for a while mine I just opened so that also causes a little bit of difference in the flavor profile. 5:26
And so, when when we met obviously you were interviewing me for vogue India and what I loved about our conversation and about your work is that it's both aspirational and inspirational.
(08:11):
and for your book series you focused on Indian women who had achieved a certain level of success in the business world i'd like to learn a little bit more about why.
Gayatri Shah (08:22):
So anyhow, you know we have a strange conundrum going on in India, where, as we have.
grown as an economy let's just park over the side and take that you know sort of that sort of an aberration that time period, but as the Indian economy has grown women in India have.
been dropping out of the workforce, so you would imagine that the you know the the graph would sort of track and correlate but actually there's been an inverse relationship.
(08:49):
And so we've actually gone from having a you know 27% 27% of you know workforce participation by women.
drop further and now the stats are quite alarming it's about I think the latest thing I might have read was about 17% so you know.
I kind of i've always been sort of really intrigued by this and the vogue India series on.
(09:14):
You know, women who had achieved something professionally was kind of my way to sort of show that look, you know you can we have we have a bunch of different issues going on, of course, structurally socially, culturally.
But that you know you can actually achieve something, and I wanted to put these inspirational stories, such as people like yourself.
(09:35):
Out there so that other women could feel you know that they also have that possibility, you know role models essentially that one good identity, you know sort of look up to identify with perhaps try to track and that was the kind of the genesis of that series.
Neha Sampat (09:50):
that's an alarming, to say the least, that the numbers and I know now we're hearing a lot about the great resignation.
Or you know everywhere around the world and people kind of falling out of the workforce, but that's that's.
alarming that so many women have fallen out in India and kind of expect the opposite to happen so i'm hopefully hopefully you're making an impact there and we all can as well.
(10:15):
And you wrote the book change makers let's let's talk a little bit about the book and what drove you to write that book ah look at that beautiful.
Gayatri Shah (10:26):
copy. 7:40
wrote this book with a very close girlfriend of mine called Malika kapoor, who is now based in London at the time that we wrote this book, I was in Bombay and she was living in Hong Kong, so it was a very interesting project to take on from two different geographies.
(10:49):
And the you know we sort of wrote this book essentially to sort of shine a light on women who are really influencing popular culture in this country, you know I mean.
The Hindi film industry popularly known as Bollywood it has enormous influence on the way.
Indian sort of digest popular culture let's say you know it sets trends in fashion music dance what have you, you know sort of it portrays.
(11:18):
The kind of the narrative that society is grappling with on particular issues as well.
So you know we we kind of we wanted to again to go back to that point of women dropping out of the workforce.
What we've Malika is also a journalist and what we found in our sort of research initial research, when we were thinking about this book is that.
While you know Indian women are not working as much in this particular industry Bollywood the film industry.
(11:45):
which has historically been quite hostile to women, has not been very welcoming to women actually there was there were a lot more women present and a lot more women working on film sets.
And that's sort of you know why we decided to explore this topic in further detail, we do not want to focus on any of the movie.
actors, they get a lot of play an amplification what we were really interested in where the women were really you know, a film unit is hundreds of people working together.
(12:11):
And we were really interested in the women who were sort of has been to to bring some of these projects together and that's that that's why we we sort of undertook this you know this behind the camera, so to speak, women working behind the camera not in front of it.
Neha Sampat (12:26):
And what were some of your learnings I know that it was important for you to focus on women behind the camera and and kind of.
focus on, not just the stars, but looking at the others that kind of bring together the whole scene what were you hoping to achieve with that what did you learn. 9:41
Gayatri Shah (12:43):
you know everybody's always fascinated by the glamour of the movie business whether you're in Hollywood or in Bollywood, but I think what.
You know, we learned was how incredibly professionalized and hard working this community of creatives are, of course, both men and women, that it has you know it has definitely become much more professionalized in the past 20 years it was you know it used to be kind of like a scrappy.
(13:12):
sort of industry, it was it was not even recognized as an as an industry by the Government of India till the late 80s by the late 90s sorry I beg your pardon.
And so, these people could not get financing to fund films and so that was part of the reason that the reputation of the industry was quite poor you know, because they would need to kind of.
Get financing from all sorts of strange quarters, you know the underworld and all of that.
(13:37):
Once they got recognized as an industry, they could approach, banks and other financial institutions for funding and that started to help.
professionalize the entire you know sort of business and because of that you started seeing people from quote unquote you know sort of.
You know back backgrounds, I would never have considered the movie business as a professional career path coming into it, you know we're kids who are brought up you know in sort of.
(14:09):
army army children, for example, or children of doctors, or whatever you know, whatever it might be people who went to university started getting attracted into the field and that's how you've had really kind of an explosion and and sort of great content coming out of the business now.
Neha Sampat (14:27):
it's incredible and and it's interesting that so many different backgrounds come together to produce film and it's it's interesting that you uncovered some of that. 11:10
Gayatri Shah (37:38):
when Malika and I were doing our research we came across the case of a woman called shadow khurana who was one who.
As recently as 2014 one the right for women to work as makeup artists in the movies before that in India.
You could not if you're a woman, you could not work as a makeup artist in the movies, I know it sounds insane and that's exactly what we thought we were like are we reading this right.
(38:05):
So, Joe was a young woman who wanted to work as a makeup artist in the movies, and she went and she spent a lot of money her parents took out loans and all that, and she she became a professional makeup artist.
And then she moved to Bombay she's originally from Delhi and she moved to Bombay to basically start out her career.
And she was shut out by the very powerful makeup unions which were comprised of men.
(38:29):
And they would not let her work, they would come and disrupt the movie sets they would you know start, they would say we, you know we're going to have you guys find because women can't work as makeup artist.
So she basically didn't have the right her right to work was infringed upon and she then got so fed up at this injustice that she decided to do something about and she took her case to court.
(38:50):
and her case went all the way up to the Supreme Court of of India and she won her case in in 2014 actually i'll give you the date, it was the 14th of November 2014.
So, and that is when the Supreme Court said that this is the most archaic ridiculous thing we've ever you know when we this has to go, so it was because of Charles intervention that women can now work as makeup artists in the movies.
