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BITCOIN MANIA ALIBABA Vs AMAZON
●

JANUARY 5, 2018

RAJKUMMAR RAO
SPECIAL
COLLECTOR’S
EDITION Almost
There

www.forbesindia.com
Welcome to the
I NDIA

Tablet Edition
Editor’s Note
As in previous years, Bollywood and cricket rule the list, with 46 actors and 15 cricketers
Shooting for the Stars
H
ollywood
actor Kevin
Costner once
famously
declared that “being a
celebrity is probably the
closest to being a beautiful
woman as you can get”.
Priyanka Chopra,
PV Sindhu, Deepika
Padukone, Anushka
Sharma and the 17 other
women on the Forbes
India Celebrity 100 list
may have a bone to pick
with Costner’s take on
“It’s also about
winning, and celebrityhood. They
winning big.
Which is why may well be tempted to
three of the five retort: “Being a beautiful
covers have
women gracing woman is probably
them.” the closest to being a
celebrity as you can get”.
Then again, that may
not be totally accurate.
After all, it’s not only
about beauty for these
women who—as the piece
on Priyanka Chopra on
page 52 is aptly titled—
literally have the world at
their feet. It’s also about
winning, and winning big.
Which is why three of the
five covers we’ve created
for this special issue have
women gracing them.
The Celebrity 100 list
for the period between
October 1, 2016 and
Best,
September 30, 2017 put
together by the Forbes
India team with Salil
Panchal and Neeraj
Gangal steering the
Brian Carvalho project over three-and-
Editor, Forbes India a-half months is based
on estimates of earnings
brian.carvalho@nw18.com
painstakingly compiled
8 | forbes india january 5, 2018
from multiple sources.
They may be estimates,
but we can assure you that
they aren’t off the mark,
as most of our celebrities
will vouch for (read the
methodology on page 24).
As in previous years,
Bollywood and cricket
rule the list, with 46
actors and 15 cricketers
(out of 21 sportspeople).
But, beyond the Khans,
Kapoor and Kohli, there
are names that provide
a breath of fresh air.
Ace shuttler PV
Sindhu, who has followed
up her 2016 Olympic
silver medal with a
series of victories at the
world level, climbed 49
points to No 13. Sindhu
snared some 16 brand
endorsements in the
period under review,
which helped boost her
earnings by almost 1,600
percent over a year ago.
Other non-cricketing
sportspersons to make it
to the list include Kidambi
Srikanth—the only Indian
badminton player to
win four Superseries titles
in a year—and Indian
football captain Sunil
Chhetri, the fourth-
highest international goal
scorer in contemporary
football. Apart from
actors and sportspersons,
gracing the list are an
assortment of musicians,
filmmakers, comedians,
authors and television
personalities.
On occasion, however,
performance and
earnings don’t quite
converge. That may be
the only explanation
for Rajkummar Rao not
making it to the list, albeit
by a whisker. Yet, the
33-year-old who had six
releases in 2017, would
be for many the star
of the year. Read ‘The
Expressionist’ on page 96
to know why. Look out
for Rao in future Forbes
India Celebrity Lists.
It’s not a bad idea to
look back, too—at stars
and superstars from
the ’90s, ’80s, ’70s and
even ’60s. One way to
do that is to check out
the photographs of the
84-year-old Nemai Ghosh,
best known as the photo-
biographer of Satyajit Ray.
Don’t miss the stunning
portrait of Sharmila
Tagore from 1969, and a
candid moment between
Amitabh Bachchan
and Jaya Bhaduri from
1973. That’s in the photo
feature on page 124.
Away from the
celebrity parade, we
dive into a different kind
of stardust—bitcoin,
and the heady levels
to which the digital
currency has surged. At
$18,000 levels, is bitcoin
overvalued? Find out on
page 32. Don’t also miss
the story on page 36 on
how Alibaba is slowly
but surely buying its way
into India to go head to
head against Amazon.
Contents
JAnuARy 5, 2018 ● VoLuMe 10 ISSue 1
52

58

Priyanka chopra is creating ripples in the West with her varied feats

70

Pv Sindhu is the youngest on the 2017 forbes India celebrity 100 list

We value your feedback.

Write to us at: forbes.india@nw18.com | Letters may be edited for brevity.
Read us online at www.forbesindia.com
on the cover & this page photograph by: reuben Singh/Hindustan Times
via Getty Images (PV Sindhu); Smallz & raskind/contour by Getty Images
(Priyanka Chopra); errikos andreou (Anushka Sharma);
Mexy Xavier (Shahid Kapoor & Rajkummar Rao)
This page: rohan Shrestha (Priyanka Chopra)
digital Imaging by: Sushil Mhatre
Newly-wed anushka Sharma has proved her mettle as an actor
 64

24 | A New NormAl
The top three remain unchanged, but surprises galore in
the list of the 100 richest celebrities in the country

44 | HigH oN StArduSt
A rundown of the 2017 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List

