In Conversation With Ashwin

My guests on the show are Ashna Lulla, writer of the book 'With Love Madras', and Vignesh Sivakumar, the photographer, and visual storyteller. One of them is my wife and I was a proud beaming husband after recording the episode :) She absolutely crushed it with this book and so did Vignesh.  With Love, Madras is a book that takes you on a stunning visual journey through homes across the city that embody the Madras way of life. Their Instagram bio reads - 'Explore Madras, One Home at a time.' The episode talks about the book - how the idea came into existence; the multiple ups and downs in the journey; their favorite part of the journey; lessons learned, and pitfalls to avoid while publishing a book. They also, on being forced, tell us which home is their favorite and share some golden nuggets for first-time authors ;) Ashna is an architect by the badge and designer by the heart. You can see a blend of both in her writing. She also is now a contributing writer to the design magazine, Architectural Diges

Nimmi Roche is the founder of Blue Flag Project - an all-purpose sustainable men's shoewear that I cannot wait to buy. Each pair of Blue Flags is made of ~8 upcycled plastic water bottles. On the episode, we discuss Nimmi's early childhood and how that has influenced her choices. We chat about her MBA at Harvard (and why Harvard MBA students shy away from revealing the name of their institution). We discuss Nimmi's corporate experience, her plunge into entrepreneurship and lots of detail about Blue Flag Project - the 4Ps, the 3Cs and everything marketing related. We end the show with some authentic and mildly philosophical advice from Nimmi about hard work and results.  Nimmi worked at Goldman Sachs as an Associate in Hedge Fund Consulting. She graduated with an MBA from Harvard post which she worked in Amex and Adpatly before she finally decided to go all-in with Blue Flag Project- a product that replaces fast fashion and forces customers to change the environment- one step at a time. Show notes- Blue Fl

YouTube Link to audiovisual - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMe_oUUfIkg&t=1544s FYI- I would say it's better to watch and listen via the Youtube link. However, if you are on the move, this recording should do a good job as well! The visual helps drive the point home but the audio, independently, does not do a bad job either. Best to listen in with headphones :) About the episode- A recording of The Reading Workshop I hosted with author, Krishna Trilok on 3rd Feb, 2019. We had a good turnout and a very good discussion. The workshop was for people who care about reading but are struggling to incorporate it in their daily routine. At the workshop, we discussed why we read, busted some myths about reading, committed to build it as a habit and shared actionable advice to make reading convenient. We discussed audio books, how we should pick our next books, answered common questions and spoke about varying genres. My previous podcast with author, Krishna Trilok- Episode 9

On the show we discuss Rahul’s early childhood and his motivation behind starting Storiyoh. How he moved from being an employee in London’s financial district to a full-time entrepreneur. From the 15th minute on, we talk about podcasting- Rahul’s love for BBC world services and how it inspired him to start Storiyoh. We talk about the business model of podcasting by breaking it into 3 topics- distribution, consumption and monetization. We talk about the typical going rates of ads on podcasts, the disparities in listenership across different geographies. I was surprised to learn that  China is the biggest podcasting market in the world with it generating revenues of 7B$ in 2016. Chinese who have a reputation for being frugal are more than willing to pay for good content. We discuss advantages of free v/s paid content and how podcasters shouldn’t shy away from pricing their episodes. We talk podcasting for the mass v/s niche. We discuss the ad model versus paid model and pros and cons of each of these. We answer

On the show, we discuss Rashi’s journey of vagabonding across different cities in India as an army kid and how that helped her to embrace change and even thrive in it. We discuss how the army life exposed her to sports early in her life, her tennis adventures and why she decided not to pursue a career in sports. We get her take on women and gender diversity in the corporate and sports arena. We talk gender conditioning and how it is important, yet difficult, for women to be unapologetic about pursuing their ambitions. How women can and should be helped to become great sportswomen. Rashi’s definition of ‘progressive thinking’ and her gratitude towards her family for being progressive. Her push on ‘What would you with your life if you weren’t afraid?’ To close, we discuss her favourite books and her dog Bruce who has an Instagram handle of his own (Whether you listen to the podcast or not, you must take a look at Bruce. As Rashi says, in our conversation- He is a happy ball of fur).  Show notes- Books mention

