Open Minds 2023: Soft Power

In the beginning was the Word.” Human beings have used language to create gods, to codify laws, to forge relationships, to make art, to build science, to establish culture. We are nothing but for the words that we string together and the stories we tell each other. As the public intellectual and historian, Yuval Noah Harari says, “The operating system of every human civilisation has always been language.”

Harari explains that money has no value in itself. It is the stories that bankers and cryptocurrency gurus tell us that give it weight. Similarly, we would have neither human rights nor religious texts if not for the stories that we pass down from generation to generation. Language is also unique because it can be everything; from the sermons of gods to the quibbles of man, from the discourse in Parliament to the bargains of the street. Language is also used with different proficiency, when some speak, we want to remember, when some others speak, we want to forget.

The minds of Soft Power are those who use language to elevate. The people you will read about here may not have much in common at first glance. But what they do have in plenty is the ability to create, both with their hands and with their words. These creators have built institutions that will define how India understands both the visual and performing arts for decades to come. These are the actors and musicians and authors who have made India a household name across borders. And their brilliance is not being recognised for how well it can ‘adapt’ to foreign shores. Their creations are boldly Indian, made for an Indian audience. It so happens that now what is made here is appreciated elsewhere.

The ‘Naatu Naatu’ dance from RRR is an apt example of how our song and dance is not just being noticed across borders but that others are joining in the fun too. In the video, White Man initially calls the dance of the two brown men “disgusting”, but before he knows it, White Ladies in their billowing gowns and silken gloves join the robust movements, kicking up clouds of dust and bending and gyrating with equal fervour. ‘Crossover’ is too mild a word to describe the process of Indian culture finding new homes; instead ‘confluence’ is more befitting. Today, we are seeing a coming together of the arts and culture.

The men and women in the coming pages are those who create and collaborate. In their work, we see the best of the individual and the potential of the community. We celebrate them for reminding us of the essence of human civilisation.

Nita Ambani, 59, Culture and Sport Patron: Building Legacy

Zendaya in a Rahul Mishra sari and Gigi Hadid in an Abu Sandeep ensemble. It was not mere optics but evidence that the world’s fashionistas were coming to honour Mumbai’s finest. The star-studded opening of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai established that it was a world-class cultural space that would host community events and be a permanent venue for the arts in a city starved of space. This is in addition to Ambani’s championing of India as a potential Olympic host and her work in spotting talent for her IPL team Mumbai Indians. Whether it was performing Bharatnatyam at the opening of NMACC or being part of the guest list at US President Joe Biden’s dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she was everywhere all at once.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, 52, Physician and Author: Cellular Mystique

He is at the forefront of transforming the discourse on public health. With three books to his name, Siddhartha Mukherjee has not only established his brilliance as an oncologist and a scientist but he has also made the marvels of medicine and physiology accessible to the lay reader.

In The Song of the Cell, he delves into the body’s smallest structural and functional unit. He asks how the new interventions in science will create new humans. With his knack for metaphors and his expertise in medicine, Mukherjee succeeds in writing that unique book which is music to the ear and lodestone for experts.

Aditya Chopra, 52, Filmmaker: Dream Merchant

Part old-style Hollywood titan Samuel Goldwyn and part new-age Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Kevin Feige, Aditya Chopra has turned a legacy-independent studio into a modern producer of a potentially profitable franchise. The YRF Spy Universe, which showcases fictional RAW agents Tiger, Pathaan and Kabir Dhaliwal, has so far made ₹2,426 crore at the box office with four films. More importantly for a star-obsessed Bollywood, the films, Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Tiger Zinda Hai (2017), War (2019) and Pathaan (2023), have refuelled the careers of two beloved Khans, Shah Rukh and Salman, as well as Hrithik Roshan. The producer-director is so famously reclusive that his interview in Smriti Mundhra’s Netflix documentary, The Romantics, was enough to power the series into the must-watch list. Married to actor Rani Mukerji, offspring of another famous film dynasty started by Sashadhar Mukherjee, Chopra signs off on every detail of the films produced by Yash Raj Films, from its casting to its publicity material.