50 | to weAr iS HumAN
Being Human may be Salman Khan’s apology for his
brash self, but there’s no denying the higher purpose the
clothing line serves

52 | tHe world At Her Feet

Between her music and acting careers,
Priyanka Chopra is a global celebrity already.
But she says she is just getting started

58 | mAkiNg FeAtHerS Fly

Beneath PV Sindhu’s affable demeanour is a gritty
competitor who, at 22, is rewriting records for
Indian badminton

64 | Never SAid Never

How Shahid Kapoor weathered a rough start to become
one of Hindi cinema’s most relevant actors Shahid kapoor has earned critical acclaim as well as mass popularity

70 | BeyoNd BouNdArieS 74
Anushka Sharma’s never had a plan to bog her down.
Perhaps the reason why she manages to wear many
hats with elan

74 | tHe expreSSioNiSt
Rajkummar Rao who made realism mainstream is also
one of the most bankable stars of neo-Indian cinema

78 | tHe tABoo BuSter

His middle-class roles have earned Ayushmann
Khurrana success and a distinctive identity in Bollywood

80 | HoNey tHey SHruNk your ScreeN

Why actors—both from the fringes and the
mainstream—are gravitating towards OTT platforms

on the cover & previous page:

anushka Sharma: Fashion stylist: Allia Al Rufai;
Wardrobe: nuSH Autumn Winter collection 2017;
Make-up artist: Puneet B Saini; Hair stylist: yianni Tsapatori
rajkummar rao: Fashion stylist: Anisha & Rochelle;
Red suit: Paul Smith; Beige turtle neck: Corneliani; Shoes: Woods;
Make-up artist: nitin; Hair stylist: Vijay

This page: Photograph by Mexy Xavier (Shahid Kapoor & Rajkummar Rao)
rajkummar rao: Fashion stylist: Anisha & Rochelle;
Wardrobe: Sweater: Brooks Brothers; Denims: Celio India;
Shoes: ShutiQ; Make-up artist: nitin; Hair stylist: Vijay

rajkummar rao continues to play diverse characters on screen

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 11

 JAnuARy 5, 2018 Contents

20 88
3o 3o

India has taken centre stage in Jack Ma’s global plans for alibaba

FeAtureS

croSS Border
82 | BillioN-dollAr BumBle
Three years after leaving Tinder following a nasty
dispute, Whitney Wolfe Herd is beating her former
colleagues at their own game

88 | 30 uNder 30
Forbes’s annual encyclopaedia of creative disruption
features 600 young stars from 20 different sectors

99 | StAr power
How some of the 30 under 30 alumni and newcomers are
shaking up the entertainment industry and beyond Prepare to be inspired by the forbes 30 under 30 list of achievers

recliNer 102
102 | Set iN time
Nemai Ghosh, better known as Satyajit Ray’s photo-
biographer, captures yesteryear’s celebrities in an
unusual candidness

106 | tHe kidS Are (Not) AlrigHt

Child protagonists in films do much more than
play lead characters—they hold a mirror to a world
messed up by adults

106

Nemai Ghosh’s timeless photographs (above: filmmaker aparna Sen)

102:: neMAI gHoSH

regulArS | 14 letterS | 16 leAderBoArd | 110 tHougHtS |

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12 | forbes india january 5, 2018

Letters to The Editor
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www.forbesindia.com
Magazine ForbesLife India
Thought Leadership
The need for family businesses to stay relevant
There are traditional handicraftsmen, jewellers and artisans who
have flourished because of royal patronage, but face constant
pressure of survival in today’s changing times
14  | forbes india january 5, 2018
Readers Say
Making News
Refer to ‘The Internet’s Local Flavour’
(Issue dated December 8, 2017).
Dailyhunt’s footprint has been growing
by leaps and bounds and the distance
between the news aggregator platform
and its competitors is only increasing.
According to App Annie, an app market
data and insights company, Dailyhunt
has an industry leading market share of
27 percent. The gap between Dailyhunt
and its closest rival has increased
from 8 percent in January 2017 to 12
percent in September 2017, it claims.
Madhuker, on the web
The Payments Solution
Refer to ‘Flipkart’s PhonePe Calculations’
(Issue dated December 8, 2017). I read
Podcast
Thought Leadership Web Special Lists
Upstart startups and agile disruptors: what to do
about them?
Large organisations can learn from disruptors’ agility and fight back
Focus on small steps first, then shift to the larger goal
Research shows that incremental achievements are good early motivators,
but their effect wanes as the finish line nears
with great interest the cover story on
PhonePay. I was an avid user of Flyte,
Flipkart’s online music download store,
and its closure disappointed me. Flipkart
could have come up with something
proactive to solve the microtransactions
problem. Had it done that, it might have
rolled it out for different platforms and
got a headstart over Paytm and others.
V Sitaram, on the web
In the wild
Refer to ‘Visiting Relatives?’ (Issue
dated December 8, 2017). Primate
tourism has evolved into a big
industry. Reading about Uganda’s giant
gorillas and monkeys was insightful.
It seems like a fun place to go to.
Greg Westergaard, on the web
2017 Forbes india
celebrity 100
By Neeraj Gangal &
Salil Panchal
Click Here
Blogs Multimedia
Follow us on
Having no life is the new
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It used to be that we equated power
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what that means for consumer marketing
For women, self-confidence
not enough for workplace
success
Appearing self-confident in office does
not yield rewards. And men and women
are looked at differently
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 LeaderBoard
US Nod for Biocon It’s Alibaba Vs Google Has a Go at Professor Investor
Holds Big Promise Amazon Next Billion Users VC legend Ted
Approval raises hopes The Chinese e-tailer New Android Dintersmith on the
for India’s pharma is betting on strategic version targets basic American school
companies P/18 investments P/20 smartphones P/21 system P/22

