Date: 19/07/2017 Platform: Economic Times
I am anchored by ideas, not by personal life goals: Sanjeev Sanyal
In conversation with Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser, Government of India.
Childhood's best moment
First taste of freedom after I finished my class 10 board exams came when I went trekking in Sikkim with two of my closest friends. Local bus travel, trudging up steep mountain paths and staying in remote villages. Taste for adventure never quite left me.
Childhood dreams
Nothing specific. Certainly never thought that I would be a best-selling writer or become the principal economic adviser to the Indian government. I am anchored by ideas, values and relationships, not by personal life goals.
Academic journey
Kindergarten in a small Bahá’í school in Gangtok, I believe it is still there. Then St Xavier’s and St James’ in Kolkata. Later Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. I then got the Rhodes scholarship taking me to the Oxford University.
My scholarship money at Oxford finished in mid-1995. Then came a call from Crosby Securities in Singapore with a first-class ticket. I had never heard of the company, never been to Singapore and had no idea about the financial sector. As it happened, I got the job. That is how I became a financial markets economist.
Hobbies
I am a Taekwondo black belt holder. I also love to read, travel, climb over old ruins, follow old maps and investigate the underbellies of cities.
I have often found myself in difficult situations: being sucked into quicksand, being robbed while backpacking in Guatemala, being stuck in a Savannah wildfire in Africa and so on
I do fear the prospect of spending an evening watching a slow-moving art film, or attending a book-reading session of some pretentious literary novel. For some odd reason, I keep getting invited to such events — perhaps people assume that a Bengali writer must like these things.
Like many of my generation, 'Sholay' is a childhood favourite. More recent favourites would include 'Three Idiots' and 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag'. A Hollywood favourite is 'Master and Commander', a film that fed into my interest in maritime history. Let’s say, slow moving art films shot in shades of grey are not my thing.
My favourite non-fiction writers include Ryszard Kapuscinski, then there is Peter Hopkirk, who has written excellent histories of European explorers, and the range is from Hemingway to Amish Tripathi. One common link — they use direct language and keep the narrative flowing.
Nalengurer Rasogolla. These are not the chewy, white ones you get commonly (which I dislike), but the brown ones you get in Kolkata only in winter. And then there are hot jalebis in the lanes of Varanasi.
Retirement? I have no intention of ever retiring — there are so many things to do, so many books to write...