(39:16):
And, and that is really what got us intrigued we said if there's this one person who has done this, there must be so many other remarkable women in the movie business and that's what we set out set out to find.
Neha Sampat (39:28):
That is so shocking and so incredible and like just just to like lay this out this was less than seven years ago that that happened that's just unbelievable, thank you for sharing that story appreciate it. 13:01 102 00:14:36 540 --> 00:14:46.050 Neha Sampat
Gayatri Shah (14:47):
Well it's not for the faint hearted, let me put it that way um I think I think the most important thing when you're when you're writing a book is to be extremely disciplined.
And that means you know you have to sort of allocate.
Whether you're doing it as your main focus your main task for the day or if you're doing it sort of as a side project or whatever it is, you have to allocate a certain number of hours, you have to have deadlines, you have to be able to meet those deadlines, you know we conducted.
(15:17):
I want to say, I mean hundreds of interviews, and I mean to transcribe all of those and document them and all of that so.
You know you, you really have to have the the time management sort of down bat, as it were.
And really sort of you know, being able to keep track of disparate pieces of information and data, but I mean listen it's not rocket science and that's why.
(15:39):
You know, many people write books I just think the important thing is to be passionate about it, and you know it's like life just show up, you have to just signed up show up for for the work. 14:08
Neha Sampat (15:50):
awesome Thank you, you said a beautiful thing when we were talking when we were preparing for this about your purpose, and it was to show Indian women possibilities and then and it's a passion that I share with you and it's.
For me, women in general and we talked about that a little bit, but it's it's also to show the world the beauty of Indian what India has to offer, can you talk a little bit about that.
Gayatri Shah (16:13):
yeah you know listen I I tell stories for a living in you know different sort of formats, whether it's like you I also had a podcast and then you know, obviously, my writing.
Whether it's a book or whether it's a magazine article or a newspaper story, or what have you.
And or for digital I you know, the idea is to stand stories and, for me, I think it's important to be able to share these stories of an incredible country and culture that I come from.
(16:41):
And, in particular, of course, it's women but also you know india's design heritage it's you know what's happening in contemporary design or the arts visual.
arts, or you know whether it's not so much dance and music because that's not my area of expertise, but.
Anything that sort of you know, brings beauty into the world, I mean I would broadly categorize it as culture and.
(17:04):
And so you know if i'm able to tell those stories and shine a light on on something that will make other people, even if it's just one person interested hopefully it's not just one but i'll take what I can get I think that that's that's really what I think is my purpose.
Neha Sampat (17:20):
I love that and I have to tell you a story that kind of bridges what you're talking about back to Bollywood and I am.
Many years ago, of course, studied wine, and when I had the opportunity to go back on vacations and travels I go back to wine regions and I lived in France for a little while.
In college, so I had gone to the lower region and I decided to take my husband back there a few years ago, so we rented these bicycles and we were going from.
(17:50):
Like a one of the wineries to another and there's a lot of castles there and it's beautiful landscape and.
we're honored bicycles, you know, in the midpoint of our journey and decided to pull over to pick up a couple bottles of water from like a.
petrol station, so we walk in and literally there's nothing there, besides like a.
(18:12):
Like a refrigerator that had some ice and water, and then a case and in the case was these DVDs with Bollywood films, and it was only.
there's nothing French and I, you know my broken French I asked the guy like what you know what's the story behind this and she any, and this was just a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere valley in France.
(18:34):
And he said everybody here is obsessed with.
Bollywood it's like nuts, this whole town is obsessed with Bollywood and I was just I was so shocking to me that this tiny little town in France would have that obsession.
And I just thought it was so cool that you know that that that awareness existed, but that there was a love for our country and our world, even though it was seen through the you know, through the eyes of Bollywood which is not.
(18:57):
Reality, but still I thought it was really cool and interesting, so I had to share that because it kind of brings it all kind of full circle.
Gayatri Shah (19:05):
that's a wonderful wonderful anecdote and I think that that's something that so many Indians find you know why you know that's why we call it a soft power because you can go to.
Remote remote parts of Africa or Asia or in your case you've gone to a remote remote part of France, and you find that there are these you know these strange moments.
Where people know either a movie star or they know some song or they know something or you know, have seen some film and they've watched it on repeat, you know all of that so it's I think it's really quite wonderful. 17:39
Neha Sampat (19:36):
Very cool guy to do you consider yourself a dream maker.
Gayatri Shah (19:41):
Who um.
Well, you know I think in my own way, I try to prod people into questioning the status quo, especially where women are concerned, and in a country like India that's pretty rebellious so maybe you know in my small way, I hope you know that I am.
Helping someone to to dream, so if that makes me a dream maker, then i'll take it.
Neha Sampat (20:06):
I think it absolutely does and I don't know that I would have had you here, if I didn't consider you one, so I just love to hear how people see that. 18:11
And so I like to talk a lot about the road less traveled and how a career can be a journey of twists and turns versus you know just a straight line.
And I think that's important and okay for people to understand that things can change like that, and you actually started your career in the financial industry.
(20:33):
I was interested in learning a little bit more about that journey and maybe you can talk about that and just let us know how you got from there to here.
Gayatri Shah (20:42):
So I think i'm a living embodiment of of sort of someone who has had a kind of a very strange career path you know I never really thought of journalism as a career, when I was.
In college or anything like that i've always loved to write, but you know, and obviously was a big consumer of the news, but never really saw myself in that role, I went to undergraduate and graduate school in the United States.
(21:10):
And you know I went to I attended a small but oldest women's college in the United States called mark Leo.
And after I graduated from mount holyoke I had a degree in economics and political science and then I knew that I wanted to live in New York City.
So I needed to be able to afford that dream since we're on the dream podcast so I was like I need a job that's going to be able to support me, so I.
(21:34):
Gayatri Shah:I ended up getting a job as a management consultant, so I joined.
You know, a firm that was starting its New York office, and that was really the beginning, so I was a management consultant for a number of years and one of the best parts of my job was not the strategy stuff and all of that which was fine that was interesting.
(22:00):
But we had the Internet in the office in those days and I used to love writing movie review, who is.
In those days I used to watch a lot of movies so i'd watch it, you know, and then we sort of exchange notes in the in this office Internet.
