I’m the author of Famous Last Questions — out now, from Aleph Book Company.
What is the book about?
India’s ‘90s kids grew up in an offline world and graduated to one that’s seemingly always on fire. Famous Last Questions is for the generation caught between achievement and burnout, privilege and guilt, modernity and tradition, authenticity and performance.
In a desperate attempt to understand why I am the way I am—the ‘ideal’ overachieving ‘90s kid, but also the secret black sheep, flouting the norms I was always living by—I ended up with even more questions, unravelling the entire idea of a “self”, and the socio-political machinery that had created mine:
- Why is ‘Science, Arts, or Commerce’ how Indians decide the course of their lives?
- Why must we get married before the age of 30, or die trying?
- What happens to the woman who isn’t the ‘perfect’ housewife?
- Why are we working all the time?
- Must we believe in God?
- How has the internet exposed Indian culture?
- And can virtue actually kill people?
“Famous Last Questions plays with the boundaries of memoir, reportage, and research, unburdened by the need for absolute answers. From describing life in Big Tech to days spent in Vipassana meditation, this is a book unafraid of contradictions, a heartfelt chronicle of the ‘modern’ Indian’s journey from needing to achieve everything to searching for wholeness. Ramachandran is both the heroine and anti-heroine of this story—which, ultimately, is the story of us all.”
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MORE ABOUT ME
I'm also the writer behind the ‘The Sanjana Effect’, a viral essay on how a generation of Indian girls was named after Aishwarya Rai, aka 'Sanju', in the iconic 1993 Pepsi ad.
Our parents hoped we would inherit Rai’s beauty, success, and elusive mix of modernity and tradition if we were given her name from a cola ad.
My writings combine a career in marketing/business, science/tech, along with my forever introspective and analytical gaze. Essays appear in The Caravan, ThePrint, VICE, NDTV, Rest of World, Fifty Two, and other Indian and international publications.
Famous Last Questions is my debut nonfiction book, and part of the South Asia Speaks fellowship for outstanding emerging writers. It’s repped by Kanishka Gupta, who’s worked with Booker Prize winners and the best writers in the business.
Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Substack, and LinkedIn to encounter parody videos, viral tweets, profound analyses, and infinite selfies, going above and beyond the book’s themes…
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More excruciating details to keep you occupied. (There’s no other way to talk about achievement anymore.)