Guneet Monga, 39, Film Produce: Picture Perfect

A sweet story of two adults and two orphaned baby elephants set in the wilds of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu. Who would have thought that a documentary short based on their lives would win an Oscar this year? Well, Guneet Monga did, and it is that instinct that propelled Netflix and the film’s director Kartiki Gonsalves to choose her to drive The Elephant Whisperers all the way to Los Angeles, almost making her miss her honeymoon. But that’s how Monga works. Her passion for cinema is the stuff of legend.

Over the past 16 years, she has sold her house for a film, crowdfunded a movie on Facebook, even marketed another by going from theatre to theatre on a bike. It’s no wonder that despite not coming from money or a film family, Monga is one of the most successful independent producers in the Hindi film industry. She is the executive producer of Period. End of Sentence., which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. She was a 2015 BAFTA nominee for The Lunchbox; and one of The Hollywood Reporter’s top 12 women achievers in the global entertainment industry in 2012. “Push and hustle are part of my DNA,” she says. It is what has attracted new collaborators to her, from Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, which has started a strategic partnership with her Sikhya Entertainment, to the Indian government which chose her to be part of its official delegation at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

MM Keeravani, 61, Music Composer: Sound and Glory

It is only natural that a man named after a raga has music coursing through his veins. The Golden Globe, the Academy Award and the Padma Shri have in fact been a long time coming. Known as MM Kreem in Bollywood and Marakathamani (meaning emerald) in the Tamil and Malayalam film industries, Koduri Marakathamani Keeravani has been a force in Telugu cinema since the 1990s, when he first broke into the scene with Seetharamayya Gari Manavaralu (1991), Aswani (1991) and Ram Gopal Varma’s Kshana Kshanam (1991). The first big name to work with him, however, was K Balachander, whose Azhagan (1991) was studded with memorable Marakathamani hits. He would go on to deliver melodies like ‘Tu mile dil khile’ (Criminal, 1994) in Bollywood, but pan-Indian fame and recognition evaded him until Baahubali’s (2015) epic soundtrack, with its classical instrumentation and evocative vocals, made him a household name. Keeravani’s creative collaboration with cousin SS Rajamouli continued in RRR, with the boisterous ‘Naatu Naatu’ picking up awards for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Awards as well as the Golden Globes. For someone who nearly retired in 2014, Keeravani sure is on a winning streak.

Deepika Padukone, 37, Actor: Global Cool

She has long since transcended her screen roles, becoming iconic in the way Marianne is for France, a national symbol for beauty and serenity. The action heroine of this year’s biggest hit so far, Pathaan, Deepika Padukone became the first Indian ambassador for Cartier (in addition to the luxury house LVMH) and is an entrepreneur with her own beauty brand. With a stellar film line-up, including Siddharth Anand’s Fighter, Nag Ashwin’s Project K, Atlee’s Jawan and a possible crossover for Pathaan’s Rubia with fellow ISI agent Zoya from the Tiger franchise, her screen avatar is all set to grow bigger. Her advocacy of mental health with her Live Love Laugh Foundation has entered a new phase with its work in rural Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Her 30 films have grossed ₹28 billion at the box office so far, while her 74 million followers on Instagram devour any news of her, good or bad. Whether it is winning plaudits for presenting at the Oscars or escorting the official FIFA World Cup trophy inside the Lusail Stadium in Qatar, or being attacked for wearing a saffron bikini in Pathaan, she is never far from the headlines.

SS Rajamouli, 49, Filmmaker: The Resounding Roar

If there is one man who has become synonymous with Telugu cinema’s resurgence on the global stage, it is SS Rajamouli. The director who works with scriptwriter-father-and-now-MP V Vijayendra Prasad has established himself as a leading auteur whose work will now be of permanent interest to world cinema’s arbiters. He has shown the power of song and dance dipped in enough of a Western fashion to be palatable to global audiences—the Oscar for Best Original Song. All his 12 films have been hits so far, and there is every reason to assume his next with Mahesh Babu will be successful too. With admirers in high places, such as Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, Rajamouli’s mix of high emotions and smart technology is now a trademark everyone wants to appropriate.