And it was always so fun and I was like I really you know, Miss writing you know we, I mean writing PowerPoint slides and stuff it's not that much fun so.
So on a lark I applied to Columbia, to the journalism program and I got accepted and I got a degree in journalism.
(22:35):
But the problem is that once I graduated the people who wanted to hire me were the business publications and I didn't really want to report the business stories that wasn't my idea of fun.
So that went back to my old for my consulting firm and I did media consulting with them for a while, in London and Cambridge Boston whatever I bounced around a little bit and then.
(22:56):
I moved to I ended up back in London
And, and I, and I saw an ad in The Economist newspaper, I mean it's like this, I got you know it's like sometimes I look back and I was like did that really happen, and there was an ad for.
Leading policy analyst that the Treasury, the UK Treasury was was interested in hiring so I sat.
(23:20):
sat for a written exam and then I went in and I had a bunch of interviews and I got this job and I became a British civil servant.
And the Brits are really interesting because they allow Commonwealth citizens i'm a citizen of India to.
To be to work in their government in certain in certain departments, so the Treasury is one of them.
So I worked on public sector be issues and, like the teachers were going to go on strike, it was really kind of interesting because you're reading the stuff in the news, but then we're like working on like.
(23:45):
How do we balance the budget, and how can we pay these public sector workers and all that you know how do we pay these teachers and make sure they don't go on strike, so it was super fun.
And and and but then I wanted to be back in New York, and so I moved back and.
And I took it, you know I obviously could not hold on to that job, since I wasn't in London anymore, and I got a job as an equity analyst at Deutsche Bank.
(24:09):
So at Deutsche Bank, I was covering household and consumer product companies so companies like colgate and Avon and Procter and Gamble companies like that and, and so I had to write like these hundred page research reports, and that was actually super fun.
Because I have to do the writing part.
Right so um so I still have some of those reports lying around I don't even know banks do these things anymore, but they used to back in those days and.
(24:36):
And then my husband and I decided to move to India, so when we moved to India, this is now we're talking i'm kind of old so 15 years ago.
So um I was really fortunate that you know it was sort of the time when a lot of these overseas publications were setting up shop in India.
(25:02):
So it was now, of course, the media landscape has completely changed in India, but, at the time it was sort of a good place to be so I ended up.
getting a job at a magazine that was about to launch and.
And then maybe you know, in a couple of years I just quit and I went freelance and that's when you know and i've been freelance ever since so that's kind of a really long winded way of telling you I had multiple jobs and did many things and then eventually became a Buddhist. 22:28
Neha Sampat (25:28):
it's amazing and you have had lots of twists and turns and lots of.
Real world experience in different kind of just different walks of life which I think probably makes you a better journalist and an investigator, and I think that's a super interesting.
journey that you've been on what what advice, do you have for listeners, who are considering a change in their career or pivot What would you tell them.
Gayatri Shah (25:53):
I mean, I think it's hard and it's you know it's it's it can be scary and daunting, especially when you do really need that paycheck, but I think it's really important to love.
doing what you're doing, I think that kind of satisfaction emotional satisfaction I think nothing really beats it and.
You know, for me, personally I left typing jobs to go work in a very low, one I was able to do that I, you know I realize how fortunate I am that I could make that happen for myself.
(26:25):
But, and for many people that's, not even a choice right, you have to kind of do what you need to do in order to kind of get by.
And people stay in jobs because of you know, health insurance reasons and all of that I know the reality of the United States, for example.
and, frankly, even in India, but I think if you have the opportunity and you're able to take the risk without impinging on your family's needs and your own personal needs I say go for it.
(26:51):
try it out and worse comes to worse, you know it won't work and then you can go back to doing the thing that you know was was keeping you steady or you know, whatever stable.
Neha Sampat (27:02):
For sure I mean that's almost spoken like an entrepreneur and that's the advice I often give when people are.
Considering, you know starting their own thing I mean you kind of just have to give it a.
shot and see what it does for you, so you say you mentioned this, that the media and journalism industry has evolved and changed quite a bit over the years, what have you observed there. 24:12
Gayatri Shah (27:23):
Oh, my God don't become a journalist.
No i'm gonna say this just had, I mean I i'm certainly not an investigative journalist and I don't do the kind of really tough work that you know so many incredible journalists around the world are doing and, of course, you know that.
To journalists won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, which is just remarkable and it's really a shot in the arm for everyone who like doyle's away speaking truth to power to governments that are you know authoritarian or unwilling to to kind of.
(27:53):
be open to Chris criticism and descent so.
Like I said when I first moved here to India, there were a lot of companies that were setting up shop Conde nast showed up here and then you know stone started a bunch of India.
titles and similarly with other publications harper's bazaar order them talking about fashion journalism, but also.
(28:17):
But also, you know sort of other other things, and of course digital became a big thing as well right the Internet exploded in India TV channels proliferated in a crazy way.
But I think what's happened is that you know we have a strange situation in India, where a lot of the.
Big media houses are owned by business people corporates and or politicians so, then the room for.
(28:48):
Really kind of free, you know sort of the free press becomes narrow.
And you know it's, not just in India, we see it happening in places all over the world and the United States small papers, you know metros things like in you know.
What have absent folded the economic economics of running a publication or a media outlet extremely stressed.
(29:12):
Advertising just doesn't exist everybody's like getting their news on Twitter and everybody's a journalist anybody who has a phone is a journalist, so you know it's like what what is the opposite it's you know it's definitely.
A time period for the profession, where I think the professionals are feeling a little.
I would say the sentiment is not.
(29:33):
it's not a boy and sentiment. 26:07
Neha Sampat (29:36):
And you kind of mentioned this, but social media has had an impact, of course, what are some thoughts about the contributions there.
Gayatri Shah (29:44):
Well, you know, the thing is that these bloggers and influencers and people like that have you know sort of.
In a sense, kind of made the role of the journalist just fall by the wayside right so and and and and I think that's part of the problem, so how do you know.
(30:06):
it's it's interesting you're asking me this question because it's something I wrestled with and I was just on this trip with a bunch of.
Fellow journalists about five, six of them, and we really sort of what sort of talking about this issue is how, how do you distinguish really good editorial content.
From something that.
is just pushing out there, because they were paid or.