virtual wealth
The first transaction involving

Welcome to the bitcoins was reported on May 22,

2010 when a Florida-based pro-
grammer traded 10,000 bitcoins

Digital Gold Rush for two Domino’s pizzas. As of

December 11, 2017, that’s worth
about $164 million.

Prices of bitcoin have hit heady levels globally but

there may be some method in the mania, although has shot up by 60 percent on the
news of the CBOE listing.
back home the Reserve Bank has advised caution The listing also means that bitcoins
are now slowly, but surely, getting
into the hands of institutions. The
expectation is that this will bring
sanity to valuations. After all, retail
investors are not known for pricing
an asset correctly. Now, at such
high prices, individual investors are
more likely to sell their bitcoins to
institutional investors like hedge
funds and alternative asset funds.
Most investors are valuing bitcoins
as digital gold. Just like gold, bitcoin
needs to be mined and is also available
in limited quantity. Mining of bitcoin
requires a lot of electricity and as
long as prices remain high there will
be more miners who will join the
bandwagon. According to an article
in Bitcoin Bytes, a website dedicated
on december 10, a new bitcoin before settling at $17,800. The heavy to news on cryptocurrencies, bitcoin
futures contract listed on the Chicago activity on the CBOE made one thing mining consumes 9,636 gigawatts of
Board Options Exchange (CBOE) crystal clear: Bitcoin, as an asset energy a year in current conditions.
and started trading at $15,400 levels. class, had entered the investment In other words, bitcoins consume as
Nothing unusual there, mainstream—not just much energy as 5,20,000 Canadians
considering that the in the US but in India, on a daily basis. But that may not
digital currency was The identity of bitcoin’s too, where investors be a reason to panic. Here’s why.
creator is a mystery.
quoting a little over have been riding the A bitcoin block—transaction data is
He (or she) goes by
$16,000 that day in the pseudonym
boom, throwing caution permanently recorded in files called
the spot market. Satoshi Nakamoto. In from the Reserve blocks—consumes an average of 183
But the new contract Bank of India to the MW, which costs $3,600. At a price of
sameer pawar

a nod to him, the

didn’t quite stay around smallest unit of bitcoin winds. Over the past $18,850, the venture is still profitable
$15,400 that day. Soon, is called a Satoshi. month, the price of as miners will now put in more
it surged to $18,850 the virtual currency powerful machines to mine bitcoins.

