Daybreak - On Shah Rukh Khan, dal-sabzi feminism, and the emotional-state of an economy ft. Shrayana Bhattacharya

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Today’s episode dives into a fascinating book called Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence, by Shrayana Bhattacharya, an economist with the World Bank’s Social Protection and Labour unit for South Asia. In this groundbreaking work, Shrayana unpacks the economic and social realities of Indian women through the stories of ten individuals from vastly different backgrounds—an upper-caste engineer, a flight attendant, a Muslim garment worker, and a tribal domestic worker, among others. But, you may wonder, where does Shah Rukh Khan fit into all this? And why would an economist care about a Bollywood superstar? For Shrayana, Shah Rukh Khan isn’t just a fan obsession, he’s a research method. And through it, she discovered that the one unifying thread among these women was their love for the actor. So he became the lens through which she explored their dreams, struggles, and aspirations. For one woman, he symbolises professionalism and for another, he embodies the hope of breaking free from social barriers.The book offers a unique, raw glimpse into the everyday battles Indian women fight for independence, economic liberty, and basic dignity. Shrayana also reveals how the actor represents the spirit of economic liberalisation in India—a figure who carries the promise of opportunity and upward mobility.In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma chats with Shrayana about the phenomenon of Shah Rukh Khan, the shifting role of women in India’s economy, the concept of “dal sabzi feminism,” the economics of “chik-chik,” and so much more.Tune in!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording.

Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first video. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. So this episode today is actually based on the last book that I read in 2024 and I had been meaning to read it for a while, but it just never happened. It's called Desperately Seeking Sharuk. India's lonely young women and the search for intimacy and intimacy and independence. And it's by Shriana Bhattacharya, an economist at the World Bank's Social Protection and Labor Unit for South Asia.

Actually, it was my former colleague Aksha, the host of our early careers podcast called The First Two Years, who lent me this book before she left Bangal. I think it was a few months ago now. Thank you, Aksha, for lending me this book and I swear I will return it to you. Now, if you're a reader, you can tell how a book really holds wax. when somebody has earmarked it, underlined it, you know. It says so much about not just how engaging the book is, but also about how its words have been cherished. They've been savored. Because there is just so much truth in them.

When I got the book from Aksha, there were sentences underlined from front to back. So, in desperately seeking Sharuk, Shryana tries to understand the economic and social situation of women in India through the lives of 10 women. 10 women who come from completely different backgrounds, different castes, different classes, different careers, from an upper caste engineer to a flight attendant, to a Muslim garment worker,

to a migrant woman from a tribal region who is a domestic worker. She followed all of them for over a decade, and to this day, some of them still remain her friends. Now, if you've not read the book, you may be wondering where does Shah Ruk Khan fit? into all of this. And why does an economist who works for the World Bank care about the actor Sharuk Khan? First of all, Shianna is a fan herself and as she puts it, Shariq Khan became a research method for her. Because the only common thing between all these women was their love for

Sharuk. So Shihana basically dumped all the boring, usual academic styles of research and she studied these women's fandom of the actor. And she found her. found that for each one of them, he symbolizes something different. For someone, he is the symbol of professionalism. For another, he stands for hope, hope for upward mobility, irrespective of where you're born. The book gives us a glimpse into the everyday battles that all of these women fight for their independence.

Shaiana shows us how the icon of Shahru Khan, not Shahru Khan himself, represents economic liberalization and how he, in a way, is a bearer of the market. Such a fascinating and telling book, I don't want to give away too much, but let me just put it this way. As a millennial Indian woman who is not married, who is in her 30s, who loves her job,

and is dealing with the consequences of not fulfilling traditional societal expectations, this book made me feel so seen. So, obviously, I wanted to get Shiana on daybreak and she actually agreed. In this episode, we talk about Sharuk Khan, of course, about the role of women in the Indian economy, where they stand now, and as Shiana likes to call it,

dal-sabzi feminism, the economics of chick-chik, and a lot more. Stay tuned. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nickda Sharma, and I don't chase the new cycle.

Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philipos and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Friday, the 3rd of January 2025. Triana, thank you so much for finding the time to join us today. And I think it's been over three years, right, since you wrote this book and it came out. And I have to admit, I only read it recently. And wow, you know, as a reader of mostly fiction, I never imagined I would find a book

that is essentially about economics so, so interesting. Yeah, so Fasie, Snigda, thank you so much for inviting me. In fact, particularly at this time of the year and hi to everyone listening and I hope everybody has a wonderful end of year and wishing everyone a good 2025 as well. Yes, Snigda, it's been three years since desperately seeking Sharuk came out. I can scarcely believe it. It feels like just yesterday. and 2025 will be four years since its release. Also, you know, just like how you say in the book, right,

like Shah Ruk Khan makes his women fans feel seen. This book made me feel so seen as a woman who was born in the 90s, you know? And even though I know I'm a small cog in the economy machine, I think this is something that everybody says about your book as well, you know, and they appreciate it. It's not the usual boring academic kind of writing that you read where, people are just basically reduced to data sets, you know, especially when it comes to anything related to economics.

How did you figure out that you were going to write like that, you know? Thank you so much, Nikita. You know, I have to say the reason I wrote it, because you know, I'm trained in economics, I wanted to write a book about what's happened to women in the Indian economy.

But I was so tired, I think, maybe because of, you know, the way general economic literature and financial literature tends to write about these issues. I wanted to just write it in a very different way, which would feel like, I know it sounds strange, but like I wanted economics to offer almost like comfort and a hug to anyone who was reading it. Because I wanted to actually explain to people who were reading it that there's a reason why a lot of women are dealing with a kind of structural loneliness, actually, especially those in the labor market. And it has a lot

to do with what's happening, the underpinnings of our economy. And I just wanted to give people a sense of that. And then if Mr. Shahro Khan could be a conduit to do it, you know, that was more fun. But I'm glad that you reacted the way you did because that was really my hope with the book to make economics accessible, but also explain, I think, in a more fun way how the economy is making many of us feel lonely and the structure of it. I'm glad you picked up on that. Yeah, of course.

You know, I actually remember there was this piece that you wrote. I think it was for The Guardian about your book. And you mentioned how, you know, Sharuk Khan came into the picture while you were doing your research. And I think there was this woman that you were interviewing. And she told you that she thought that your questions are kind of boring. And like, you know, you're not going to really get anything out of it, right? Yeah, no. So the research started.

I think, you know, I write about this. It started. what my God, it feels like, you know, 15, 16 years ago. Now it's actually more than 16 years. It is coming up to be 20 years. And I remember I was in Andabad. I was doing a survey of women who make incense sticks, Agar Bhati at home, and, you know, they're earning barely minimum wage.

And I remember when I started the interview, they just, exactly, as you said, they were just so bored because they said, why are you asking us all these questions about our wages, hours of work? People have asked us these questions in the past and nothing has changed. So can we talk about something more fun? So I just started asking people about their favorite film star because, you know, I was struggling. I was trying to figure out what's the way to handle this situation.

The traditional survey had really broken down. And then when I started asking people about their favorite actor, so many women mention Mr. Khan and I love him. And I started asking them about why they loved him. And you realize as you heard the stories, they were talking about how difficult it was for them to have money, freedom, safety, to be able to just, you know, enjoy their fandom. And it was a, it was a, it was a rupture.

I really never expected to accidentally hit upon this, but I did. Right. Shana, tell me about your own fandom of Shah Ruk Khan. I really want to know, what was it like before you wrote this book, you know, before you started the research? And, you know, did it kind of change afterwards? I don't think my fandom for him is, you know, particularly special. I mean, I think I am just. just your regular vanilla

Shah Rukhan fan. You know, I... And, you know, if you see in the book, there's a very particular shape, I think, fandom takes, especially for women who are elite, educated, you know, we live in cities,

have much more access to media. And I think for us, you know, it's often, I'd hear this very, it was a very common, you know, quote that I'd hear, which is why I love his interviews more than I love his films

and, you know, so on and so forth. And I think this would be true for me as well, right up in the beginning. But, you know, as I followed the lives of the women I did, and, you know, in the book, I follow essentially 10 lives for 15 years. And the struggles that so many of these women, particularly those from sort of the emerging middle class, are economic precariet as well,

the struggles that these women endeavored with and dealt with just to be able to watch, you know, their favorite actor. It's a very simple, you know, economic, transaction, you know, just being able to pay to watch a movie or be able to have a mobile phone to like listen to your favorite song. But you see the struggles over the decades that I've followed these women. And I think now I see him, I see Mr. Khan very differently. For me, he is now a metaphor for that kind of purchasing power, economic freedom, social and sexual freedom as well, right, for so many of these women to just express their desire.