(30:28):
You know and it's easily digestible it's in 15 seconds or 30 seconds, or whatever who's going to read the 800 word piece forget the 1500 word piece for the 2000 word.
Peace, you know, or whatever you know everything has to be digestible, it has to be in sound bites, it has to be.
busy and quick, I mean no one has an attention span anymore and i'm I mean listen i'm bemoaning this but it's something that people have been talking about for years, you know.
(30:52):
So I don't know, but at the same time, look we you know they're there are like great sort of buckets of WHO.
The New York Times has subscription levels have gone up significantly, you know when when wild trump was an office, and now you know and that's continued so and pay people are.
The people who want to consume good media will continue to consume it it's just that, how do we separate the noise, you know there's just.
(31:15):
So much.
Neha Sampat (31:17):
I, I have a prediction, which might be just opinion.
But I, but I believe that there's a craving for good journalism and for truth and and for some level of investigation, again, which you know, probably got prompted by a lot of the political.
landscape that we've all experienced globally, for the last several years, but I feel like there's there's such a strong craving for kind of Center like just real.
(31:46):
Real world scenarios and real world news that there's going to be a comeback for journalism and I think it's it's.
I find it in the conversations I have with the millennials that are just like.
They Yes, they like to consume things in small doses, but they're also craving like what's real and they're like pushing for it so.
I hope that that's true and as someone who also you know my undergrad was in journalism and communications, so I have a I have a strong like.
(32:15):
Just conviction for for truth and reality, so I have a lot of respect for journalists journalism and for you and for the whole industry and hope that it evolves into something that we can all count on over over the years, absolutely. 28:33
So i'm going to move into rapid fire and I like to ask.
My guests, a few questions at the end of every.
(32:37):
episode so i'm going to start with this, what is your wake up song what gets you going.
Gayatri Shah (32:45):
sunshine reggae by laid back this summer, it was playing on repeat a girlfriend of mine from La introduced me to it, and then I just love that song now so so it's a wonderful song.
Neha Sampat (32:56):
awesome I have not heard that, yet I will add it to our list and and more maybe play it on repeat myself if 19 year old you asked you today what they should read or listen to what would you say.
Gayatri Shah (33:10):
I would say we should all the books, we should all be feminists by chima nanda a DG I think that's just a wonderful manifesto it so it's and it's a quick read, everyone should read it.
Neha Sampat (33:22):
awesome Thank you, is there a way that you would recommend.
Gayatri Shah (33:27):
So the summer I spent some time in Italy, and I think that I probably drank this wine I quarter, it may not be the best wine in the world, but it's extremely easy and wonderful and like to drink it's called the D me.
And it's a vizio grip it's grown of the only in this remote, you know it's it's basically a Sicilian wine.
Neha Sampat (33:49):
Oh wow awesome great recommendation I love them all of us yeah grade and.
The thing about Italy is like there's so many little pockets of wines that you might not find anywhere else in the world, because every acre is like slightly different so kind of a beautiful thing What should our listeners do tomorrow to help them become dream makers.
Gayatri Shah (34:13):
I would say, go help someone say something positive and upbeat to someone.
You know that they come into contact with I think that's, I think, right now, the world needs a lot of kindness, I feel the atmosphere globally is so vitiated.
there's so much negativity and you know everything is so polarized that I think that if we you know every day if we have one thing we do one little act of kindness say something.
(34:38):
That can help someone you know you never know what someone else is feeling and I think over in the pandemic have really sort of stress to people in so many different ways that keep some ID and that's extremely that's all very doable is it to eat, you know you can that's in your hands.
Neha Sampat (34:54):
Thank you guys through the world needs more kindness that couldn't agree more that was beautifully stated, and I really appreciate you having you on the show this was so much fun, I hope you had a good time as well.
Gayatri Shah (35:06):
I did it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be on the receiving end of the questions, so thank you.
Neha Sampat (35:14):
Thank you for being on again and cheers to you i'm going to have one more.
Yes, cheers.
I may have Sam pat a three time tech founder and CEO, with a focus on companies that are places to dream big build up and be a good human.
i'm CEO of content stack and also a certified suddenly So yes, we drink wine here, regardless of the time of day.
i'm joined by Gaia three regen chatty shot, a journalist, based in Mumbai.
(02:35):
she's co author of change makers 20 women transforming Bollywood behind the scenes, a contributing editor for both India and architectural digest India.
And she writes a column for one of india's largest English language language newspapers, the Hindu, today we're going to talk about gender roles, the media landscape and Indian culture let's get started hi gaya three.
Gayatri Shah (03:04):
I may have, thank you for having me.
Neha Sampat (03:06):
i'm so excited that you're here you're officially our first journalist guest, how does it feel to be the one that is the focus of the interview this time around.
Gayatri Shah (03:16):
feels a little strange, to be honest, you know it's definitely a role reversal that I haven't sort of played very frequently i'm used to asking the questions, not necessarily answering them.
Neha Sampat (03:28):
I am when we had the interview together for both India, I had so much fun in our conversation that I felt so compelled to have you on the other side.
and learn more about you and your journey so i'm super super excited that you're here, and it is eight in the morning, my time what time is it for you.
Gayatri Shah (03:45):
It is now 6:45pm in the evening in in Bombay and actually it's interesting because we have thunder and lightning as we speak.
Neha Sampat (03:55):
Oh well, we had rain overnight here in Austin Texas as well, so similar weather different time zones for sure you're in a much more respectable time zone for drinking wine.
But.
In order to accompany you I have broken my rules, and I am going to have.
A few tastes of this wine with you so both guy three and I have a bottle of arrows from work winery with us mine is a 2015 vintage and died three is a 2018. 2:18
(04:24):
And this is actually one of my favorite Indian wines, we were talking about it before we started the show.
And it's interesting i've kind of watched the journey of Indian wines over the last 15 years since we started doing business in India.
And every year it's sort of evolved a little bit more and more and it's become a lot more enjoyable over the years and actually something that I look forward to now when I go to India and so.
(04:47):
This wine is actually one of my favorites from from all the red wines that are available in India again it's called.
arrows i'm going to try to show the bottle for those that are following along on video it's hard to see with the background.
