Icons, success and BIWOC a candid conversation with Shrayana Battacharya
On this week’s episode of Can You Hear Us?, Monica and Ragini are joined by development economist and author Shrayana Bhattacharya. After completing her training from Delhi University and the Harvard Kennedy School, Shrayana worked on research projects with the Institute of Social Studies Trust, SEWA and Centre for Policy Research. At present, she is a Senior Economist at the World Bank. Her first book of non-fiction Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence was published by HarperCollins India in November 2021 and by Liberty Books in Pakistan in August 2022. Shrayana recently won the Atta Galatta BLF Book Prize for Best Non Fiction for 2022. She has also won the Times of India JK Paper AutHer Prize for Best Non-Fiction Author for 2022 and the SKOCH Economic Forum Prize for Literature.
Quotes from the interview:
Quotes from the interview:
“Feminism is a way of life, it is a lived practice, it’s a way of conscious of power relations and choices, and how you show up in the world” - Shrayana on Female vs Feminist icons, and how feminism manifests in this definition of feminist icon
“We’re all complex human beings, what is the idea of ‘the best’? Why should we impose this Olympics of status and bestness on anyone?” - Shrayana on the notion of the Great Man and its future I