Abraham Verghese, 68, Physician and Author: Novel Doctor

To call Abraham Verghese a Renaissance man might hint at his literary accomplishments but does not suitably highlight his achievements in medicine. He is that singular author-physician who is celebrated both for his efforts to emphasise empathy in medicine and for his imaginative renderings of the human drama. His most recent epic novel The Covenant of Water has only cemented that claim to fame. Oprah Winfrey was one of the first supporters of the novel, declaring, “This is one of the top five books I’ve read in my lifetime. And I’ve been reading since I was three.” Her praise seems befitting, as set in Kerala, The Covenant of Water is an inter-generational story spanning nearly one hundred years, where faith, medicine, and family are examined with the pen of a poet and the heart of a healer.

Vikramaditya Motwane, 46, Filmmaker: Serial Whiz 

From being the youngest person on a film set, he became the oldest team member while filming his clutter-breaking ode to the magic of 1940s Hindi cinema, the web series Jubilee. It’s more than nostalgia. Jubilee taps into how movies are made. As its creator Vikramadtya Motwane says: “Jubilee for me is validation that ambition is not a bad thing. That good, old-fashioned storytelling, following characters, will work. It’s the victory of love that my team and I put into it. The response, qualitative and quantitative, has been heartening. ” Motwane comes from the family that owns Chicago Radio, which had a monopoly relationship with Congress and broadcast all its leaders’ speeches. Jubilee captures the interplay between technology and storytelling. He is perhaps the last generation that shot on film, which in his case was Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam with Sanjay Leela Bhansali in 1999. The director of such beloved arthouse hits as Udaan (2010) and Lootera (2013) has firmly established himself as a filmmaker with magical qualities.

Mani Ratnam, 67, Filmmaker: Past Master

For a long time, the big blockbuster had eluded Mani Ratnam and even the movies he made did not seem to be making the impact they once would. All that has changed with the critical and commercial success of Ponniyin Selvan, an opus of the scale that Indian cinema does not usually see. The movie was released in two parts in 2022 and 2023. But that might still not be enough to do justice to the book it was based on by the author Kalki, a five-volume historical fiction on the great emperor Raja Raja Chola. Kalki’s novel, serialised in a magazine in the mid-1950s, is a milestone in Tamil literature, and Ratnam eventually chased and fulfilled his dream of making the movie on it. In any other hands, condensing such a vast epic to the screen would have been difficult, but Ratnam did it with precision. The movie also led to a resurgence of interest in Tamil history, something that the northern half of the country is usually not so aware of.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee, 40, Fashion Designer: Indian Chic

As if it weren’t enough that every famous bride in the country wears Sabyasachi, actor Poorna Jagannathan wore his sari in the last pivotal scene in the Netflix hit Never Have I Ever, with the show stylist happily blowing up the season’s fashion budget on her sari. The fashion designer, who calls himself a cultural magpie, has now moved from couture to ready-to-wear, jewellery and home décor. He has also put his mark on Mumbai with a new store in Kala Ghoda, in a 100-year-old colonial building, under the aegis of his new investors, the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited. Last year, he conquered New York with a sumptuous store in West Village. With his focus on Indian craft and workmanship, Sabyasachi’s dream of creating the country’s first made-in-India global luxury brand is ever closer.

Ricky Kej, 41, Music Composer: Blowing In the Wind

Winning a Grammy, the apogee of music awards in the world, is reserved for a chosen talented few. Ricky Kej has managed to get three of them, two of which came in quickfire succession in 2022 and 2023. The album Divine Tides was a collaboration between him and the legendary Stewart Copeland. Last year, they won in a category called Best New Age Album and this year, a new version of the same music, got the Best Immersive Audio Album Award. In 2015, Kej had won his first Grammy for Winds of Samsara but his creations were not strangers to Indian ears. He had been performing in popular advertising jingles for a long time. His music is Indian in its core even though its appeal is universal. For his present award, some credit must go to the lockdown when, cooped up at home, he decided to do a follow-up on Winds of Samsara and got in touch with his idol, Copeland.