16 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 Toss of a Bitcoin
The process will go
16.7 million on till there is an
bitcoins are equilibrium where
currently in the incentives for The digital currency has been on a bull run like no other.
circulation. new miners should
Stakeholders weigh in on the frenzy
ideally decrease
as many of them by Varsha Meghani
will try to sell bitcoins at high prices.
Fair value is around $1,000 Madness on both sides
Around 1,800 bitcoins are mined
“I am a firm believer in blockchain “Which is more crazy: That bitcoin
daily through a million machines. If
technology and bitcoin but has a market capitalisation of a
more machines come to the network,
the current price rally is pure couple of hundred billion dollars, or
then the cost of production rises.
speculation. It’s a pump-and- that 11 trillion dollars of bonds are
“Assume that today, miners are
dump scheme led by traders who trading at a negative yield, which
getting 1,800 bitcoins as rewards on
are artificially raising the price of means that people are lending
a daily basis. In 2020, this number
bitcoin. It’s a bubble that has to money with the full knowledge
will go down to 900 bitcoins per day.
burst. In my view, prices will crash that they will not even receive
So the number of bitcoins is reducing
by around 80 percent in the second the full principal back let alone
and miners are increasing,” explains
quarter of 2018. I have already earn any interest? After the global
Vishal Gupta, CEO, SearchTrade,
started shorting my bitcoins, and financial crisis of 2008, many
a search engine company that uses
am moving to altcoins [alternative feel that the actions of central
bitcoins to pay users when they
cryptocurrencies], which are bankers have been reckless, and it
search on the platform. “This is
currently more stable. I think the is no wonder that these people are
raising the cost of mining. So if
fair value of bitcoin should be attracted to a currency that is not
someone says bitcoins will touch
around $1,000.” subject to the whims and fancies of
$100,000 in some time, I don’t see
Sanjay Mehta central bankers. There is madness
that as unrealistic at all. Every time
Serial entrepreneur-turned- on both sides (fiat currencies
mining doubles, the price goes angel investor of advanced countries and
up by ten times,” adds Gupta.
cryptocurrencies) and it is best to
Valuing bitcoins though may be a
hazardous task. Aswath Damodaran,
This is not a bubble view both with equal detachment.”
professor of
“With the launch of bitcoin futures Jayanth R Varma
finance at the
trading by CBOE and CME, its Professor of finance and accounting,
credibility has increased and the big IIM Ahmedabad and former Sebi
Stern School of The total
boys of finance—hedge funds and board member
Business, reckons supply of
that since bitcoins is institutional investors—are taking
capped at positions. The recognition is also RBI reiterates its concerns
bitcoin is not a “In the wake of a significant spurt
21 million. prompting retail investors to buy
traditional asset in the valuation of many virtual
class it does not
bitcoins for the fear of missing out.
As more investors get involved, currencies and rapid growth in
have cash flows. Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), the RBI
So what can go wrong? In a
the demand for bitcoin increases,
and because supply is limited [at 21 reiterates its concerns regarding
word, everything. While there the potential economic, financial,
is a strong case for bitcoin
million bitcoins], the price is bound
to increase. This price volatility operational, legal, customer
prices remaining high there is a protection and security-related
chance that mining can become
will go on in the short term but
in the long term, bitcoin’s value risks associated in dealing with such
unsustainable due to oversupply. currencies… RBI has also clarified
More importantly, if bitcoin
will go up. This is definitely not
a bubble. It is the most amazing that it has not given any licence/
starts moving from a commodity to a authorisation to any entity to
currency then the currency will need
technology to have been invented
after the internet.” operate or deal with bitcoins or any
to be put to use. If the use of bitcoins virtual currency.”
does not increase then there’s only Saurabh Agrawal
CEO and founder of the bitcoin Reserve Bank of India
one way for its price to go—down.
exchange Zebpay (From a circular dated December 5)
— pravin palande

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 17

 2.5 lakh
The expected number

LeaderBoard
of new cases of breast
cancer among women in
the US in 2017

crowning momenT

US Approval
for Biocon
Holds Bigger
Promise
FDA nod to company’s biosimilar drug
is encouraging for other Indian pharma
companies in the same space
kiran mazumdar-
Shaw’s Biocon Ltd recently
surpassed a significant
milestone, winning the first
approval from the United
States Food and Drug
Administration (USFDA)
for a biosimilar drug
from India. The nod, for a
biological substance used to
treat certain types of breast
and stomach cancer, is seen
as a landmark decision by
the biopharma industry.
“Extraordinary. It’s
an absolute landmark
because the biosimilar
guidelines in the US have
been so tough,” says
Vijay Chandru, chairman
and managing director
of Strand Life Sciences.
Chandru, a professor
at Bengaluru’s Indian
Institute of Science, is a
pioneering entrepreneur in
Bmaximage; Top: ShUTTerSTock
patients from foreign
drugs and local innovator
companies, Chandru says.
“It’s been a real challenge
to get through the USFDA
regulations on biosimilars,”
he adds. Many in the
Indian industry believe
that biosimilars can do
to the next generation of
biotech-led companies
what chemical generic
drugs did to the pharma
companies—make them
large businesses.
Biocon’s win raises
hopes for other Indian
pharma companies—some
already sell biosimilars
in India, including Dr
Reddy’s Laboratories,
Torrent Pharmaceuticals,
Shantha Biotechnics
and Wockhardt. Biocon,
too, sells various other
Kiran Mazumdar-
Shaw, chairman and
managing director
of Biocon Ltd
biosimilar drugs in India.
Biocon collaborated with
Dutch company Mylan NV
to develop its biosimilar
Trastuzumab, which is sold
as Herceptin by the current
intellectual property
owners Roche Holding Ltd
and Genentech Inc. The
biosimilar, comparable in
properties to the original
biologic, will be sold as
Ogivri by Mylan and
Biocon. The breakthrough
gives them a shot at a global
market estimated to be
worth about $6.9 billion
to focus on developing
affordable biologics that
can make cancer care
both more effective and
more equitable around
the world,” Mazumdar-
Shaw said in a Biocon
press release. Sources say
Biocon and Mylan may
have invested as much as
$150 million since entering
a partnership in 2010 to
develop their biosimilar.
Herceptin patents
will expire in the US in
2019. Mylan and Biocon’s
biosimilar for Herceptin

the Indian biotech research
ecosystem, and has
previously led the Indian
biotech lobby, Association
of Biotechnology Led
Enterprises (Able).
The US guidelines are
tough in part to protect
and projected to reach
“It’s a landmark nearly $10 billion by 2025.
“The USFDA’s approval
decision as for Trastuzumab is a
biosimilar crowning moment that puts
guidelines in the us in an exclusive league of
US are tough.” global biosimilar players.
It strengthens our resolve
is also under review by
regulatory authorities in
Australia, Canada, Europe
and other markets. The
company says the drug is
approved in 19 countries,
including India.
—harichandan arakali