talk about them openly, own their own aspirations, right? And so to me, he's no longer, you know, I actually, I find it really funny when people, I think we spend too much time in our culture, I think dissecting what actors say and where they go and what they do and so on. I can't connect to that kind of analysis. And, you know, I'm not a film studies person at all.

So I don't see him as, you know, a person I have to analyze. And to be perfectly honest, I'm too biased. a fan to analyze him as well. I don't have the talent to do it, nor do I have the distance. But what I do know now is when I see him, I just think of all these struggles. I think of all these, you know,

home-based textile workers I knew who saved, you know, five to ten rupees every week, right? To be able to watch and organize a screening in their village of a film of theirs because it was not safe for them to be outside the village watching a film in a cinema hall. Absolutely. You know, movie halls are still male-dominated spaces, you know, especially when you go to smaller towns and cities, right? They're not the safest spaces for women.

So I get it, you know, what does it take for a woman in India to be a Shah Rukhan fan? There is a price that has to be paid and it's not just money, right? So, Ishrana, what does Shah Rukh Khan mean to you as an economist and as the right of this book and also to the 10 women that you followed? You know, to me, he is now a research method. He is a metaphor for all these struggles and a way to explore female freedom. You know, as I said, sexual, bodily freedom, economic autonomy, the searching for romantic and personal and spiritual happiness in different ways. But I do think that because the book kind of it writes about,

and I think I approached the question in a different way, right? You know, it wasn't about Mr. Khan, it's about the lives of these women. and you see that when they're talking about him, no one is gushing about him in that, you know, they're gushing about him, but you just take one step further, right, and ask any of these women, when did you watch Kuch Kuthae, for example,

or how did you watch Sharok Khan for the first time? And you discover these remarkable stories because, you know, watching him, especially for women who don't come from a lot of privileges that we do, really marks very important milestones in their lives, you know, for them, I actually say this in the book that for so many of them, they measure their independence with the number of cinema tickets

they've been able to purchase for themselves. And I think this is true for so many women, right? Like we kind of measure, not even women, men, everyone. You know, we measure our independence in these different ways. I think the economy offers us a way to also, you know, enjoy our liberties, right? And I think you realize through the book that it was, it's so difficult for so many of these women. So I think for me, I think it's been a very very,

interesting journey just to see people actually realize that you know it's it's not about him per se it's about all these women and how he allows them to talk about themselves right also for too long the focus especially when it comes to

you know this kind of literature and research is on the deprived the suffering the poor it's always the weakness that is highlighted and that is why your book was so refreshing in that sense as well you know and plus to me as an upper caste privileged woman in India, it was also kind of a mirror, you know.

It showed me things that I never thought about. And I think it did the same to even your upper caste privileged characters, right? You did the same thing. Like, I love the discomfort, you know, that it made me feel. And you're right. It also then allows us protections, right? Because then we can sort of say, oh, we as extremely privileged academics are writing about the lives of other people

who are so different. But I wanted to mel that. One thing I had decided right up in the beginning, talking to mentors who had helped me shape the book, was that whatever I was going to write about these other women, be their economic lives, sex lives, personal lives, I would write about myself. Not, I think, just as a way of showing reciprocity in the text

because the book was never about me, but I did want to open up the class profile of analysis Yeah, you know, that is what makes this book so different. And I really feel, you know, that it is one book that will stand the test of time. And actually, you know, speaking about class and cast of all these women that you wrote about, could you also please tell our listeners about just how different the worlds that these women occupy are and how, you know, the only common thing, of course, was like you discovered their love for Shah Ruk Khan. You know, for example, the book is divided, I mean, as you know, into sort of four sections, right?

