She had been tinkering for years with a book on the Indian economy and struggled with how to tell it and now S Mitra Kalita's "My Two Indias" lucidly reconciles the many faces of India - separate, unequal, inextricably and dependent.
"I approached it (the book) as narrative non-fiction, where our journey is shared and contextualized with the reader. I often take a step back to more critically examine anecdotes and offer research and statistic to keep me honest. I also rely greatly on many other characters," says Kalita, a senior deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal who hails from Assam.
Apart from her stints with various media organisations like Mint, The Washington Post, Newsday and The Associated Press, she is a past president of the South Asian journalists Association and author of the critically acclaimed "Suburban Sahibs - Three Immigrant Families and their Passage from India to America."
"I had been tinkering for years with a book on the Indian economy and struggled with how to tell it. Initially, I approached it similar to my first book with a hunt for subjects; and that's how I met many of the people and companies who end up appearing in this work," Kalita, who lives in New York City with her husband and daughter, told PTI.
"But as I went along, I grew self-conscious of being an outsider trying to tell the definitive story of such a vast, diverse country. So I haven't - the book is intentionally called 'My Two Indias', focusing on the slices of what I saw, experienced, lived, loathed, loved. I didn't set out to write about myself or my family but it became impossible to separate my unique perspective and experience from the work," she says.
As Kalita wrote, she pictured the manager, the CEO, the returnee, the middle-class family living in south Delhi and so on and so forth.
"And I pictured my cousins, first-time college attendees, the cyber cafe crowd, folks in second, third, no tier India."
Published by HarperCollins' imprint Collins Business, "My Two Indias" takes readers on a journey into the India of old and new.
In 2006, Kalita came to Delhi to launch Mint. She and her artist husband entered the elite of Delhi's society, joining a cast of characters from CEOs to cross-dressing curators. In this bubble, they embraced India's rush towards free-market reform. But another economic reality loomed in her home state of Assam - relatives' pleas for jobs, advice and guidance that reflected an Indian tragically bypassed by the boom.
"My Two Indias" lucidly reconciles the many faces of India: separate, unequal, inextricably, dependent.
Kalita says her next work will be is a guidebook to the Indian workplace.