18 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 LeaderBoard
EcommErcE wars
It’s Alibaba Vs Amazon
How the Chinese e-tailer is counting on a portfolio of strategic
investments to take on its global rival in India
it’s the new
battleground for old
rivals. Alibaba Group has
been slowly and steadily
increasing its footprint
in India, to take on
ecommerce behemoth
Amazon in the country.
While Amazon runs its
own shop, Alibaba is
curating a portfolio of
investments to grab a slice
of the ecommerce market.
Since its entry into
India in 2013, Amazon
has spent aggressively in
building infrastructure—the
company owns a captive
mExico PrEsidEncy / rEUTErs
With the Chinese market reaching its pinnacle, India is key for Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s global plans
20 | forbes india January 5, 2018
logistics unit, operates a
payments arm and has 41
warehouses—as well as
winning over potential
customers with attractive
prices. According to
regulatory filings, Amazon
Seller Services posted
revenue of `3,129 crore
in FY17, as against `2,217
crore in the previous fiscal.
On the other hand,
though Alibaba started
operating in India in
2007, it hasn’t yet taken
India by storm. In fact,
it has burnt its fingers
with an investment
in online marketplace
Snapdeal, which trails
Flipkart and Amazon
significantly in gross sales.
The company has,
however, hit pay dirt with
digital wallet-turned-
financial services company
Paytm. Alibaba first picked
up a stake in Paytm with a
$575-million investment
through its subsidiary Ant
Financial in February 2015,
valuing the company at
about $2 billion. Paytm’s
valuation has since risen
three-fold to about $7
billion. With the Paytm
stake, Alibaba now has a
significant play in India’s
digital payments landscape.
It has also emerged as a big
backer of Paytm’s newly
spun-off ecommerce unit,
Paytm Mall, with a $200-
million investment in the
entity in February 2017.
Apart from Paytm,
Alibaba closed a `120-crore
investment in Chennai-
based online ticketing
platform TicketNew in
June 2017. Paytm, too,
has significant focus
on this segment.
Moreover, Alibaba,
along with Paytm Mall,
is reportedly on course
to invest $250-300
million in online grocer
BigBasket, valuing the
company at $700-800
million. The investment
will mark Paytm’s entry
into India’s nascent
online grocery segment,
a sector pursued by both
Flipkart and Amazon
without notable success.
Alibaba’s increased
interest in India does
not come as a surprise,
considering the Chinese
market has already reached
its pinnacle. According to
a 2016 report by Deloitte,
growth of ecommerce in
China is projected to taper
from 46.9 percent in 2016
to 25.4 percent in 2018.
India, in contrast, is
poised to grow at a fast
clip. An October report by
Morgan Stanley estimates
the Indian ecommerce
market will grow at a
compounded annual
growth rate of 30 percent
between 2017 and 2026
to reach $200 billion. By
 0.5%
share of devices running android oreo
among all android devices, according
to Google’s android developer
numbers released in december