And the four sections really travel the different income quintiles actually in the country. You know, it starts with the hyper-elite, maybe the top 10%, moves then to the middle, 40%, and then the last sections are about, you know, our bottom 20%. And if you actually do look at the book, it's, it is layered that way. And what's interesting is, you know, if you talk to elite women, typically upper caste in the book, and there's one young woman who is, her name's Vidya in the book. Yeah, you know, super interesting character, Vidya, I have to say. And you laid out all the conflicts so well with her, you know, as a character and a book. Yeah, to her and to people, like, I think this might be true for many of us who are, you know,

who are of a certain upper economic echelon. he really represents this idea of merit, right? We're so obsessed with this, this idea that he made it without any networks, without any support, without perhaps recognizing, and I talk about this all the time. You know, she and I kept arguing about this, which is that all of us come from so much network-based privilege because of our caste networks, our own inherited privileges, right? And yet, you know, there's this valorization, which I understand of this man who's really made without the same connections.

And I think for her, I think what she is really reacting to is, funnily enough, the thing that we don't talk about, perhaps enough, is also weirdly inequality in our top 10% has also skyrocketed, right? Not that I have any sympathy for it because, I mean, it means close to nothing given the rate of inequality across the country.

But if you look at the top 10%, the difference between, say, the 0.01% and the rest of the sort of 9.9% is really growing and the data shows it, right? And I think what she is reacting to Vidya is that. Yeah, you know, and she's constantly comparing herself to this college frenemy that she has, right, whom you, in the book you refer to her as the student. And this student, she comes from this super rich Delhi family with a lot of property and, you know, connections to important influence.

people like really really posh background right yeah and vidya i think looks at her and says well i don't have that although they're part of the same 10% top 10% you know she sort of makes this distinction and it is an accurate distinction uh vidya is not a property owning uh person in that yeah and she's paying off her father's debt exactly and she supports herself which is different right and so to her so this so for example for vivia who's in sort of the top 10% of our economy for her he is very much a symbol of that struggle, right? You know, to have your own connections, to have your own home, to have more comforts than your family beforehand.

And so there's always this idea of, you know, he's the guy who made it, right? And people in the top 10% who keep calling themselves middle class, which is always really... And so she, you know, she comes, I think she comes at him from that perspective. So that's one, right? Yeah. And then there is the other extreme that you also write about in the book. Yeah.

For example, if you go to the end of the book, there's, you know, the women I started the book with, right? These home-based agarbatimakers, textile workers. You know, I go to the villages of Uttar Pradesh and Rampur, where women make home-based textiles and do garment work. And for these young women, having a mobile phone is like an exotic new thing. I mean, I met them in sort of, you know, this is 2006, seven, eight, ten, you know, that period. And for them at that point, just being able to organize a screening in their home to watch Shahar Khan. They all organize this around Eve. They all want to watch Dilvali Dlania Lejangay or some other movie.

You realize that for them, fandom and these aspirations look very different. For them, it's just, you know, the ability to just have fun, unabashedly have fun, have the economic space, the personal space to just do so, right? and it looks so different, right, fandom there. Absolutely. And then, you know, my favorite story is actually now that I take a step back is actually the women in the middle, sort of the emerging, you know, first generation of the middle class in India, the fledgling middle class. You know, there's a person I write about her. She chose to call herself gold.

All the women chose their own pseudonyms. And she's an in-flight attendant who really, you know, around the time the economy opened up. And aviation really boomed, private airlines and so on. Suddenly you had all these jobs in aviation and she took advantage of that. And she ran away from her home because she didn't want an arranged marriage that her family was planning for her. And she goes off to have her own adventure of independence. And it's not easy. It's a very tough life.

And for her, strangely, she loves Mr. Khan and all his. you know, the obsessive lover films because she's so jilted and lonely in her own love life when she's dealing with the mating market in Gurgaon, which is where she moves to. You know, she keeps saying all these menace are jerks that I, you know, I just want to harm them. And I know it sounds awful, but you realize for her,

she's, you know, she's looking at him in a way of someone who really nurtures her through her loneliness. You know, she watches and memorizes all the things he said about feeling lonely himself in his documentaries and his interviews. And so for her, she's constructed her fandom completely out of the interviews and these other pieces of media. Actually, that actually, you know, it reminds me of my own perception of Shah Ruk Khan,

which is more based on interviews than his movies, I would say. And, you know, somebody had asked him a question about philosophy or something like that. And he's like, you know, make money first and then, you know, you can philosophize later. And I really like the fact how he's so open about making money because especially upper caste and upper class people, they think it's cheap, you know, to speak directly about money, right? Okay. Anyway, coming to these women that you were following for so long, Shana, what are your, what are some of the common things? You know, we spoke about all the differences. What are some of the common things that you see in them despite, you know, all the different background and context? and everything, obviously, again, except Sharuk Khan.