Manjari Chaturvedi, 48, Kathak Dancer: Performing A Point

Men write history. Women don’t. Kathak dancer Manjari Chaturvedi has used that simple and self-evident truth to create The Courtesan Project. She has held seminars to create awareness, preserve and promote the intangible cultural heritage of the erstwhile tawaifs and chronicled the importance and role of women performers. She has told their brilliant stories to the world and shown their art, their music, their dance. “These forgotten dancers called tawaifs and nachnewalis do not find space in the documentation of performing arts history. While their counterpart male performers are referred to as ustads, the incredible women are referred to merely as nautch girls,” she says. These were the women who moved from the kotha and formed the part of the Parsi theatre and then subsequently were the first women performers for the Hindi film industry. Their contribution to art largely remains unacknowledged. Thanks to Chaturvedi’s work for the past 12 years, not anymore. “In the last few years there have been more than a dozen scholars, academics, dancers who have met me and interviewed me as they wish to now research and write about these women. They are no longer stigmatised. They are heroes. And soon we would have the names as Ustad Gauhar Jaan, Ustad Malka Jaan, Ustad Inayat Bai and so on,” she says.

Bose Krishnamachari, 60, Artist and Curator: Mighty Art

This year the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) may have got off to a bumpy start as at the very last minute, the opening date was postponed. In the end, it was all about the power of human creativity triumphing over organisational adversity, and the credit must mainly go to Bose Krishnamachari, artist and impresario. Since 2010, KMB has become intrinsic to the Indian and international art calendar. The flamboyant Krishnamachari, its co-founder and president, and known for executing large and ambitious projects that require both great vision and fortitude, has worked the hardest for this.

Ratish Nanda, 49, Conservation Architect: Restoring Heritage

The reconstruction of the 16th-century Bagh-e Babur in Kabul, the Mughal emperor’s final resting place. The restoration of the 16th and 17th-century Qutb Shahi Tombs in Hyderabad dedicated to the former kings of Golconda. The conservation of the 16th-century Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. The meticulous restoration of over 20 historic monuments clustered around the 14th-century mausoleum of the revered Sufi saint, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, and the resurrection of Sunder Nursery, an early 20th-century imperial garden and now a rich biodiversity hub. The Aga Khan Trust is behind all these renewed heritage jewels and the man spearheading all this is Delhi’s very own, globally recognised conservation architect Ratish Nanda. Says he: “We’ve been able to demonstrate that conservation of significant national heritage sites can be leveraged to significantly improve the quality of life for city residents and visitors.” Conservation when well done can help achieve targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals, he says: “It’s been an incredible opportunity and has given me an immense sense of fulfilment, also of a professional responsibility, to lead an interdisciplinary team to international acclaim.”

Falguni Shah, 42, Musician: Eastern Blend

From winning a Grammy for Best Children’s Album to performing at the final of the 2023 World Test Championship to collaborating with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a millet song, it’s been an incredible journey for singer Falu aka Falguni Shah. Trained in the Jaipur Gharana, Shah moved to the US in 2000 and has performed with musicians from across the world, from AR Rahman to Yo-Yo Ma, from Wyclef Jean to Ricky Martin. Her blend of Eastern ragas and Western sounds, which she calls indie Hindi, is very much part of the cultural landscape currently with its emphasis on inclusivity. Her success is yet another example of the growing acceptance of the Indian diaspora’s rich diversity.

Janice Pariat, 41, Author: Light Touch

As a writer of fiction, Janice Pariat has succeeded in capturing the zeitgeist. Her most recent novel (after three books), Everything the Light Touches, follows in the vein of authors like Amitav Ghosh and Robert Macfarlane who write of the natural world with both sensitivity and urgency. Fiction is both her tool and medium to raise the issues of the day—the cost of capitalism, the loss of community, and the destruction of the environment. With her previous books, Pariat had steadily built a repertoire that shines with both the beautiful sentence and the startling insight. Everything the Light Touches bolsters that by giving readers a grand historical and botanical sweep. This is a novel that forces readers to ask difficult questions, but most importantly, to see differently.