then, about half of the not a short-term or even india firsT

country’s internet users are
expected to shop online.
Alibaba has spoiled
Amazon’s party before,
in China. Singed by the
domination of Alibaba
and its subsidiary Tmall,
Amazon was constrained
to set up a storefront on
Tmall’s marketplace in
March 2015 to survive in
China, a country it had
entered about a decade
ago by acquiring online
bookstore Joyo.com for
a whopping $75 million.
The situation is no better
even now. According to
a February 2017 report
by iResearch Consulting
Group, Tmall enjoyed a
56 percent market share
Alibaba wants a piece of the pie in
all key enablers of ecommerce, be it
payments, logistics or grocery delivery
in China in 2016, while
Amazon’s share was a
piddling 0.8 percent.
It’s a different story
here. While Amazon has
committed a $5-billion
war chest to its Indian
subsidiary to fight local
incumbent Flipkart,
Alibaba has been taking it
slow. Its intent, though, is
quite clear. The company
wants a piece of the pie
in all key enablers of
ecommerce, be it payments,
logistics or services with
frequent usage, such as
food or grocery delivery.
“There have been lots
a medium-term play for
them [Alibaba], but a very
long-term strategy. It looks
like they would rather
take time and enter into
really strong partnerships
meant for the long-term,
rather than do trial and
error,” says Vinod Murali,
managing partner at Alteria
Capital, a venture debt firm.
“It is about how much
of a customer’s wallet
they can get. Every area of
expenditure is a possible
vertical and anything that is
available at a decent price
point, where customer
acquisition starts paying
a lot of dividend, can
be a play,” he adds.
Besides, another big
backer of Indian startups,
SoftBank, is an Alibaba
ally. SoftBank is among
Alibaba’s early investors—it
first invested in Alibaba in
2000—and owns about 25
percent in the company.
SoftBank is also an
investor in Flipkart. It is
thus unlikely that their
respective portfolios will
bleed each other for long,
though neither Flipkart
nor Paytm has shown any
sign of joining hands yet.
It remains to be
seen which strategy
will pay dividends, but
Alibaba’s steady surge
Google Has a Go at
Next Billion Users
Company launches reconfigured Android Oreo
for entry-level smartphone users in India
google has rolled out
a customised version of
Oreo, its latest Android
configuration, to power
entry-level smartphones
in India and cash in
on the emerging app
economy in the country.
This new edition,
christened Oreo ‘Go
Edition’, is particularly
useful on devices with
RAM—random access
memory, the storage used
by the processor to do its
work on the phone—as low
as 512 MB, and on-board
storage as low as 8 GB.
For instance, the Google
search app that takes up
209 MB when installed
in a phone running the
Nougat, or version 7 of
Android, will take up only
11.7 MB in its ‘Go’ form.
This search app also has
features meant to help first-
time smartphone users get
better acquainted with the
net, translating something
with just a tap, for instance.
Other apps include one that
allows users to flush out
unwanted files and save
storage, and a two-wheeler
mode in Google Maps. This
mode will include shortcuts
that can only be accessed
with two-wheelers or
landmarks that can be
while on the move.
“These products and
features are India-first,
but if we’ve seen anything
over the last few years,
India-first ideas aren’t just
useful to people in India.
The mobile-first next
billion users are changing
the very nature of the
internet, so when we build
better products for India,
we ultimately build better
products for everyone,”
says Caesar Sengupta, a
vice-president at Google
who heads the company’s
‘Next Billion’ projects, in
a blog post on December
5, the day the apps were
launched in New Delhi.
Google has had to
change tack to reach the
next billion users after its
Android One initiative—
launched a few years
ago to provide quality
software experience on
locally-manufactured,
affordable hardware—
failed to take off in India.
Its India-centric
strategy came to the fore
in September when it
launched payments app
Google Tez, which is
said to have had nearly
12 million active users
and processed over 140
million transactions in
sHUTTErsTock

of discussions, but clearly, is something Amazon checked in advance on a a short span of time,
there is no urgency in can ill afford to ignore. route so a rider doesn’t Sengupta said in his post.
finishing things. This is —sayan cHakraborTy have to fish out his phone —HaricHandan arakali

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 21

 LeaderBoard
rebooting eDucAtion

Professor Investor phiLAnthropY

VC legend Ted Dintersmith on disrupting the
school system and life’s most important class Big-Dollar Bets
These donations to help spur social change
were last year’s most inspiring gifts—and
those likeliest to succeed
large fortunes beget large gifts, and more
than ever, prominent philanthropists are anteing up
$25 million–plus to help tackle problems of poverty,
disease, substandard education and more. Boston’s
Bridgespan Group found 74 such gifts in 2016,
totalling $6.7 billion. Its panel of outside experts then
ranked the 10 listed below as the most promising. For
more, please see forbes.com/big-bets-2017.
—KerrY A DoLAn

Q You were a successful
venture capitalist. Now
you want to take a
wrecking ball to college
education. Why?
Watching my kids in
school and saying, “What
the hell?” It’s as though
educators want to crush
out of kids the very skills
and mindsets they need.
Q Why are educators
doing that?
They follow a 125-year-old
model. But now it’s much
worse, with this Game Of
Thrones competition to get
into the best colleges.
Q Is online education
the answer?
Let me be the skunk at
the garden party: Making
Q What are the
better things?
Stop requiring calculus,
for one, and start requiring
statistics instead. Ask,
“Hey, Boeing, Microsoft:
Anyone here doing
integrals and derivatives
by hand?” That’s laughable.
It’s done computationally.
But statistics—every
company I talk to is
desperate for somebody
with data analytics
capability, where statistics
is essential.
Q You recently spoke
about this to 250 college
admissions directors.
What did they say?
They said, “We like
calculus because it’s hard.
It’s a good way to compare
1.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis & Malaria
BIll AnD MelInDA GATeS
$600 million
The Gates Foundation’s money,
augmenting $12.9 billion donated
by others, aims to save some
8 million lives and prevent
300 million more from contracting
these diseases.
2. (tie)
Innovative Vector
Control Consortium
BIll AnD MelInDA GATeS
$75 million
The funds go toward continued
development of a trio of
insecticides to prevent the spread
of malaria and other illnesses.
2. (tie)
nurse Family Partnership
Blue MerIDIAn PArTnerS
$33 million
Helps finance expansion of NFP
home-visitation programmes
across the US and improve
pregnancy and other health
outcomes for 100,000 young,
lower-income, first-time mothers
and their children.
4.
Susan G Komen
African-American Health
equity Initiative
FunD II FounDATIon
$27 million
This Komen programme seeks to
reduce the black-white breast
cancer mortality-rate gap across
ten US metro areas over five years.
5. (tie)
Youth Villages
Blue MerIDIAn PArTnerS
$36 million
The donation will help launch and
finance YVLifeSet, a programme to
aid the 23,000 Americans who age
out of the foster-care system every
year, assisting their transition to
independent adulthood.
7.
Alliance for a
Green revolution in Africa
roCKeFeller FounDATIon
$50 million
AGRA works to help small farmers
across Africa triple or quadruple
their production through better
technology and storage.
8.
Cohens Veterans network
STeVen AnD
AlexAnDrA CoHen
$275 million
The hedge-funder and his wife
founded this network of 25 clinics
that treat—for free—veterans
(and their families) who have
post-traumatic stress and
other ailments.
9.
united negro
College Fund
FunD II FounDATIon
$48 million
The foundation’s money will go
toward mentoring, internships and
college scholarships for African-
American students interested in
science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM).

