In conversation with Yashodhara Lal, Genpact VP, author of books like, ‘Just Married, Please Excuse,’ ‘Sorting out Sid,’ ‘There’s Something About You.’ She has penned two more books titled ‘When Love Finds You,’ ‘Peanut has a Plan’ which also happens to be her maiden children’s book, released simultaneously in November. A Zumba instructor in weekends and a music enthusiast. She blogs about her family, passion for writing and about life in general at www.yashodharalal.com
Q) How would you define yourself?
A) I'm a corporate professional with many years of experience in the field of Marketing, and am currently leading Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity at a large organization. I'm an author of five books (two just released at the same time!), mom of three children and on weekends, I'm a Zumba instructor as well. Basically, I like to do a whole bunch of things!
Q) You've led brands, headed marketing and communication and now driving diversity and inclusion. Why the shift?
It's both CSR and Diversity & Inclusion. The shift happened as an experiment, really because I felt the call to drive something with social impact. I'd done many roles leading marketing teams and businesses and while I've had fun at a lot of them, I wanted to try something different - a chance meeting and connections led to my taking up this role last December and while it's had its ups and downs, in the larger scheme of things, it has been awesome.
Q) What has been impeding factors while charting your career coordinates in furthering your growth ?
Perhaps part of it has been not knowing what terms like career coordinates mean ha ha. On a serious note, I can resonate with a lot of the issues I see women facing in the corporate world - including major life drivers such as having children - when my three young kids were small, I had a major issue balancing full time work and their needs, not to mention my own. Apart from that, it's sad but I think there's a lot of bias and misconception among both men and women that tend to hold women leaders back.
Q) Your Facebook profile tells us you're not just an author, but an author with a real voice. What do you like writing about
A) I actually enjoy writing about my own life experiences a lot. I have written a mix of memoir-type and completely fictional and also an in-between, mix of both, kind of work. But, I think my most authentic voice is writing about what I have directly experienced. My first book 'Just Married, Please Excuse' was about my first three years of marriage to my quirky husband.
Q) You were concerned about issues like Indian authors, especially women, not getting enough publishing and review rights. How have you established yourself as an author despite the challenges?
A) I don't actually know if I'd consider myself established as an author, but I do think I fare better than some. Part of this has been my own marketing background, I've innovated a lot and used digital media to become known. But frankly, I find some of that quite exhausting and particularly with a full time job, any spare time I have should be spent ( I feel ) on creating new content. Luckily, content creation itself by way of articles, blogging, etc does tend to get you readers so, that works well. All in all, I think it's a difficult thing for anyone to break through but my own focus will be on the writing process and increasingly more and more of the kind of work I want to experiment with, rather than allowing myself to get boxed into any one genre.
Q) Everything about you tells us that you're like the woman we must shape ourselves into-career wise. But a deep look into you tells us even your career is driven by things you stand for. How did you manage to align your skills and passion?
A) I really believe this is an ongoing process. I've managed to do some of it by taking a sabbatical to really try out a whole bunch of things and mixing and matching to arrive at what kind of balance works; which activities feed well off each other; what energizes me; and what each part of my life really means to me. Strangely enough, it's death and a near brush with it in 2010 that changed the course of my life and was the catalyzing incident for me to change from this unidimensional cranky career woman to someone far more rounded ( though of course I'm still cranky too often).
Q) Lastly, because we must know! What are your top 5 items without which your handbag is incomplete?
Tissues because either me or my kids always have to blow our noses.
Max Factor lipstick no. 70 because it actually lasts and my kids refuse to be kissed unless it's non-sticky lipstick as they call it.
My cellphone (duh!)
My cellphone charger ( often stolen from my husband since I keep losing mine *chuckles*)
My pretty overstuffed, red wallet that contains about twenty cards including expired passes to places like Kingdom of Dreams and Hangout.