Shashi Tharoor and Ankur Warikoo discuss ‘prescriptions’, passion and Generation Z
When Ankur Warikoo came out with his book Do Epic Shit last December, he posted that it ‘may very well turn out to be the most useless book you will ever buy because nothing in it is something you don’t know’. It went on to be the highest selling Indian debut of 2022 and has since sold over 200k copies. One of India’s most successful internet entrepreneurs — who doesn’t shy away from revealing his laundry list of failures, from failing to get into IIT (twice) to being a PhD dropout — he is also an icon of young India. He has 2.44 million subscribers on YouTube, and his ‘prescriptions’ or short video explainers on everything from books to read to where to invest get millions of views.
Shashi Tharoor, on the other hand, may only have 485k followers on the video sharing platform, but his speeches and discussions are played on loop across the country. The diplomat, politician and writer (his latest book is B.R. Ambedkar: The Man Who Gave Hope to India’s Dispossessed), who is serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, is always mobbed at airports. Two different generations, but for various reasons they are beloved by Gen Z. In this freewheeling conversation, the two try to make sense of young India from the other’s perspective, while also discussing writing, success, and being ‘several people in one life’. Read the full interview here.