it easier for kids to shove the kids.” What a bad 5. (tie) 10.
Tobacco Control Building equity Initiative
math procedures into their justification.
top right: john weber

MICHAel BlooMBerG WAlTon FAMIlY

short-term memory is not
reimagining education. We
don’t need to do obsolete
things better; we need to
do better things.
Ted Dintersmith spoke with Rich
Karlgaard, Forbes’s editor-at-
large and Global Futurist. This
interview has been edited and
condensed. For the extended
conversation, visit forbes.com/
sites/richkarlgaard
$360 million $250 million
Building on $600 million he has Founded in 1997, the Waltons’
given since 2007, New York’s BEI finances low-interest loans
ex-mayor aims to reduce tobacco to non-profit lenders that help
use in developing countries where charter schools nationwide secure
smoking remains widespread. and upgrade their facilities.
Donations to universities, hospitals and cultural institutions are not
included. The list limits donors to two spots apiece in the top ten.

22 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 A New Normal Winds of change swept through the Forbes India
Celebrity 100 this year
by Salil Panchal & neeraj GanGal

24 | forbes india january 5, 2018

S
Salman Khan. Shah RuKh Khan.
ViRat Kohli.
The methodology (see box)
for calculating the Forbes India
Celebrity 100 List has changed, but
its top three names have remained
constant. Salman Khan, for the second
successive year, is at No 1, despite
the subdued box office performance
of his film Tubelight. The 51-year-
old actor earned `232.83 crore,
backed by endorsements of several
consumer-facing brands. In fact, his
earnings constitute 8.67 percent of
the total earnings—`2,683 crore—of
the top 100 celebrities for the year.
Shah Rukh Khan, with `170.5
crore, also retained his position at No
2, as did India’s cricket captain Virat
Kohli, with `100.72 crore, at No 3.
But although the top three held on to
their ranks, their cumulative earnings
declined by almost 20 percent,
down to `504.05 crore compared to
last year’s total of `626.52 crore.
Shuttler PV Sindhu (`57.25
crore) was the highest money
gainer (in percentage terms), as
her total earnings soared nearly 17
times, propelled by several brand
endorsements following her 2016
Rio Olympics silver medal.
The revised methodology this
year, focusing only on a celebrity’s
earnings (compared to the previous
combination of ‘fame’ and ‘earnings’),
has increased representation from the
prolific South Indian film industry.
There are 13 actors from the South
this year as against 11 last year. And,
given their strong numbers, they are
likely to consolidate their positions.
The number of Bollywood actors
is down from 35 to 33, reducing
their cumulative earnings by 13
percent from the previous year. A
reason for the dip is also the fewer
releases for most of the top actors,
as well as a forgettable year at the
box office. Leave Aamir Khan’s
Dangal and SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali
2: The Conclusion aside and there
was not much to talk about, barring
the recent hit comedy Judwaa 2.
There is one woman in the top 10,
Priyanka Chopra (No 7; `68 crore),
as she continued to make her mark
internationally. At 21, there are eight
fewer women than last year, perhaps
due to the exclusion of the ‘fame’
quotient, which was given substantial
weightage in our previous years’
computations. (This, in a way, points
to the pay disparity arguments that
female actors have been making
with increasing intensity.) But
Chopra, Deepika Padukone (No 11;
`59.45 crore ) and Sindhu seemed
to have bucked the stereotype.
The vagaries of celebritydom
are all too well-known: Consider
the declining overall earnings of
the Celebrity 100, which is down
from `2,819 crore in 2015 to `2,745
crore in 2016 to `2,683 crore this
year. This list attempts to chronicle
this rollercoaster ride, and also
reflects the changing ways in which
we consume entertainment.
Social media and word-of-
mouth are the strongest tools to
influence opinions. Alternative
media and platforms such as
Amazon Prime, Netflix, Star
India’s Hotstar, Viacom 18’s Voot
and other over-the-top platforms
have made home entertainment
a more attractive option.
It has also become clear that stars
of the future will not be limited
to films or television and will
include those from the internet.
Simply put, expect some
surprises in the coming years.
M eth o do logy
The 2017 Forbes India Celebrity 100
List rankings are based on estimates
of entertainment-related earnings of
celebrities. Please note that unlike
previous editions of the List, and in
alignment with the Forbes methodology,
we have excluded the ‘fame’ quotient
to determine the ranks. The period
under consideration is October 1,
2016, to September 30, 2017.
