34 years is a very long time. It surprises me to think that I’ve been an academic for that long. What else might one do with a PhD, or so I’d thought after I’d finished studying – in India and in the US. First at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and then at the University of Oxford, I’d taught at the business school and researched a variety of topics under the general rubric of Marketing. Publishing papers in academic journals, chairing scholarly conferences, guiding doctoral students and advising companies had taken me around the world and shed insights on the way people and organizations think and work. In later years, my interest had migrated from the mechanics of business to its impact on society. This stream holds the most importance to me when I look back at 34 years.
“Has academics helped your fiction? I am asked sometimes. It has, but indirectly – is my cautious answer. Besides offering wide ranging exposure to our world, it has taught me to be precise, and the craft of revision in order to bring to paper the voice that I hear in my ears.”