But my background here on the zoom is also a background of the winery where this comes from.
(05:09):
And I think one of my favorite things about this is it's a family run family owned winery and the original founder of this winery had a dream of building out.
A nice winery in this region in Indian nashik and they had a few children and wanted one of them to take the lead in in turning this into a world class winery.
(05:32):
And so the father asked 16 year old kailash Gordon me who at the time, you know didn't really know a lot about winemaking or wineries are viticulture.
If he would be willing to take the lead, for the family and learn about winemaking, and so a few years later he went to Australia to learn about winemaking came back at 23 years old, to India.
(05:53):
And he became india's youngest winemaker at the time and has since gone on to build a beautiful wine and so we're going to taste it now, and this wine is mine is 90% cab 10% sure as yours will probably be a slightly different blend it might say on the bottle.
Gayatri Shah (06:10):
yeah i'm just looking at up nima it says it is 24% cab and a 76 year olds land.
Neha Sampat (06:18):
Okay, so completely flipped actually in terms of the the the blend so that should be interesting cheers Thank you again for being on the show.
Gayatri Shah (06:29):
Thank you and also thank you for introducing me to a red wine that I would not have otherwise come across anything.
Of course.
Neha Sampat (06:42):
it's a it's a pretty big wine and for early in the morning and.
And normally when I do an international guess i'll try to do a white wine, but I had to.
I had to have you tried this one, and also, I happen to have carried a bottle with me from India getting an Indian wine in the US is actually not super easy, so I wanted to have something that we could both compare.
(07:05):
And, but this is a big a big enough wine to have with like a pretty large meal, I do like to have a glass of it just by itself as well.
And, or even with like you know some like really sharp cheese, or something to cut through it, but it's a big bold wine and lots of lots of fruit and the punch a little bit of oak as well, are you getting some of that openness.
Gayatri Shah (07:25):
Definitely getting the fact that it's quite okie and I probably should have.
Just regulated the temperature a little bit more, you know so, because here now it's actually quite humid and warm in India in Bombay rather so perhaps this wind could have just it's actually very drinkable very nice but maybe I would have killed it slightly.
Neha Sampat (07:46):
make sense yeah awesome well let's jump in and learn a little bit more about you and will continue to revisit the wine, I know you had your breathing for a while mine I just opened so that also causes a little bit of difference in the flavor profile. 5:26
And so, when when we met obviously you were interviewing me for vogue India and what I loved about our conversation and about your work is that it's both aspirational and inspirational.
(08:11):
and for your book series you focused on Indian women who had achieved a certain level of success in the business world i'd like to learn a little bit more about why.
Gayatri Shah (08:22):
So anyhow, you know we have a strange conundrum going on in India, where, as we have.
grown as an economy let's just park over the side and take that you know sort of that sort of an aberration that time period, but as the Indian economy has grown women in India have.
been dropping out of the workforce, so you would imagine that the you know the the graph would sort of track and correlate but actually there's been an inverse relationship.
(08:49):
And so we've actually gone from having a you know 27% 27% of you know workforce participation by women.
drop further and now the stats are quite alarming it's about I think the latest thing I might have read was about 17% so you know.
I kind of i've always been sort of really intrigued by this and the vogue India series on.
(09:14):
You know, women who had achieved something professionally was kind of my way to sort of show that look, you know you can we have we have a bunch of different issues going on, of course, structurally socially, culturally.
But that you know you can actually achieve something, and I wanted to put these inspirational stories, such as people like yourself.
(09:35):
Out there so that other women could feel you know that they also have that possibility, you know role models essentially that one good identity, you know sort of look up to identify with perhaps try to track and that was the kind of the genesis of that series.
Neha Sampat (09:50):
that's an alarming, to say the least, that the numbers and I know now we're hearing a lot about the great resignation.
Or you know everywhere around the world and people kind of falling out of the workforce, but that's that's.
alarming that so many women have fallen out in India and kind of expect the opposite to happen so i'm hopefully hopefully you're making an impact there and we all can as well.
(10:15):
And you wrote the book change makers let's let's talk a little bit about the book and what drove you to write that book ah look at that beautiful.
Gayatri Shah (10:26):
copy. 7:40
wrote this book with a very close girlfriend of mine called Malika kapoor, who is now based in London at the time that we wrote this book, I was in Bombay and she was living in Hong Kong, so it was a very interesting project to take on from two different geographies.
(10:49):
And the you know we sort of wrote this book essentially to sort of shine a light on women who are really influencing popular culture in this country, you know I mean.
The Hindi film industry popularly known as Bollywood it has enormous influence on the way.
Indian sort of digest popular culture let's say you know it sets trends in fashion music dance what have you, you know sort of it portrays.
(11:18):
The kind of the narrative that society is grappling with on particular issues as well.
So you know we we kind of we wanted to again to go back to that point of women dropping out of the workforce.
What we've Malika is also a journalist and what we found in our sort of research initial research, when we were thinking about this book is that.
While you know Indian women are not working as much in this particular industry Bollywood the film industry.
(11:45):
which has historically been quite hostile to women, has not been very welcoming to women actually there was there were a lot more women present and a lot more women working on film sets.
And that's sort of you know why we decided to explore this topic in further detail, we do not want to focus on any of the movie.
actors, they get a lot of play an amplification what we were really interested in where the women were really you know, a film unit is hundreds of people working together.
(12:11):
And we were really interested in the women who were sort of has been to to bring some of these projects together and that's that that's why we we sort of undertook this you know this behind the camera, so to speak, women working behind the camera not in front of it.
Neha Sampat (12:26):
And what were some of your learnings I know that it was important for you to focus on women behind the camera and and kind of.
focus on, not just the stars, but looking at the others that kind of bring together the whole scene what were you hoping to achieve with that what did you learn. 9:41
Gayatri Shah (12:43):
you know everybody's always fascinated by the glamour of the movie business whether you're in Hollywood or in Bollywood, but I think what.
You know, we learned was how incredibly professionalized and hard working this community of creatives are, of course, both men and women, that it has you know it has definitely become much more professionalized in the past 20 years it was you know it used to be kind of like a scrappy.
(13:12):
sort of industry, it was it was not even recognized as an as an industry by the Government of India till the late 80s by the late 90s sorry I beg your pardon.
