Report by Shreya Agarwal
Mrs. Archana Garodia Gupta is a very versatile person. She is an author, an entrepreneur and a
quizzer all at the same time. She has published bestsellers like ‘the History of India for Children’ and ‘the Women who Ruled India’. She was the president of the FICCI Ladies Organisation in 2015-16.
She also won the title of Champion of Champions from BBC Mastermind India in 2002. This led to her becoming an expert panelist on Kaun Banega Crorepati. Mrs. Archana also owns Touchstone Gems and Jewellery.
Please tell us something about your childhood and your education.
I was born in Calcutta, and I was there till the age of 5. Then we shifted to Delhi. So more or less, I call myself a ‘Delhiwala’, I have been here since the age of 5. I went to Modern School, Vasant Vihar.
I really enjoyed my school years. After that, I did Economics in LSR, Delhi University. Then, I did my MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. I was away for two years in Ahmedabad.
You’re an author, entrepreneur and a quizzer. What got you interested in all these fields?
A lot of it comes from reading. I always used to love reading as a child. My father was very fond of reading, our house was always full of books. My birthday presents always used to be books.
Everybody knew!
I think at the age of seven or eight onwards, I’ve been reading more or less at least one book a day, all my life. Even through my work.
It’s like breathing for me. If there are periods when I cannot read, it becomes very difficult for me. In a week or so, I become very cranky. Reading is very much a part of my life, which then led to quizzing, because if you read a lot, then something sticks, not everything you read you remember, but many of the things remain and then I started quizzing in school days. In school I was not that good, but in college I took up quizzing very seriously. I don’t formally quiz very much now, but I’m still quizzing. I take part in online quizzes, I went for the European quizzing championships in Estonia.
I remember a friend making fun of me, ‘you are going to Estonia for a quiz’. Quizzing has been very much a part of my life, and the writing came out of it. Because, as somebody who is so immersed in books, I always wanted to write. I used to be the editor of the school magazine, so I could write articles on retail and women’s issues. But my love was always history. If I have to write something, I think the researching is the most fun part. To write some 2000 words I’m quite capable of reading 20 books.
You’ve published bestsellers like ‘the History of India for Children’ and ‘the Women who Ruled India’. From where did you get the inspiration to write such books, and how was your experience writing them?
This was a very incredible experience. ‘History of India for Children’, I have co-written it with my
younger sister, Shruti, who is 16 years younger than me. We’re both very fond of reading. She was working in London and I was in India. I think this book might be something for which I’ve worked the hardest. I read a minimum of 500 books to write this. Not only that, all my years of reading, all the little anecdotes, all the little stories, all the literature, went into this.
If we just had to write a simple history of India for children, you can pick up an adult book and just write a simpler version of it. But we wanted it to be a book people wanted to read, and not just learning about history, something fun and enjoyable. We’ve put in a lot of anecdotes and bits of information, which are simply not there in other books. We’ve tried to talk about lifestyle. It’s not just a list of kings. We try to talk about how people lived, what makeup they used, what food they ate, their clothes, their games and sports.
Then, we’ve tried to give some excerpts from contemporary literature. Another focus we have in our book is, we have connected what was happening in India with what was happening in the world. So, at every period we’ve talked about what was happening in the rest of the world. We’ve talked about people in India who went there, people from abroad who came here. To connect us, to show that we were not isolated, we were always a part of the global thing. We’ve tried to give quotes by people in that period.
It was really a labour of love. It took us four years to write the book. We were told by our publishers that we could write about a 150,000 words, but they also said that we could write as much as we wanted and then they would cut some of it. Eventually we submitted 5 lakh words, but then it took us 2 years to cut it down to 125,000 words. Actually what you see in these two volumes is just one fourth of what we’ve written. Three-fourth had to be discarded as it was getting too long.
We were crying tears of blood, having to remove so much!
You’re a regular expert at the reality show Kaun Banega Crorepati. Please tell us your experience about being on the panel of experts there.
It’s a wonderful experience. BBC Mastermind was also made by the same producers. So, because I was the winner of BBC Mastermind, they invited me to be an expert on the show.
Last 2 years, I was there for about 15-16 episodes each time, and this year, I’ve shot for 3 episodes already. It’s so lovely interacting with Mr. Bachchan. He’s very charming and makes you feel really good. The contestants, they come from such diverse backgrounds. They’ve been through so many difficulties.
That itself is also an experience! Otherwise, we tend to be isolated in our own lives.
Back in 2015-16, you were the president of the FICCI Ladies Organisation. Please tell us a little about that organization, what is it like to be a part of such an organization and your experience there.
Besides my one passion of reading, something else I have spent many years at is trying to create programs for economic empowerment of women. How to create businesses for them, how to facilitate their life, how to create employment for women and all… I have been a part of the FICCI Ladies Organisation since I left college, since 1989-1990. It is the oldest and largest chamber of women entrepreneurs in the country.