Amrita, an HR professional for 7 years, now turned photographer runs mommyshotsbyamrita- your one stop shop for anything baby and camera related. She’s been an entrepreneur for 4 and a half years now. Although Amrita Samant liked her job in the Human Resource department, there was a constant desire in her to do something artistic with her life. During this phase in her life, photography started off as an interest to her, and she quickly capitalized on her newly discovered ambition. She parted ways with her career in Human Resources, and Amrita Samant decided to combine her love for two of her favorite things: photography and babies, and founded “Mommy Shots by Amrita”- a high quality photography service for maternity, newborn and toddlers. She has 75K+ followers on Instagram and is someone who makes a 'not-so-fond-of babies' person like me go 'oh so cute' with her incredible baby shots. I am not lying when I say that her pictures on my feed lighten up my day so easily.  Show notes-  You can find mommyshotsby

You can find Swapna on- Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/swapna.nair Swapna’s glamorous experience as the cover girl of Good Housekeeping- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhZhwC_g1AA  Swapna’s blog - http://dreamlearns.blogspot.com/  Show notes-  People-  Carol Dweck  Marilee Adams  Brene Brown  Books-  Mindset  Change your questions, change your life  Daring greatly

Aditya is a former investment banker and management consultant with a Finance degree from NYU Stern, but he left all that behind to join Pocket Aces, a digital media start-up best known for it's channels FilterCopy and Dice Media. After starting as a production intern, 3 months he was asked to take over as the Head of Video for FilterCopy. You might not have heard of Aditya himself but chances are that you must have seen many of the viral videos that he has produced on your Facebook and Youtube feeds. He has created several online popular videos, and worked with the likes of Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Ayushman Khurana and Rani Mukherjee.. Aditya’s shift from investment banking to the creative and media industry happened in a matter of 3 years. He was recently invited by Josh Talks, an Indian TedTalk equivalent to speak about career choices and how you should think about it. I watched the 12 minute video and found it to be super simple and solid advice.  Would definitely recommend watching (see link below)

In my conversation with Krishna, we talk about his early childhood, his love for battlefields, how he hid his passion for writing for a good amount of time just so he wouldn't be discouraged. His loneliness and frustration leading up to his first publication, Krishna's interaction with musical maestro, AR Rahman (Krishna spent months traveling with AR Rahman, spoke to his family, directors and others who are a part of his journey). We discuss Rahman's personality, humour, humility and his unique gift of elevating spirits around him. Krishna talks to us about writer's block, how he tackles it and lots more on why Krishna thinks everybody should write-one way or the other. We also discuss Krishna's favourite books. You can find all books and important links mentioned in the show notes, below Krishna is a great lover of a good story and has a keen, long-time fascination for Asian and European history and mythology. A student of commerce and marketing, he started writing in my teens – with the sole and simple in

In casual conversation with Chennai boy and a dear friend- Ashwin Sridhar Iyer (fondly known as Iyer). We discuss Iyer’s childhood, his journey in Boston and what motivates him. We also discuss his obsession of making people around him happy, how he deals with expectations of being happy all the time and his love for alone time. Iyer shares a tip on how humour helps him get through difficult times and some friendly banter plus inside jokes (we take a dig at our good friends). Lastly, Iyer’s consistent betrayal to Ajith and Vijay surfaces in our conversation as well. I had a great time recording this. Hope you guys enjoy listening to it! Ashwin Sridhar Iyer grew up in Chennai and is currently pursuing his masters in Supply Chain Management in the University of Boston. You can find Ashwin on Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/ashwin.sridhar.5

Pranshu grew up in Chennai, went to Wharton for college. He had originally dreamed of going into politics in India after college (idealistic dreams of changing the country and all that. He started his first company in his 2nd year; retail analytics using security cameras which got funded by Y combinator, raised $1mm. But then he shut the product down in 2016, returned money and began pivoting. He came back to India in September 2016 and started SimpleMoney. Simplemoney tracks your portfolio automatically by reading the statements in your inbox! In my conversation with Pranshu, we discuss his early childhood, his passion for building relevant institutions, his learnings at Wharton, his learnings from startups- funding, how to approach funding and when is a good time to raise money, the VC death trap. Specifically we also talk about his start up Simple money which tracks your portfolio automatically by reading the statements in your inbox. We discuss his favourite books, minimalism and even discuss our mutual