Look, I think it's two things, you know, the two things that I think are common in the way they talk about him and I think it links to the way they talk about themselves. One is, you know, everybody seems, I mean, yes, all these women are united in their love for Mr. Khan, but I think what they're actually united by is the love for their own ability to watch him. Because for them, it was a way of actuating their own personhood, you know, We all have these preferences and it's part of our personality, part of who we are.

And I think for them it was a way of demonstrating who they were in societies that are very uncomfortable when women start to demonstrate their desires, right? Like, I think, and even amongst our relief, I would contend this is a, you know, sexual autonomy frightens Indian society so much for reasons of caste, dynamics, family. everything, right? I think so much of revolution in our country is held up in women's sexual autonomy. And I think the moment all these women are talking about an actor that they think is sexy and they're discussing openly, it creates a huge issue. And I think so to me that was one. The second, I think link to that is so I think while they appreciate money and purchasing power,

I think it's more the idea of having success so you can be your own person, right? So that you're not depending as, you know, they've seen their mothers and sisters and grandmothers for many years. Be dependent on others and have to kind of, you know, dim down their own desires so that they can be seen as good acceptable women. I think we are a generation of women where that is no longer acceptable. It's not acceptable in the villages of UP. it is not acceptable in the posh neighborhoods of Delhi, right, no matter where you are. And I think for me, his conversation about money and all of that is very deeply linked to that idea, right? That what is, I mean, for a lot of these women, the economy is nothing but a place to actually find emotional footing, right?

To be able to express yourself. Exactly. And actually, that brings me to my next question. You keep talking about, you know, how as an economist, you're more. interested in the emotional state of an economy, I for one, had absolutely no idea that, you know, such a concept exists. And I found it so, so valid when I understood it. Like, it was an aha moment, you know, especially how a woman's economic independence is dependent on the emotional state of the economy. So can you explain this a little bit to us? I firmly believe, as many, I think economic sociologists do, that all our behaviour,

in the economy, spending, saving, purchasing, all of that is linked to our emotional and our social needs, right? I mean, the idea that the economy exists in some vacuum from our emotional life is just silly. I actually said this in the beginning when I was writing the book, I had sort of said to myself that, you know, the first page of the book has this graph of women's employment rates from the 1990s till the time the book came out. And it's, you know, if you look at it as just an economic graph or a graph on, you know, a business channel or a podcast, right? It's just a graph. I wanted the reader by the time they finished the book for that graph to elicit tears and emotions. You know, they should look at a, you know, there's that wonderful quote. I'm forgetting.

I think people don't know who that quote comes from, but you should be able to look at a group of numbers and cry. Not because, you know, numbers are making you cry, but because you realize these numbers, you know, be it COVID deaths. be it the low rates of female employment, they are hiding and telling you something very deep about our society and about how lonely so many people are. Those numbers should convey emotions. Right. Actually, I'm so grateful, you know,

that we have people who actually look at it like that. And on that note, we'll take a short break and we will be right back. Meanwhile, Rahil has something to request you. Daybreak listener, I'm Rahal, the co-host of this podcast. Are you enjoying this episode so far? If you are, then could you please spare a few seconds to rate daybreak on your preferred streaming platform and also hit follow. We've been trying really hard to beat the algorithm gods and a little bit of help from you

will really help this podcast grow. The more visible we are, the better guests we can get on our show. You know how these things work. Thank you. And with that out of the way, let's get back to the episode. soon. Shiana, you know this obviously, India has been doing alarmingly badly every year on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Report that is published every year. This year, in fact, we've slipped two places to 129th, I think. And that obviously means that women's participation

in the workforce in India is not really improving as much. I want to ask you, what does this say about the Indian economy and where we are right now? So even right now, I think we're looking at 28% of women in urban India, you know, are in the labor force, which is, you know, they're earning an income or they're looking for a job compared to, say, 75 to 76% of urban men, right? And when you look at these numbers, one way to describe what's happening is in a very technocratic, technical way, which is useful, you know, to say, well, they're not enough jobs. There are market forces because of which we're seeing these very low rates and these persistent gaps

between men and women in the economy. And let's try and solve for those. That's great. But if we don't acknowledge that two of the key reasons we're seeing these extremely low numbers has a lot to do with the social conditioning of both boys and girls in the way gender roles play out, right?