And so, these people could not get financing to fund films and so that was part of the reason that the reputation of the industry was quite poor you know, because they would need to kind of.
Get financing from all sorts of strange quarters, you know the underworld and all of that.
(13:37):
Once they got recognized as an industry, they could approach, banks and other financial institutions for funding and that started to help.
professionalize the entire you know sort of business and because of that you started seeing people from quote unquote you know sort of.
You know back backgrounds, I would never have considered the movie business as a professional career path coming into it, you know we're kids who are brought up you know in sort of.
(14:09):
army army children, for example, or children of doctors, or whatever you know, whatever it might be people who went to university started getting attracted into the field and that's how you've had really kind of an explosion and and sort of great content coming out of the business now.
Neha Sampat (14:27):
it's incredible and and it's interesting that so many different backgrounds come together to produce film and it's it's interesting that you uncovered some of that. 11:10
Gayatri Shah (37:38):
when Malika and I were doing our research we came across the case of a woman called shadow khurana who was one who.
As recently as 2014 one the right for women to work as makeup artists in the movies before that in India.
You could not if you're a woman, you could not work as a makeup artist in the movies, I know it sounds insane and that's exactly what we thought we were like are we reading this right.
(38:05):
So, Joe was a young woman who wanted to work as a makeup artist in the movies, and she went and she spent a lot of money her parents took out loans and all that, and she she became a professional makeup artist.
And then she moved to Bombay she's originally from Delhi and she moved to Bombay to basically start out her career.
And she was shut out by the very powerful makeup unions which were comprised of men.
(38:29):
And they would not let her work, they would come and disrupt the movie sets they would you know start, they would say we, you know we're going to have you guys find because women can't work as makeup artist.
So she basically didn't have the right her right to work was infringed upon and she then got so fed up at this injustice that she decided to do something about and she took her case to court.
(38:50):
and her case went all the way up to the Supreme Court of of India and she won her case in in 2014 actually i'll give you the date, it was the 14th of November 2014.
So, and that is when the Supreme Court said that this is the most archaic ridiculous thing we've ever you know when we this has to go, so it was because of Charles intervention that women can now work as makeup artists in the movies.
(39:16):
And, and that is really what got us intrigued we said if there's this one person who has done this, there must be so many other remarkable women in the movie business and that's what we set out set out to find.
Neha Sampat (39:28):
That is so shocking and so incredible and like just just to like lay this out this was less than seven years ago that that happened that's just unbelievable, thank you for sharing that story appreciate it. 13:01 102 00:14:36 540 --> 00:14:46.050 Neha Sampat
Gayatri Shah (14:47):
Well it's not for the faint hearted, let me put it that way um I think I think the most important thing when you're when you're writing a book is to be extremely disciplined.
And that means you know you have to sort of allocate.
Whether you're doing it as your main focus your main task for the day or if you're doing it sort of as a side project or whatever it is, you have to allocate a certain number of hours, you have to have deadlines, you have to be able to meet those deadlines, you know we conducted.
(15:17):
I want to say, I mean hundreds of interviews, and I mean to transcribe all of those and document them and all of that so.
You know you, you really have to have the the time management sort of down bat, as it were.
And really sort of you know, being able to keep track of disparate pieces of information and data, but I mean listen it's not rocket science and that's why.
(15:39):
You know, many people write books I just think the important thing is to be passionate about it, and you know it's like life just show up, you have to just signed up show up for for the work. 14:08
Neha Sampat (15:50):
awesome Thank you, you said a beautiful thing when we were talking when we were preparing for this about your purpose, and it was to show Indian women possibilities and then and it's a passion that I share with you and it's.
For me, women in general and we talked about that a little bit, but it's it's also to show the world the beauty of Indian what India has to offer, can you talk a little bit about that.
Gayatri Shah (16:13):
yeah you know listen I I tell stories for a living in you know different sort of formats, whether it's like you I also had a podcast and then you know, obviously, my writing.
Whether it's a book or whether it's a magazine article or a newspaper story, or what have you.
And or for digital I you know, the idea is to stand stories and, for me, I think it's important to be able to share these stories of an incredible country and culture that I come from.
(16:41):
And, in particular, of course, it's women but also you know india's design heritage it's you know what's happening in contemporary design or the arts visual.
arts, or you know whether it's not so much dance and music because that's not my area of expertise, but.
Anything that sort of you know, brings beauty into the world, I mean I would broadly categorize it as culture and.
(17:04):
And so you know if i'm able to tell those stories and shine a light on on something that will make other people, even if it's just one person interested hopefully it's not just one but i'll take what I can get I think that that's that's really what I think is my purpose.
Neha Sampat (17:20):
I love that and I have to tell you a story that kind of bridges what you're talking about back to Bollywood and I am.
Many years ago, of course, studied wine, and when I had the opportunity to go back on vacations and travels I go back to wine regions and I lived in France for a little while.
In college, so I had gone to the lower region and I decided to take my husband back there a few years ago, so we rented these bicycles and we were going from.
(17:50):
Like a one of the wineries to another and there's a lot of castles there and it's beautiful landscape and.
we're honored bicycles, you know, in the midpoint of our journey and decided to pull over to pick up a couple bottles of water from like a.
petrol station, so we walk in and literally there's nothing there, besides like a.
(18:12):
Like a refrigerator that had some ice and water, and then a case and in the case was these DVDs with Bollywood films, and it was only.
there's nothing French and I, you know my broken French I asked the guy like what you know what's the story behind this and she any, and this was just a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere valley in France.
(18:34):
And he said everybody here is obsessed with.
Bollywood it's like nuts, this whole town is obsessed with Bollywood and I was just I was so shocking to me that this tiny little town in France would have that obsession.
And I just thought it was so cool that you know that that that awareness existed, but that there was a love for our country and our world, even though it was seen through the you know, through the eyes of Bollywood which is not.
(18:57):
Reality, but still I thought it was really cool and interesting, so I had to share that because it kind of brings it all kind of full circle.
Gayatri Shah (19:05):
that's a wonderful wonderful anecdote and I think that that's something that so many Indians find you know why you know that's why we call it a soft power because you can go to.