Currently there are about 16-17 chapters, all across the country, and nearly 10000 women entrepreneurs. I was the part of this organization, then I was the part of the governing body for many years and finally I became the president in 2015, which is quite a big deal. There were many international delegations. We interacted with women entrepreneurs across the world.
We started many skilling programs for women entrepreneurs, mentorship programs. Also we gave a lot of policy recommendations. It was a tremendous experience. That was also one of the most taxing and hardworking years of my life. It was like you just got up, worked and
didn’t even get enough sleep.
You’re also an entrepreneur, and you have your very own jewellery brand- Touchstone. Please tell us the story of Touchstone.
I’m from a business family. After doing my MBA, I joined my father’s business. We had a spinning unit, we used to export yarn. After I got married, with my husband we set up an imitation jewellery manufacturing unit. At the time we set it up, more or less this imitation jewellery wasn’t sold. There was hardly anything. People only wore real jewellery and they didn’t have so much choice.
Because we travelled abroad, we saw people only wore imitation jewellery. When we looked at the market, we saw that 93% of the people wore imitation jewellery. This was something we could do in India, of course, we would have to do Indian style designs more. We were actually the first brand to do Indian style imitation jewellery. About 25 years ago we started.
We were going and talking to all the department stores, that they should stock our products. They would say ‘you mean, someone wears artificial jewellery in a wedding, not possible’. We had to say ‘Just start, and you would see the response’.
Today, so many people are making imitation jewellery, I think the whole industry size has become about 20K-30K crores, right from zero, when we started.
We were among the first people to start selling it online. We found that very attractive. We sell online on various portals. We can now service about a 100 countries. All of it is made by Indian artisans. We really believe in supporting artisans. Some of it is made in our factory but a lot of it is made in villages.
The same products which are made by women and other artisans in the village, are now available as it is all over the world. It’s very interesting.
In all these countries, we have to work in different languages, you’ll get customer inquiries in
different languages. The people who handle these queries, really don’t know any other language except Hindi and English, but they are happily corresponding with customers in Japanese and Portuguese, just using translation programs like google translate. It’s really fun because you just see young people suddenly corresponding with people in 10 languages.
How did you overcome all the hurdles in your life?
There are all types of challenges: business, health, emotional. For example, after demonetisation our business suffered a lot, even during COVID times. Obviously, if people aren’t interacting, they are not going to wear jewellery. They won’t buy new jewellery if they aren’t going anywhere.
I think the way to face a challenge is first to realise there’s always a way out. There’s always a path, and to not give up.
Second, is to figure out ways of solving that problem, or at least reducing the impact of it on you.
The third is, when you start taking some steps, you should not give up, or should not get emotionally upset. A problem is there and getting emotionally upset is not going to solve
that. Put one step after the other and move in. Don’t give up. There’s always a solution, you just have to find it.
What do you think is the best part about your job?
I think in my business, it’s the creativity. Both in terms of the jewellery one creates and the new
marketing methods, techniques and even the systems. I enjoy doing the creative part of it.
The best part about my job as a writer is the reading. I just love reading new stuff, discovering new things! I really think I have a passion for history, because after spending so many years reading so much history, and now it has become a part of my work. Even now, when I go to pick up book for leisure reading, quite often its history.
What is the one most thing you’ve learnt from whatever you do right now?
I think the most important thing is, first, discipline. You need to set yourself a time and do it. More than that, it’s very important to enjoy what you are doing and to always look for new ways to do it.
There’s always something you’re adding, you’re creating, and you’re adding something to your
whole sum of knowledge. That is very important.
Who was your role model?
While I was at home, I looked at my mother and father. They had quite different skills. As you grow older, you see how much you’ve taken from them. My father was always very intellectually curious and read a lot. Any kind of show came to town, we would go and attend it. We would go for talks and music concerts. There was never this thought that ‘it was not interesting for a child’ and ‘Why should we take a 10 year old to see a classical music concert?”
We just went for these things. That of course changes you, and takes you to a particular direction. I think what my mother did, though she went for these, she used to really believe in freedom for the child. In those days, a girl had to follow certain things. How to dress, to work in the kitchen etc. We had none of them. All that was required from us was that we did reasonably well in school.
She didn’t supervise us. We were polite and well behaved. Beyond that, our time was our own. So if I wanted to spend it reading, she was fine with that. It was only the relatives who got excited. We had total freedom without comments. That helped us grow in so many ways.
Do you have any piece of advice for anyone who just like you, wishes to become an author, a quizzer or an entrepreneur someday?
I have one piece of advice, don’t ever think you’re not good enough. You just start. If you’re not
doing okay, the output, and you get rejected, don’t give up! Start again. Being an entrepreneur or a writer, a lot of it is about failure and rejection. It’s all right. You just have to dust yourself off and keep going. You can’t be scared of failure. You can’t be scared of looking ridiculous. It’s not a big deal. You fail, start again. The most important thing is to just do it and not bother about what you think other people would think.