And the fact that, you know, we still are living in a society where for most women, and it's something I think especially amongst our elite, we don't want to have an honest conversation about and we pretend that we've changed but I think we pretend we've changed more than we have. We like to tell ourselves that, well,

we are elite, independent women, we're educated. But actually we still live in a society where even our elites are taught that a woman's primary job is marriage. Is loving, is childbearing, is taking care, which are all wonderful things. I am not at all saying don't do those.

Of course, you know, to ease their own, but, you know, You know, we do have to see it for what it is. Women from across classes are dropping out of the workforce because of the expectations of these fixed roles that they have to play. And even in your book, you mentioned this report by the International Labor Organization, right, that says that India right now is in the bottom five of the world when it comes to men helping with housework. We are having a very dishonest conversation about, you know, the economy. if we also don't acknowledge that for the longest time and still so, the economy is a masculine construct.

We are still living in an economy that does not reward or acknowledge women's unpaid care work. If women did not do the care work of cooking, cleaning, child caring, taking care of our elderly, there would be no economy, there would be no workers. And it is this emotion, and by the way, it's not just mechanical, work, it's also the emotional nurturance that often women provide to men and women who are productive agents in the economy that cannot be discounted. And sadly, it has been for the longest time we believe, and you see this in the book, that the economy exists in factories and fields. But I would contend, as many feminist economists have done, this is not a new idea,

that the economy actually exists in our homes. That is where we start creating the economy. and our relationships within the home, right, about how fathers mirror behavior for young men, how mothers, you know, raised daughters versus boys. All of that has implications for the human capital that we are accruing for the way we behave in the economy. And I really wanted that emotional life to be much more clear to readers. So, you know, when you see numbers and you say there are these gaps, I wanted to. to, I wanted to explain to people that those gaps actually mean a lot of tears for a lot of women. You see how anguished so many young women are in the book because they're not able to keep up,

you know, wanting to be economically independent, to do the things that they want to do, right, with their bodies, their minds, their careers, their lives. And even for women who do, you know, nurture careers, how miserable I think this kind of emotional conditioning makes them that they constantly feel lonely. Absolutely. You know, if we break the norms, it's like not getting married, for example, or not having children. We are perceived to be or we are made to feel inadequate in some way. You know, in the book I use this framework. It comes from Sandal Mulayana. And he's a wonderful economist. You know, he sort of calls it an emotional tax, which is anytime women start to

deviate from that very traditional caregiver role. or deviate from being like the good, dutiful woman, there are taxes, that are society, and sometimes our loved ones impose on us. They may not love us as much, right? And we feel that. They may judge us. There may be scrutiny on our behavior. And I think the tax is very high for many women.

And so often, you know, when we think about the way people are navigating decisions in the labor market, it's not just price signals, right, that people are reacting to. people are reacting to these emotional rents and taxes as well. Men, by the way, it's the same. So many men would say, I don't want to be in this terrible job. I'd rather just be doing something else. But they need to signal masculinity to earn love as well in the economy by behaving in certain ways, which can often be extremely aggressive.

But I don't think it's because anybody is sort of morally defunct. I think we're all reacting to these very different signals. that society is throwing at us and the economy is only a place right it's a subset of society exactly and you know that that explains why you can't just look at economic data as just numbers and what you've been talking about the whole time it is very important to understand these undercurrents these emotions and societal constructs that kind of shape these numbers i sort of say in the book that you know like so many of us i followed all these mother-daughter pairs through the book right that's so many And I actually say that there are these intimate revolutions.