Remote remote parts of Africa or Asia or in your case you've gone to a remote remote part of France, and you find that there are these you know these strange moments.
Where people know either a movie star or they know some song or they know something or you know, have seen some film and they've watched it on repeat, you know all of that so it's I think it's really quite wonderful. 17:39
Neha Sampat (19:36):
Very cool guy to do you consider yourself a dream maker.
Gayatri Shah (19:41):
Who um.
Well, you know I think in my own way, I try to prod people into questioning the status quo, especially where women are concerned, and in a country like India that's pretty rebellious so maybe you know in my small way, I hope you know that I am.
Helping someone to to dream, so if that makes me a dream maker, then i'll take it.
Neha Sampat (20:06):
I think it absolutely does and I don't know that I would have had you here, if I didn't consider you one, so I just love to hear how people see that. 18:11
And so I like to talk a lot about the road less traveled and how a career can be a journey of twists and turns versus you know just a straight line.
And I think that's important and okay for people to understand that things can change like that, and you actually started your career in the financial industry.
(20:33):
I was interested in learning a little bit more about that journey and maybe you can talk about that and just let us know how you got from there to here.
Gayatri Shah (20:42):
So I think i'm a living embodiment of of sort of someone who has had a kind of a very strange career path you know I never really thought of journalism as a career, when I was.
In college or anything like that i've always loved to write, but you know, and obviously was a big consumer of the news, but never really saw myself in that role, I went to undergraduate and graduate school in the United States.
(21:10):
And you know I went to I attended a small but oldest women's college in the United States called mark Leo.
And after I graduated from mount holyoke I had a degree in economics and political science and then I knew that I wanted to live in New York City.
So I needed to be able to afford that dream since we're on the dream podcast so I was like I need a job that's going to be able to support me, so I.
(21:34):
Gayatri Shah:I ended up getting a job as a management consultant, so I joined.
You know, a firm that was starting its New York office, and that was really the beginning, so I was a management consultant for a number of years and one of the best parts of my job was not the strategy stuff and all of that which was fine that was interesting.
(22:00):
But we had the Internet in the office in those days and I used to love writing movie review, who is.
In those days I used to watch a lot of movies so i'd watch it, you know, and then we sort of exchange notes in the in this office Internet.
And it was always so fun and I was like I really you know, Miss writing you know we, I mean writing PowerPoint slides and stuff it's not that much fun so.
So on a lark I applied to Columbia, to the journalism program and I got accepted and I got a degree in journalism.
(22:35):
But the problem is that once I graduated the people who wanted to hire me were the business publications and I didn't really want to report the business stories that wasn't my idea of fun.
So that went back to my old for my consulting firm and I did media consulting with them for a while, in London and Cambridge Boston whatever I bounced around a little bit and then.
(22:56):
I moved to I ended up back in London
And, and I, and I saw an ad in The Economist newspaper, I mean it's like this, I got you know it's like sometimes I look back and I was like did that really happen, and there was an ad for.
Leading policy analyst that the Treasury, the UK Treasury was was interested in hiring so I sat.
(23:20):
sat for a written exam and then I went in and I had a bunch of interviews and I got this job and I became a British civil servant.
And the Brits are really interesting because they allow Commonwealth citizens i'm a citizen of India to.
To be to work in their government in certain in certain departments, so the Treasury is one of them.
So I worked on public sector be issues and, like the teachers were going to go on strike, it was really kind of interesting because you're reading the stuff in the news, but then we're like working on like.
(23:45):
How do we balance the budget, and how can we pay these public sector workers and all that you know how do we pay these teachers and make sure they don't go on strike, so it was super fun.
And and and but then I wanted to be back in New York, and so I moved back and.
And I took it, you know I obviously could not hold on to that job, since I wasn't in London anymore, and I got a job as an equity analyst at Deutsche Bank.
(24:09):
So at Deutsche Bank, I was covering household and consumer product companies so companies like colgate and Avon and Procter and Gamble companies like that and, and so I had to write like these hundred page research reports, and that was actually super fun.
Because I have to do the writing part.
Right so um so I still have some of those reports lying around I don't even know banks do these things anymore, but they used to back in those days and.
(24:36):
And then my husband and I decided to move to India, so when we moved to India, this is now we're talking i'm kind of old so 15 years ago.
So um I was really fortunate that you know it was sort of the time when a lot of these overseas publications were setting up shop in India.
(25:02):
So it was now, of course, the media landscape has completely changed in India, but, at the time it was sort of a good place to be so I ended up.
getting a job at a magazine that was about to launch and.
And then maybe you know, in a couple of years I just quit and I went freelance and that's when you know and i've been freelance ever since so that's kind of a really long winded way of telling you I had multiple jobs and did many things and then eventually became a Buddhist. 22:28
Neha Sampat (25:28):
it's amazing and you have had lots of twists and turns and lots of.
Real world experience in different kind of just different walks of life which I think probably makes you a better journalist and an investigator, and I think that's a super interesting.
journey that you've been on what what advice, do you have for listeners, who are considering a change in their career or pivot What would you tell them.
Gayatri Shah (25:53):
I mean, I think it's hard and it's you know it's it's it can be scary and daunting, especially when you do really need that paycheck, but I think it's really important to love.
doing what you're doing, I think that kind of satisfaction emotional satisfaction I think nothing really beats it and.
You know, for me, personally I left typing jobs to go work in a very low, one I was able to do that I, you know I realize how fortunate I am that I could make that happen for myself.
(26:25):
But, and for many people that's, not even a choice right, you have to kind of do what you need to do in order to kind of get by.
And people stay in jobs because of you know, health insurance reasons and all of that I know the reality of the United States, for example.
and, frankly, even in India, but I think if you have the opportunity and you're able to take the risk without impinging on your family's needs and your own personal needs I say go for it.
(26:51):
try it out and worse comes to worse, you know it won't work and then you can go back to doing the thing that you know was was keeping you steady or you know, whatever stable.
Neha Sampat (27:02):
For sure I mean that's almost spoken like an entrepreneur and that's the advice I often give when people are.
Considering, you know starting their own thing I mean you kind of just have to give it a.
shot and see what it does for you, so you say you mentioned this, that the media and journalism industry has evolved and changed quite a bit over the years, what have you observed there. 24:12
Gayatri Shah (27:23):
Oh, my God don't become a journalist.