In casual conversation with film enthusiast Kishen Das. Kishen is a film enthusiast and currently works with film merchandising and movie reviewing company-Fully Filmy. Only 20 years old, Kishen has a great skill base to thrive in the movie world as an actor and beyond. Only a matter of time till he makes it to the box office. We discuss his early childhood, stand-up comedy, why slapstick humour works best with the Indian audience, Kishen's job at Fully filmy, youtube's strength in promoting good content, Kishen's film reviewing guidelines, Merasal, Padmvat and other controversy struck movies. You can find Kishen on- Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/kishendas/ Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/iamkishendas Twitter- https://twitter.com/kishen_das Youtube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuxZyUMvZCIVx6fV0omnssQ Link to Fully Filmy's youtube channel- Show notes- My favourite video of Kishen- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G25koYgyYO4 Top 10 movies of 2017-http://showtodaytv.com/play-clip-top-10-mo

In casual conversation with yogini Deepika Mehta. Deepika is a well known yoga teacher and professional fitness expert, Deepika lives in Mumbai, India where she teaches regular classes in Bandra. She also has clients (individuals and corporates) all over the country. She helps them achieve ultimate mind and body experiences with Ashtanga Yoga, diet and lifestyle advice, and has helped them arrive at their goals. Our discussion dives into Deepika's journey and transition into yoga as a way of life, the different types of yoga, thinks to check before you decide on a yoga instructor, Deepika's course on codyapp, her favourite books and the secret behind her breath-taking instagram photos You can find Deepika on- Website-http://deepikamehta.in/ Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/deepikamehtayoga/?hl=en Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/deepikamehtayoga/ Deepika's course on Codyapp- https://www.codyapp.com/coach/deepika Her 2 favourite books- 1. The power of intention by Wayne Dyer-https://www.amazon.in/Pow

In casual conversation with Siebel Scholar Rohan Rajiv who currently works at LinkedIn as a Product Manager. Prior to this, he graduated with an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. His personal mission statement is to build active relationships with framily (close friends and family), learn, and strive to have a positive impact on his world and, in time, “the world.” He has blogged a learning a day since May 2008 on his blog - www.ALearningaDay.com. Our discussion dives into philosophies that give the listeners a sneak peak into Rohan’s perception of life and stuff that matters to him. We speak about his favourite book, his writing habits, his early childhood and bitcoin. You can find Rohan on- Twitter- @alearningaday LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohanrajiv/ Blog- www.alearningaday.com Rohan's book recommendations- www.rohanrajiv.com

In casual conversation with Asmita Ghosh, a digital editor at Feminism in India where she writes, edits and tweets for a living. On a Saturday morning, we discuss the MeToo Campaign, the Raya Sarkar episode, the world's patriarchy, generational social conditioning and Asmita's YouTube video which gathered a million views. Outside of work, Asmita spends her time singing with a blues band and missing her 4 dogs back home in Chennai. All posts by Asmita Ghosh- feminisminindia.com/author/asmita/ Asmita's post on 'women in public spaces'- https://feminisminindia.com/2016/11/04/womens-experience-of-public-spaces/ Asmita's post on privelege- https://feminisminindia.com/2016/11/10/primer-oppression-privilege-101/ Be Our Pondati (Call Me Maybe Parody) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARWwmOsGZGw Asmita's twitter handle is @asmitaghosh18

In casual conversation with the Gujju son and mom- Dhruv Vora and Neha Vora. On a lazy Sunday evening, we discuss god, first impressions and pineapple on pizza. Dhruv's twitter handle is @VoraDhruv94 Subscribe to News on the Go here: @ashwin-chhabria-764883296

In casual conversation with Bhargav Prasad, a writer and stand-up comedian. On a lazy Sunday evening, we discuss objectivity versus emotion and social anxiety among other things. Bhargav's twitter handle is @CFLlightSabers Subscribe to News on the Go here: @ashwin-chhabria-764883296