And I was inspired by Claudia Golden, who's won the Nobel recently. She has this idea. She calls it a quiet revolution in America. And what she basically says was that when the revolution for gender norms in America didn't happen just when women started participating in the workforce. I think for her, what she says is the real revolution happened when women's aspirations of who they were as people weren't just about, their family and their loved ones, but were also about their careers, their other interests,

right? Could be their hobbies. I mean, could be many other things. You know, it doesn't have to just be a job. It could be anything. And I think to her, that idea of personhood when it started to change, that is when society's really started to change. Yeah. And it is kind of happening already, right? Very slowly, but it is happening, right? Yeah. Girls are marrying much later. Many girls are choosing not to marry. Girls are marrying outside their own community for their own choice, right? Boys in the family are much more supportive of women who want to be outside the home. And, you know, there are so many women in the book who say that they're raising boys differently, right? And I think these are very small, I call it sort of dal-sabzi feminism, you know,

it's not feminism that's catchy, it won't, it'll never be on a magazine cover, it won't win an award, but I think this is actually the sum and substance of long-term sustained social change. It's all these smaller, incremental, intimate changes in our everyday behaviors, in our families and also in our workplaces. And I think it takes a long time. And, you know, as we said, the history of the arc of this kind of change is very long. I've been very privileged that I've actually been able to document it in these sort of 10 lives, right? And you see this when, where they were when they started their careers and where they are when the book stops, everybody in their immediate families has completely been radically transformed by the simple act of these women

just getting up and going to work every day. Absolutely. And all of this kind of ties up to the idea of what you call the labour of love, which is so interesting. This kind of social change is also hard work. And it's often women who have to put in this kind of labor. So it's not just the labor of care and caregiving and emotional support. But it's also realizing that, you know, if you are a first-generation woman in your community, which almost all the women in my book are who are stepping out of the home and earning their own money,

that's a very radical act in all these places. If you are the first woman in your family to have a poster of Shahrochan which very clearly signals in a conservative society that you think a man is sexy and you like the way he looks, you are signaling your sexual autonomy. That is a radical act and that is laborious because what it means is there will be judgment. There will be a lot of negotiation.

There's like what, you know, the economics of chick chick, I think is the best way to describe it. There's so much like, you know, explaining. And so many of these women you see that they're constantly having to explain and just accommodate bargain. And it is these intra-household bargains and they are laborious and these are the labors of love, right?

Like that you don't want to necessarily completely walk out of your family and loved ones. You want to explain to them that you want to live life differently. And I think it links back to Mr. Khan, because is it really that surprising then that, you know, in such a masculine economy, you know, where most decision-making systems when it comes to our politics as well as our economy are managed by largely upper-cast men, is it really that surprising that so many women who are choosing to participate in this economy, need a soppy, beautiful actor to like watch as release.

And they want to watch him like, you know, express love to women and have his arms wide open and all that, right? Which looks to some people is ridiculous. But I understand now that that imagery holds a lot of emotive appeal because we make it really hard for women who want to step outside the home. Our society does not make it easy. And I think whenever it's not easy, you know, for the women in my book, as I said, it's Mr. Khan, but I think others will find other forms of comfort and escape. Right. Okay. Shana, just one last question. Change is happening. Yes, we can see it in our everyday lives.

And as a privileged upper-cast woman, just putting it out there, I see way more women out and about. But again, you know, women's participation is still below 40% in the Indian workforce. We are falling on the global gender gap index. It's quite shameful. So, you know, I find these two realities very hard to kind of understand, you know, together. Yeah, so I think how that's happening is that we're a very large country where, you know, almost by neighborhood and by geospatial coordinates, you're living in a different reality. So what's happening essentially is that, and I describe this in the book, that amongst an extremely upwardly mobile, educated set of women, you know, they are careerists,

you see them all around you. They're in the paid workforce. You see this change happening. You also see this kind of, there is a feminization increasingly also of the public sphere. We are voting much more, right? We're on television a lot. I mean, we dominate, right?