No i'm gonna say this just had, I mean I i'm certainly not an investigative journalist and I don't do the kind of really tough work that you know so many incredible journalists around the world are doing and, of course, you know that.
To journalists won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, which is just remarkable and it's really a shot in the arm for everyone who like doyle's away speaking truth to power to governments that are you know authoritarian or unwilling to to kind of.
(27:53):
be open to Chris criticism and descent so.
Like I said when I first moved here to India, there were a lot of companies that were setting up shop Conde nast showed up here and then you know stone started a bunch of India.
titles and similarly with other publications harper's bazaar order them talking about fashion journalism, but also.
(28:17):
But also, you know sort of other other things, and of course digital became a big thing as well right the Internet exploded in India TV channels proliferated in a crazy way.
But I think what's happened is that you know we have a strange situation in India, where a lot of the.
Big media houses are owned by business people corporates and or politicians so, then the room for.
(28:48):
Really kind of free, you know sort of the free press becomes narrow.
And you know it's, not just in India, we see it happening in places all over the world and the United States small papers, you know metros things like in you know.
What have absent folded the economic economics of running a publication or a media outlet extremely stressed.
(29:12):
Advertising just doesn't exist everybody's like getting their news on Twitter and everybody's a journalist anybody who has a phone is a journalist, so you know it's like what what is the opposite it's you know it's definitely.
A time period for the profession, where I think the professionals are feeling a little.
I would say the sentiment is not.
(29:33):
it's not a boy and sentiment. 26:07
Neha Sampat (29:36):
And you kind of mentioned this, but social media has had an impact, of course, what are some thoughts about the contributions there.
Gayatri Shah (29:44):
Well, you know, the thing is that these bloggers and influencers and people like that have you know sort of.
In a sense, kind of made the role of the journalist just fall by the wayside right so and and and and I think that's part of the problem, so how do you know.
(30:06):
it's it's interesting you're asking me this question because it's something I wrestled with and I was just on this trip with a bunch of.
Fellow journalists about five, six of them, and we really sort of what sort of talking about this issue is how, how do you distinguish really good editorial content.
From something that.
is just pushing out there, because they were paid or.
(30:28):
You know and it's easily digestible it's in 15 seconds or 30 seconds, or whatever who's going to read the 800 word piece forget the 1500 word piece for the 2000 word.
Peace, you know, or whatever you know everything has to be digestible, it has to be in sound bites, it has to be.
busy and quick, I mean no one has an attention span anymore and i'm I mean listen i'm bemoaning this but it's something that people have been talking about for years, you know.
(30:52):
So I don't know, but at the same time, look we you know they're there are like great sort of buckets of WHO.
The New York Times has subscription levels have gone up significantly, you know when when wild trump was an office, and now you know and that's continued so and pay people are.
The people who want to consume good media will continue to consume it it's just that, how do we separate the noise, you know there's just.
(31:15):
So much.
Neha Sampat (31:17):
I, I have a prediction, which might be just opinion.
But I, but I believe that there's a craving for good journalism and for truth and and for some level of investigation, again, which you know, probably got prompted by a lot of the political.
landscape that we've all experienced globally, for the last several years, but I feel like there's there's such a strong craving for kind of Center like just real.
(31:46):
Real world scenarios and real world news that there's going to be a comeback for journalism and I think it's it's.
I find it in the conversations I have with the millennials that are just like.
They Yes, they like to consume things in small doses, but they're also craving like what's real and they're like pushing for it so.
I hope that that's true and as someone who also you know my undergrad was in journalism and communications, so I have a I have a strong like.
(32:15):
Just conviction for for truth and reality, so I have a lot of respect for journalists journalism and for you and for the whole industry and hope that it evolves into something that we can all count on over over the years, absolutely. 28:33
So i'm going to move into rapid fire and I like to ask.
My guests, a few questions at the end of every.
(32:37):
episode so i'm going to start with this, what is your wake up song what gets you going.
Gayatri Shah (32:45):
sunshine reggae by laid back this summer, it was playing on repeat a girlfriend of mine from La introduced me to it, and then I just love that song now so so it's a wonderful song.
Neha Sampat (32:56):
awesome I have not heard that, yet I will add it to our list and and more maybe play it on repeat myself if 19 year old you asked you today what they should read or listen to what would you say.
Gayatri Shah (33:10):
I would say we should all the books, we should all be feminists by chima nanda a DG I think that's just a wonderful manifesto it so it's and it's a quick read, everyone should read it.
Neha Sampat (33:22):
awesome Thank you, is there a way that you would recommend.
Gayatri Shah (33:27):
So the summer I spent some time in Italy, and I think that I probably drank this wine I quarter, it may not be the best wine in the world, but it's extremely easy and wonderful and like to drink it's called the D me.
And it's a vizio grip it's grown of the only in this remote, you know it's it's basically a Sicilian wine.
Neha Sampat (33:49):
Oh wow awesome great recommendation I love them all of us yeah grade and.
The thing about Italy is like there's so many little pockets of wines that you might not find anywhere else in the world, because every acre is like slightly different so kind of a beautiful thing What should our listeners do tomorrow to help them become dream makers.
Gayatri Shah (34:13):
I would say, go help someone say something positive and upbeat to someone.
You know that they come into contact with I think that's, I think, right now, the world needs a lot of kindness, I feel the atmosphere globally is so vitiated.
there's so much negativity and you know everything is so polarized that I think that if we you know every day if we have one thing we do one little act of kindness say something.
(34:38):
That can help someone you know you never know what someone else is feeling and I think over in the pandemic have really sort of stress to people in so many different ways that keep some ID and that's extremely that's all very doable is it to eat, you know you can that's in your hands.
Neha Sampat (34:54):
Thank you guys through the world needs more kindness that couldn't agree more that was beautifully stated, and I really appreciate you having you on the show this was so much fun, I hope you had a good time as well.
Gayatri Shah (35:06):
I did it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be on the receiving end of the questions, so thank you.
Neha Sampat (35:14):
Thank you for being on again and cheers to you i'm going to have one more.
Yes, cheers.
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