Sanjay Subrahmanyan, 55, Musician: Classical Note

A virtuoso musician whose performances are also a sensory treat, his raga alapana, accompanied by his trademark gestures and high energy, is heady as a drug. He is a rockstar in a veshti, inspiring a loyal club of fans who have heard every song there is in his vast repertoire. And with good reason. Rarely does a classical musician at the top of his game strive even harder to delight his audiences. Among the most popular Carnatic musicians of his time, Sanjay Subrahmanyan is also the most active online, posting hundreds of raga sketches inspired by Ilaiyaraja songs, dozens of YouTube concerts, and the occasional cricket tweet. His schedule has never been as packed as it is these days with tours, Chennai sabha kutcheris and limited-seating studio concerts. Now, his Coke Studio Tamil collaboration with Arifullah Shah Rafaee has gone viral, taking his music to younger listeners. His plans? “The Coke Studio Tamil is the beginning of a new phase where I am looking forward to doing more such projects.”

Meena Kandasamy, 38, Poet and Translator: Feminist Panache

When a writer who makes it her business to disrupt the silences of the times delves into an ancient text to excavate and interpret the Tamil woman, you take note. Meena Kandasamy’s constant preoccupation with the politics of desire continues into her latest book, a feminist translation, a decade in the making, of the third canto of the 2,000-year-old Thirukkural—the Inbathuppal. Worlds apart from the first and the second cantos that politicians sagely quote from, these 250 love poems reveal the unknown Thiruvalluvar, a poet celebrated as the greatest historical Tamil icon. In translating them, Kandasamy probes the gendered dynamics of Tamil society over time and, driven by the rage to address how women have been deprived of autonomy and authority, gives voice to the beautiful Tamil heroine of the Kurals described variously as an innocent and a terrifying figure reminiscent of the God of Death.

Vinod Kumar Shukla, 86, Author: Rural Magic

It is not wrong to say that the Raipur, Chhattisgarh-based novelist, short story writer and poet stays away from the public glare, but then his self-effacing demeanour hasn’t stopped him from being bestowed with accolades. This year, he won the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. After earning an MSc in agriculture in his 20s, Shukla began writing mostly about people he was familiar with: farmers he trained in locations he has lived in, and those like Rajnandgaon, where he was born. Influenced by the great poet Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, Shukla however followed the style of a magical realist or an onlooker. He often takes us through his works on a journey of India’s rural landscape. Even so, more people have heard of his 1979 fiction debut Naukar Ki Kameez (The Servant’s Shirt) after Mani Kaul made it into a movie. Yet, he continues to attract attention from those who want to understand the rich writing legacies of India.

Nikhat Zareen, 27, Boxer: Gold Standard

It was thought the shoes of Mary Kom, the face of women’s boxing in India who won six World Championship golds, would be very hard to fill, but Nikhat Zareen has seamlessly taken on that mantle. Last year, she won a World Championship gold and followed it up with one more in 2023. In between, she got a Commonwealth Games gold. Zareen’s success came hard fought, right from the time she fortuitously got into boxing as a young girl from a conservative background in Telangana. Zareen has said she was the first woman boxer from her city, Nizamabad. Picked to be an athlete by her school coach, she gravitated to boxing after noticing that no girls were in the sport. She initially had to train with boys. Zareen has now come a far distance from those lonely days and her medal-winning continues relentlessly.

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, 22 and Chirag Shetty, 25,Badminton Players: Double Pride

In badminton, Indian singles players have traditionally been the world beaters, but with Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the doubles format of the game is catching up for the country. The pair won the Indonesian Open, which is one of four premier Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 1000 events. They faced a Malaysian team against whom they had a string of losses in the past, but this time they decided what was keeping them back was mental attitude. Instead of being in thrall of their opponents, they would take the game to them with offence.

