Forum No.32

20th Aug 2022

COLLABORATION | RESURRECTION

Forum032

FOUNDER OF FIDUS LAW CHAMBERS

Shwetasree Majumder

FOUNDER OF WIDE ANGLE FILMS

Shwetasree Majumder

FOUNDER OF LOPEZ

Anthony Lopez

FACULTY AT CEPT UNIVERSITY

Seema Khanwalkar

FOUNDER OF RAJIV KEHR SELECTIONS

Rajiv Kehr

FOUNDER OF FIDUS LAW CHAMBERS

Shwetasree Majumder

Shwetasree Majumder spoke about her journey from a national law school in Bangalore to a working life in Delhi, and how she encountered discrimination and biases as a woman practitioner. She started questioning the many boundaries set by society, and defied behavioral expectations such as dress code by landing up in a tomato red suit at a sober room of lawyerly grays and blacks. Citing the Justice Verma Committee’s path-breaking recommendations on sexual harassment, Shwetasree talks about taking a visionary path when she started her own firm, with the intent of creating equitable workspaces with fulfilling experiences for her people. Shwetasree believes the first step towards inclusivity is to deeply question and examine ourselves, and discover our own inherent biases. Curiously, she says she found that the way to overcome psychological boundaries in settings is by occupying physical space. The many cultural cues we encounter need to be challenged to let us create our own safe spaces where we can grow and maximize our creative potential.

Written by Sujatha Shankar Kumar

FOUNDER OF WIDE ANGLE FILMS

Sujata Kulshrestha

Sujata Kulshrestha had a life-changing call to action in her fourth year at NID when she attended a workshop by Martha Stewart called Are You Listening? Martha Stewart was visiting Ahmedabad to teach SEWA women how to make films, so they were equipped to tell their own stories. Suddenly for Sujata a new sense of truth prevailed: that women who were illiterate were perfectly capable of making a film. She also discovered a powerful space of healing emerging through shared stories. Armed with her education from NID, and her nascent filmmaking experiences, Sujata went on to carve her own space in films for clients such as UNICEF, Khan Academy and Discovery. For Sujata, a core learning, kindled from her NID experience at SEWA is the democratization of film-making. She has time and again seen the power of storytelling by ordinary people like a farmer, a rangoli artist or a DIY kit-maker from Kerala, all of who are celebrities in their own right on YouTube. Sujata’s ability to draw enduring connections with the protagonists in her own films, has given her a fulfilling and rewarding career where her commissioning clients respect her choices as a filmmaker. The passionate filmmaker determines the positioning of every film after carefully considering the audience she is addressing and the relevance of the topic at hand — for instance, a film about climate change required that they take an alarmist approach to communicate the urgency.

Written by Sujatha Shankar Kumar

FOUNDER OF LOPEZ

Anthony Lopez

Anthony Lopez of Lopez Design spoke about the need to reinvent ourselves at every stage of life. Anthony says he has recognized the need to ‘seed ourselves right’ by deep introspection and constant corrections. Quoting Sam Harris, Anthony said if we acknowledge that everything we have at any given moment is a stroke of luck, the way we view ourselves in context to our surroundings, entirely changes. In India, as in many parts of the world, there is a sense of “Our time is now”, and Anthony says we must grab the moment and make it ours. Anthony gave the example of the studio’s branding for Ayushman Bharat, where every health center of the GoI has its own patterns within the larger identity. Such unique solutions are possible if we allow for diversity to unfold. Designers and attendees had varied responses to Anthony’s talk. One audience member spoke about the Design Ladder in Copenhagen, while another reflected on how Indians needed to start thinking in their own language and understanding their roots to bring about a true revolution.

Written by Sujatha Shankar Kumar

FACULTY AT CEPT UNIVERSITY

Seema Khanwalkar

Seema Khanwalkar spoke about her unique journey studying semiotics, and how she was one amongst a handful of practitioners in her time. When she ventured into a village in Goa and encountered the ‘mand’, Seema found how this 500-year old practice was liberating for people to express themselves. Here, in a central performance space, all differences were forgiven and you could say what you felt. Then, you went back to your regular self, your profession and your religion. Seema applauds the works of Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco and Claude Levi Strauss, who she credits for sustaining her through her critical years in college as an anthropology student. American semiotician Charles Sanders Pierce shaped her philosophy with his adage that the entire universe is perfused with signs. All of her engagement with semiotics and signs gave her a fabulous insight to see the paradigms of the past, present and future.

In the ‘real world’ Seema found it hard to actually sustain herself in her chosen field, and found herself drifting into the space of advertising and branding. Her study of semiotics became interesting and relevant for a campaign for Tata Tea, where her team made a shift from the idea of tea being served in a traditional drawing room scenario, to show how tea could be an invigorating drink for anywhere. A campaign for Tanishq called Speak Gold opened up how the conversations around gold were what made it exciting for a range of buyers. Likewise, a study of time and routines opened up a space for the entry of Knorr soup in a market dominated by Maggi. The evening 7 o’clock hour was a small gap in time where Knorr soup could make an entry.

Written by Sujatha Shankar Kumar

FOUNDER OF RAJIV KEHR SELECTIONS

Rajiv Kehr

The last of the speakers, Rajiv Kehr, closed on a romantic and beguiling note, with his special presentation. Kehr brought his nuanced understanding of wines to our privileged group, starting with the meaning of the word terroir, a word that encompasses a ‘sense of place’. A good wine needs to genuinely connect, and terroir refers to a host of factors from geographical region, climate and soil to which way the vineyard faces. If a bottle of Petrus costs 3000 Euros, that’s because it has earned its right to fame, says Kehr. Cepage defines the single grape wine and elevage refers to the way it ages. But more than anything, wine defines a certain culture in the West, says Kehr who recalls his love of the film Roman Holiday and his savoring of its special moments. A great wine is a capture of such a moment of time, he says, comparing how we identify with mood, companionship and special occasions when we drink wine with others. For the Forum evening, Kehr brought a fine selection of two wines, one white and the other red. The red wine comes from the northern part of Italy, a region called Piedmont. The wine Nebiollo comes from the word Nebia/Nebbia which means fog, as the region is famous for the deep, intense fog that settles in October during harvest. When chosen well, the wine tastes better and food tastes better. Rajiv recalls pairing a Bordeaux with Japanese samosa and kala chana, which was a big hit. As someone who has many titles accorded to him, Rajiv has had the opportunity to drink many fine wines. At the greatest level, he accords a sixth dimension to wine — its unique ability to speak to you.

Written by Sujatha Shankar Kumar

 

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