Expanding scopes & challenges

Mumbai-based Koral Dasgupta is an author, professor, columnist, painter and professional speaker. She has penned four books to date. In her first book titled 'Power of a Common Man' Koral analyses Shah Rukh Khan as a brand personality.

Koral's columns spread across websites and magazines explore art, education, parenting, mythology, travel, women's issues, books, films and others.

Her paintings, often inspired by the Madhubani art form, are auctioned for social causes, the most prominent among it being the #Art4Water campaign where two of her paintings were auctioned and the proceeds were donated towards water conservation projects of Maharashtra.

This multi-faceted woman also has podcasts to her credit. "I started podcasts with a family comedy show called 'The Great Indian Family' in collaboration with eplog.media. In Jan we started icafepodcasts.com with three ambitious shows. Book Lounge covers authors, publishers, designers, agents, critics and other professionals from the book world.

'Brateshwar Diaries' is a fun show on parenting, which discusses issues, busts myths and also puts forward what parents should learn from their children. There is also a Bengali show called 'BongBaji', India's first podcast in Bengali capturing personal journeys of Bengali's outside Bengal, holding on to their Bangaliyana," Koral shares.

"While working for tellmeyourstory.biz, I learnt that each person's identity is supported by the stories of their life. Add voice to the script and it becomes drawing-room storytelling that is culturally embedded in our value system. iCafe Podcasts will recreate the experience virtually by augmenting human connect and nostalgia while networking with knowledge banks and entertainers," she adds.

About choosing topics for the podcast she says, "It is totally audience-driven. We are very dedicated to our research to be able to identify gaps and tap audience responses from industry analytics."

Prominent personalities like William Dalrymple, Anand Neelakantan, Amish Tripathi, Mita Kapoor, amongst others have been on her podcasts.

"The episode with Amish Tripathi is yet to come up," Koral informs.

Koral is also doing five-book series on mythological women with Pan Macmillan. How does she manage between writing and hosting the podcast? "I do a lot more than just these two. Don't follow any set pattern.

I am extremely organised with myself; the discipline is almost an OCD. But my days are not work or time-bound to the extent that my flexibility goes for a toss. I enjoy my time. And yes, getting up really early keeps the head in place," Koral says.

"Every fourth or fifth year my CV adds something new. By the end of life, I don't see myself as a woman who can be defined by one word. Storytelling is my core, but I will keep manoeuvring into new horizons, expanding my scopes and challenging my limits.

I'm not sure whether this is a goal, but such is the vision. The next on my list has already started making its framework visible. Will talk about it when it happens," she concludes.