Shrayana Bhattacharya talks translating her fondness for Shah Rukh Khan into a book, women in academia and more

Shrayana Bhattacharya is a senior economist at the World Bank whose abiding fondness for actor Shah Rukh Khan has resulted in an unusual book called _Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence_ (2021).   The author uses interviews with women from diverse geographical and socio-economic backgrounds in India to construct a picture of what women want as consumers, partners and citizens. What binds them together is a shared love for Shah Rukh Khan, the actor-producer whose on-screen avatars they enjoy, celebrate and revisit in private and in group settings. The book also draws on think tank data, scholarship, news reports, and the author’s love life. Published by HarperCollins India, it recently won her the Best Author (Non-Fiction) Award at the AutHer Awards meant to recognise the work of “women authors who have added value and creativity to the literary space.” Around the same time, she also bagged the Literature Award at the India Economic Forum. She spoke with us at the Kolkata Literary Meet 2022. Can you recall the first time you saw Shah Rukh Khan on the big screen? Yes, of course! It was in a small town called Kalyani, which is near Kolkata. My grandmother and my grandfather live there. They have this lovely house right near the railway station, next to which is a cinema hall. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of that hall but I have this distinct memory of watching the film Baazigar there during one of my summer vacations. This is not just my story. I found this to be a common thread among the women that I interviewed for my book. So many of them told me that they saw their first Shah Rukh Khan movie when they were visiting a cousin or a grandparent or some relative. These people didn’t have much to say to each other, so they decided to go for a movie.   One of my earliest memories of him is the song ‘Sardi Khaansi Na Malaria Hua, Yeh Gaya Yaaron Isko Love, Love, Love, Loveria Hua’. What do you think of it? Oh yes! That’s why I chose “Loveria” as the title for the last chapter in my book where I talk about love in the economy. Nowadays, we have this very transactional culture of love, and it is so exhausting! Watching Shah Rukh does provide escape and relief from that constant hustling. We all sang ‘Love, love, love, loveria hua!’ around that time, didn’t we?  

People think that fandom is an act of mindless devotion and worship. It isn’t. When women watch his films or interviews, they interact with the imagery in a creative, critical way.

They pick and choose to construct a collage that gives them a break from the stress in their lives. They rely on his words for comfort and respite. I have done all of this. Even now, on a bad day, I get on to YouTube and watch a funny Shah Rukh interview. He makes me laugh.

The idea that fandom is passive should be retired. It is an act of agency, and it also involves women choosing to spend on what they like. As a society, we are very quick to judge people, especially women, for the things that give them pleasure. As long as what makes them happy is not murder or lynching or hate, why should anyone take objection to their pleasure? There is a whole economy around fun. It is gendered, I know from my research and my life experiences. I suspect it is also casteist but this dimension has to be studied carefully. I hope someone does that. If we started paying more attention to the kinds of things that give people pleasure, we might become a much gentler and more caring society. I am a hopeful person. Isn’t the idea of academic rigour also gendered? What do you think? Absolutely! So many people tell me that my book is not based on a representative sample. I am not even claiming that it is. My research methodology, the ethical framework used to elicit data, concerns around anonymity and confidentiality – it’s all in the book! Initially, I wanted to create a formal academic text and I was in conversation with a feminist publisher about this. Over time, I realised that I wanted to write a more accessible book.   Some of the women in my book are composites. Many similar stories have been clubbed together to present a character who gives voice to them. This was not done out of any literary ambition of mine. Many of the elite women that I interviewed for this book did not want any identifying information to be revealed. As a researcher, I had to respect what they wanted. You’re right! In academia, there is a kind of thinking that is obsessed with this idea of “dekho maine kitna rigorous kar liya, main kitna aadmi hoon.” (see, my work is so rigorous, I am such a man) But, to be fair, I must say that both men and women play at the game that I call the “seriousness Olympics”. Just because I’m writing about a film star and love, there are many who see the cover and wonder if it’s a serious book at all coming from an economist. I am fortunate that I had support and encouragement from some of the most amazing feminist scholars that I know – Nitya Rao, Ratna Sudarshan, Devaki Jain, and Naila Kabeer.   Rigour is based on an ecosystem, isn’t it? When we read academic texts, the acknowledgements section lists out people who typed the field notes, people who cooked and cleaned, people who took care of children. Can rigour be practised in isolation? We do need a much wider recognition of the kinds of labour that go unappreciated. At the award ceremony hosted by the India Economic Forum in March this year, they invited the family of each awardee on stage when the award was being presented. I found that very moving. Families often play a big role in the accomplishments attributed to an individual. People give a lot, not only materially, but also emotionally. I know that researching this book over the last 15 years, and writing it in a focused way in the last five years, would not have been possible if I had children and childcare duties. I admire women who can do it all.  

Academia is a funny place. The COVID-19 pandemic should end some of the nonsense that is said in the name of rigour. Whose data did we rely on? Much of it came from civil society activists, from groups working on the ground, people who collected information and shouted themselves hoarse because services were not reaching some places and some communities. At that time, it was not about getting a representative sample or getting someone to sign off on whether the data is peer reviewed or not. Without these people who lie outside academia, we would not have known so many things that were happening. Notions of rigour should not be set in stone. They must change, and become more inclusive. Even the fact that a book like mine won the Literature Award at the India Economic Forum alongside books written by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Ajay Chhibber, Salman Anees Soz and Viral Acharya indicates a subtle shift in what is being considered worthy of researching and reading.   What kind of dilemmas or struggles does your feminism lead to while working as a senior economist with a big organisation like the World Bank?  The first thing I want to say is that the World Bank is a very large organisation with a very long history. There have been very significant shifts in what the World Bank invests in. Let me clarify that I am not speaking here on behalf of the World Bank but in my own private capacity. I have been there since 2013-14. The projects that I work on are supporting women’s empowerment platforms, testing and scaling different kinds of interventions. Working with the World Bank while being based in India, I must say the government here is very proactive in terms of determining how we work with each other as well. There is somehow this false impression about the World Bank running roughshod over others with its own agenda and mandates. That is not how I’ve seen it happen. It never works like that. Critics of the World Bank would say that it’s known for making rich countries richer, and pushing poor countries into greater debt. Your thoughts on this? No, I think you are referring to a different institution, perhaps. But I guess if people have different views, that is fine. What I will say though that, in any large organization – World Bank or otherwise – your experience of it tends to be based only on your interaction with the constellation of people that you work closely with. I work with some of the most dynamic and wonderful women and men. They are smart and talented. They have sound technical knowledge in terms of the developmental challenges that South Asia is faced with.   That said, I guess critiques of large organizations are also worth hearing. When you work in a large bureaucratic set-up, your experiences are very much embedded in the local context. You don’t get the big picture often. I must say that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank really pulled together all the support that it could provide. As a woman who is single, I find that the World Bank has been an excellent place to work. It has given me the kind of support system that I needed to do what I want professionally.   I suppose this is not everyone’s experience of the World Bank. They must tell their tale. I cannot. The good thing is that the World Bank has an open information policy, so critique is possible if there is evidence to back it up. The organisation itself has set up systems to hear and respond to the feedback that comes up. There are tribunals to deal with violations of norms. The organization is also actively examining its own composition in terms of race and gender. I have never felt that there has been some big compromise between the work that I do in my day job and the sort of feminism that I practise and also write about in my book.   Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist, commentator, and book reviewer Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.