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India have been bowled out for 153” – 2024 In 2009, at 46, Nayar
(Remarking on the recent India-SA match) aspired to start a
We’ll keep you posted on more Shastrisms, company. She got a few
looking forward to the year ahead! ideas in 2011, including
establishing a multi-
47 Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Educationist, brand e commerce
Author company. As a result, she took the risk of
Rudrangshu Mukherjee leaving a comfortable and lucrative job as a
is a historian and author Managing Director in the Kotak Mahindra
of several history books. Group in 2012.
He was formerly the As a lover of cosmetics and beauty
Opinions Editor for The products, she founded Nykaa, seeing that
Telegraph newspaper, there was dearth of holistic beauty retail
Kolkata, and the Chancellor for Ashoka stores in India. It was in 2013 that the
University where he also serves as company became popular, and the sales
Professor of History. He was the founding graph saw an upward trend. The growth
Vice-Chancellor of Ashoka when the of Nykaa as a brand is exemplary. Today,
university began in 2014. Nykaa is proud to sustain over 5 million
Rudrangshu Mukherjee has taught monthly active users. It offers over 500 top
History at the University of Calcutta and brands of both self-care and makeup and
held visiting appointments at Princeton 130,000 products. All these products are
University, University of Manchester and available both at the Nykaa app and offline
University of California, Santa Cruz. But stores.
it’s the rapid strides that Ashoka Univ has Nayar took Nykaa public in November
taken in less than a decade of existence has 2021, becoming India’s richest self-made
earned Mukherjee in our hall of fame. female entrepreneur in the process. In
Mukherjee is internationally acclaimed as 2023, as Nykaa has single-handedly
a historian of the revolt of 1857 in India. become India’s largest online cosmetics
His first book, Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: seller.
A Study of Popular Resistance (1984) has “Dare to Dream” says the irrepressible
become a standard reference on the subject. beauty boss. Kudos to this enterprising
He has looked at the 1857 rebellion in four young Indian!
other books: Spectre of Violence: The 1857
Kanpur Massacres (1998), Mangal Pandey: 48 Shashi Tharoor – The Wordsmith
Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero? (2005), “The notion of the
Dateline 1857: Revolt against the Raj possible is precisely that
(2008) and The Year of Blood: Essays on we should not be limited
1857 (2014). by what we think is
possible today.”
48 Falguni Nayar, 60, Entrepreneur Words can’t describe
The Nykaa story is intriguing more so Shashi Tharoor as finely as he can describe
because it aptly defines the proverb “Better them!
late than never!” One thing is for sure – #tharoorisms have
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #55 | JANUARY 2024 23