The two are now No 3 in the world rankings and the victory is just one in a series of their achievements for the country. They had won a Commonwealth Games gold and were part of the team that won the only Thomas Cup for India. But they are not done yet and have their sights on an Olympic gold.

Jude Anthany Joseph, 40, Filmmaker: Director of Deluge

Manmade and natural calamities make for compelling cinema. But few directors succeed in leaving survivors in tears. Jude Anthany Joseph wanted to make a movie that will be remembered not only for its technical brilliance but one that will connect with people. He has clearly succeeded at that. 2018: Everyone Is a Hero has got both critics and the box office (earning over ₹200 crore globally) abuzz. It is now one of the most successful Malayalam films in history. When he decided to do a film on the floods of 2018 that swept through the southern states, he didn’t want to only focus on the hardships. Instead, he wanted to tell of our shared humanity, believing that the “common man deserves applause”. Joseph also delves into other crucial issues, such as environmentalism and regional conflicts, but empathy for the survivor is his strongest suit.

Aanchal Malhotra, 33, Author: Historical Voice

Her nonfiction books provide a wellspring of oral histories she has gathered from across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, proving to readers that “Partition is still ongoing”. Since her debut, Remnants of a Separation, Aanchal Malhotra has carved out a niche for herself as an oral historian and cofounder of the Museum of Material Memory (a digital repository for family histories told through found objects). In her most recent book, In the Language of Remembering, she gets people to open up about intergenerational trauma and shows how Partition lingers in our everyday. Her recently released debut novel, The Book of Everlasting Things, is a historian’s novel, which chronicles love, longing and redemption.

Meenakshi Shedde, Film Curator: Critic At Large

For 25 years, she has been giving Indian and South Asian movies a chance to shine on international platforms. So it was a proud moment for Meenakshi Shedde to be part of the international critics’ week jury at the Cannes Film Festival this year as well as a Golden Globes International Voter from India in a year when RRR’s ‘Naatu Naatu’ won for Best Original Song. Responsible for selecting films from India and six South Asian nations for the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, she also works in programming for the Toronto Film Festival. Her list of triumphs is long. She championed Ritesh Batra’s film, The Lunchbox, that was in the Berlin Film Festival’s Talent Project Market before it was selected at the Cannes Film Festival where it won a prize and was distributed in over 50 territories worldwide, a landmark for an indie film. Avinash Arun’s debut feature Killa won the Crystal Bear for Best Film in Generation KPlus 2014; he later directed the acclaimed Paatal Lok (Amazon) and School of Lies series (Disney+Hotstar). Jayaraj’s Ottaal won the Crystal Bear for Best Film Generation K Plus in 2016 and Rajnesh Domalpalli’s Vanaja won two Bears for Best First Feature Award in 2007, opening more A-list festival doors for later Telugu films, including SS Rajamouli’s. From Bollywood, thanks to her colleague Dorothee Wenner, several Shah Rukh Khan films were showcased at the Berlin Film Festival primarily for a white, non-diaspora audience, giving mainstream Bollywood the respectability it was otherwise denied at A-list festivals. These opened the doors for Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s feminist Gangubai Kathiawadi in 2022.

Diljit Dosanjh, 39, Singer-Songwriter, Actor: World Beat

India’s biggest cultural export might be Bollywood, but Diljit Dosanjh has put Punjabi music on the map. The singer-songwriter has 15 million followers on Instagram, but recently a new one came into the limelight. Speaking about how India is intrinsic to the culture of the US, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on stage, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We dance to the beats of Diljit Dosanjh.” This was just the latest feather in the cap (more precisely the pagdi) for Diljit who earlier this year serenaded millions at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, California, one of the largest and most famous music stages in the world. Diljit embraced his roots and culture, dressed in an all-black ensemble of turban, kurta and lungi, and supported by a bevy of Bhangra dancers, becoming the first Punjabi artist to perform at Coachella. While he made his Bollywood debut in grand style with Udta Punjab, today it is his music that has got India, and the world, swinging to his beats.

The Profilers

Aditya ChopraGuneet MongaNita AmbaniOpen Minds 2023Siddhartha MukherjeeSoft Power. eminent people