So much of the media landscape, you see women. And I think that what's happening is so that there's a lot of that, but then the unfortunate part is that's also a very small subset of the economy, right? Because there's a whole actually 80% of the economy which is in the informal sector where women are participating but struggling, you know, to have the same earnings, suppose, in self-employment as men. So I think the first way to, I think, explain that is to understand that, you know, I often say this sort of India is, you know, it's not a country, it's a continent. And I think the numbers are collapsing so many realities into one that they're

a bit hollow. So I think, you know, I think the interesting thing, for example, to think about is that in the northeastern states, female employment rates have historically always been high, right, and in many. And then you have certain regions where the rates have been low and continue to be so. So I think there is that nuance in the way we need to think about this. Can numbers increase? They already have Snigdha. So, I mean, economists would say since 2021, our female employment rates have increased. So rural India has gone from a third to now nearly half. It's like 47% women in the labor force. Even urban rates have increased from sort of lower 20s to now.

It's about 28%. But you said that you are still hopeful, right? Like, I want to ask, what are you hopeful about? There are countries where you've seen these increases, right? Like the Chinese went from, you know, footbinding to one of the extremely high female employment rates. But I think three things really have to happen if you look at the history of those countries. And I think those three, if we can start to relax some of those constraints, it will be, I think it can really revolutionize the numbers. I think one is we really need a dedicated strategy to make care work more remunerative, less onerous.

I really hope men step up in the kitchen, but I'm not holding my breath. And I think in that world, maybe more subsidies to automated ways to manage some of that care work, more public investment. India still doesn't spend as much on care, providing subsidies and incentives perhaps to businesses that offer care solutions, be it elderly care, child care, right, making those businesses more lucrative, paying care workers well, so that it's a good, dignified, solid job that so many women are doing and they deserve recognition for it. I think the second is we really do need to think much more cohesively. And I think this has started to happen in many states for incentives for the private sector to also prioritize women. It could look in very different ways because what we know from the history of the country is that, you know, for example, the top 10 pastures growing sectors in India for the longest time, only about 16 to 18 percent of jobs in those sectors went to women. And I think we need to create incentives for the private sector to also be more mindful, right? I do think that that conversation has started.

I mean, so many places I go to, I see government as well as the private sector being mindful of the fact that they want to hire more women. And not just because they want to hire for more women to check a box, but because they actually think the skill sets that they need are much more suited. And the third, which I think is the most important is even if you have, and we see this, right, even if you have the private sector, of wanting to hire women. And even if you relax the constraints of care at home, I think the problem is most jobs in India are clustered in certain areas. So for women, they'll have to migrate to those cities. They'll have to travel.

And the two markets that really hate, and I say this, you know, very clearly hate, single women and particularly are housing and transport. you know, being, and I am, you know, a single woman, extremely privileged, but even for me to be able to find a house that is safe, I have to live in a neighborhood where I pay much higher rent than, say, men who have similar jobs as mine, right? Because I have to sort of, there's a safety premium there. So I think unless we don't get some of the, those markets right and working for women, particularly housing and transport, I think it's going to be very challenging because you may. have a whole generation of women who are educated who have the skills, who really want those jobs. But if they're not able to migrate safely, if they're not able to find safe accommodation. But I think there's a fourth bit, which is the more complicated one, which I'm trying to sort of attack maybe in my next book. But, you know, it'll take time.

I think men have to just change radically at the workplace. And, you know, I think I spent the first sort of 20 years with the Sharuk work thinking about how men and masculine. needs to change in our intimate life, in our interpersonal lives, in our family lives. But I also think men radically have to change at the workplace. And what I mean by that is so many women will tell me that they will drop out or they feel discouraged at work because often the hours that they are putting in are just discounted and dismissed by a kind of boys club that exists. Not because these are evil men who want to band together to hate of women. I don't think it's that. It's just comfort. I think, you know, a kind of masculine

that's very comfort in the typical office spaces of India, it has to be disrupted. There's a comfort in old ways of doing things, right? And if you have a situation where managerial roles continue to still be largely occupied by men, and then we train women to believe that to do well, you need to behave exactly the same way, right, in your managerial roles.

Then how are we, you know, we have to really feminize, I think, the workplace. And I think that has to change. And I don't fully know how that will, change. One way it will certainly change is that there are just many more women in positions of leadership. There's no denying that. Just presence makes a huge difference. Absolutely. 110% Shana, thank you so, so much for coming on our show. I hope 2025 turns out to be a great year for you, for me, for all the women in our country. And I can't wait for your next book. You have to tell me when it is out. I will. I will. I will. I will for sure, Snick. Please, please take care of yourself. Have a

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