HAVE you ever struggled to give a satisfactory response when you’re asked why Indians don’t eat beef? Well, you’re not alone.
This is just one in a list of many questions that Mr Vivek Vaidya gets whenever he travels to places like Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia and the UK.
The 44-year-old vice-president of a consulting firm advises automotive companies on various growth strategies, and his work takes him to different parts of the world at least twice a month.
“Whenever you travel to a foreign country, when people get to know you, they ask you about these uniquely Indian things, like why we don’t eat beef, whether I had an arranged marriage and why Bollywood movies are so popular,” explained Mr Vaidya, who grew up in Pune and has been in Singapore for the last 10 years. Along with his wife, he has been a permanent resident here for nine years.
Facing these questions time and again led to him starting a blog in 2010, where he shares his thoughts on these questions and his experiences in different countries. Five years later, the blog’s success spurred Mr Vaidya to pen a book where he narrates his experiences and shares answers to five quintessentially Indian traits.
The book, Why Do Indians…?, took about six months to write. “It took a good month to expand one blog post into a story,” he explained, adding that he reworked seven to eight blog posts into the five stories presented in the book.
The plan was initially to release it as an e-book, as this is where Mr Vaidya’s wife’s expertise lies. Ms Nalini Thite runs her own company that helps clients with their technical needs like digital marketing. She encouraged her husband to set up a blog to post his thoughts online and helped him to maintain it.
“As we didn’t know what the readership would be like, an e-book with zero investment seemed like the best idea to launch the book,” explained Ms Thite, who helped put together the e-book. She also handles the book’s publicity, marketing and even sales.
Launching the e-book on online retailer Amazon in May last year, they imagined that they would get about 50 to 100 downloads, but were “completely baffled” when they touched 400 in the first few days. Said Ms Thite: “We were really taken by the success of the e-book. That’s when a lot of people started asking us about a paperback.”
Mr Vaidya and Ms Thite approached some publishing houses with the book, but ultimately felt that they “could do more justice to the book and put in more passion into selling the book than any publisher could”. With the help of a printer who is also a family friend, they decided to publish it themselves.
The paperback version was launched in Singapore in October at the British Club. Rather than the usual book reading, they invited people with similar experiences to talk about the issues they face. These panellists included Ms Vidhya Nair, a third-generation Indian-Singaporean; Mr Andrew Milroy, a British national who works with Indians; and Sharva Vaidya, an 18-year-old Indian who grew up in countries like Japan and Singapore and attended international schools.
“Hearing their views and anecdotes, their funny stories and quirky experiences made the launch a lively, interactive talk show,” said Ms Thite of the event.
Mr Vaidya stresses that the book isn’t just about the answers to questions like why Indians don’t eat beef, but also about how Indians actually feel when they get these questions, and that’s what the book launch tried to bring out. “The whole book is more about cultural sensitivity towards Indians,” he explained.
While the book is on most e-book platforms and can be bought at Kinokuniya, many people prefer getting it directly from him, said Mr Vaidya. “Maybe they want a personal touch,” he said.
Half of the 1,000 copies printed have already been sold, said Ms Thite. They are currently relying on social media for publicity.
Mr Vaidya is also planning on spreading the word about the issues in the book through speeches, and he is looking into speaking to students and businesses.
tabla@sph.com.sg
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