HOW THE EARNINGS
WERE CALCULATED
For each celebrity, depending on category,
we sought independent estimates from
multiple sources—industry insiders,
talent management agencies, film and
TV production companies, publishers,
music industry professionals, sports
consultants, advertising and media
agencies, brand marketers, celebrity
managers and other relevant experts.
Our principal partners for the 2017 Forbes
India Celebrity 100 List include GroupM
ESP, Globosport, Exceed Entertainment,
boxofficeindia.co.in, indiantelevision.
com, indianwikimedia.com and Galatta.
The entire process was verified and
validated by Ey, our process advisors.
note: The sources of earnings vary according to the
category. For each celebrity, the primary sources of his/her
earnings have been considered. These include professional
fees and remuneration (including winnings but not govern-
ment grants), royalties, or front-of-camera (film, television)
appearances for all celebrities; but exclude live shows/
events (except for singers/musicians and comedians),
interest and dividend income, leave and licence fees, income
from businesses, investments, agriculture, over-the-top and
social media platforms, and from special appearances at
events. For an actor-producer or a director-producer, for
instance, we have considered only her/his earnings as an
actor or director, in case of a complete home production.
However, since these estimates are meant for a limited
purpose, they may not be accurate or official and cannot be
relied upon for any legal or compliance purposes. The rat-
ings given are subjective and may not necessarily reflect the
actual financial worth of the persons featured. The numbers
are, therefore, merely indicative.
We (at Forbes India magazine, Digital18 Media Limited)
have done our best to verify the information published, but
do not take any responsibility for the absolute accuracy of
the information.
Celeb 100 list Compiled by
anShul Dhamija, KathaKali chanDa,
Kunal PuranDare, monica Bathija,
neeraj GanGal, Pravin PalanDe,
ruchiKa Shah anD Salil Panchal
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 25
 Virat Kohli (rank 3):
A RunAwAy Hit
Virat Kohli steamrolled
through 2017 as one of the
most successful cricketers
of the year, ratcheting up
2,818 runs, the third highest
tally ever in a calendar year
after Sri Lankan Kumara
Sangakkara and Aussie
Ricky Ponting. Kohli (29),
who finished the year as
ICC’s top ODI and T20
batsman, also led India to
nine consecutive Test series
wins, equalling Ponting’s
record, and the No 1
ranking. During our time
period, he notched up eight
Test (five double hundreds
included) and seven ODI
centuries, completing 1,000
runs in both formats of the
game. His cricketing might
coupled with urbanity have
made him a darling of the
brands, earning him 18
endorsements, the highest
among all sportspersons.
But, a late-convert fitness
freak, Kohli leads by
example off the field too,
turning down a multi-crore
endorsement offer from
a soft drinks company. In
December, he got married
to actor Anushka Sharma in
a private ceremony in Italy.
TISSOT

26 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 The list

1
salman Khan
` 232.83 crore
Actor

2
shah ruKh Khan
` 170.50 crore
Actor

3
Virat Kohli
` 100.72 crore
SportS

4
aKshay Kumar
` 98.25 crore
Actor

5
sachin tendulKar
` 82.50 crore
SportS

6
aamir Khan
` 68.75 crore
Actor

7
priyanKa chopra
` 68 crore
Actor

8
ms dhoni
` 63.77 crore
SportS

9
hrithiK roshan
` 63.12 crore
Actor

10
ranVeer singh
` 62.63 crore
aamir Khan (rank 6): wREStLE MAniA Actor

aamir Khan (52) has liVed up to his film PK (2014) was the first to enter 11
reputation of churning out quality the `300-crore club. He continued his deepiKa paduKone*
cinema while ruling the box office. His golden run with another acclaimed ` 59.45 crore
2016 film Dangal became Bollywood’s Actor
film, Secret Superstar, which released
highest grosser minting `540 crore in in October 2017. Khan not only had an 12
domestic collections alone. According extended cameo that was lauded, but ar rahman
to Forbes, the biopic of former wrestling also produced the film, which traced the ` 57.63 crore
coach Mahavir Singh Phogat is the journey of a schoolgirl who aspires to Singer/MuSiciAn
first Indian movie to earn `2,000 become a singer. It had earned over `50
crore worldwide. Khan’s previous crore at the box office by October-end. 13
pV sindhu
` 57.25 crore
*
Deepika Padukone’s team has claimed higher earnings but this is the estimate SportS
on the basis of the methodology adopted by Forbes India.

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 27

 Kapil Sharma (RAnK 18):
The Show muST go on
Kapil Sharma’S (36)
journey from humble
beginnings in Amritsar
to the top of the charts of
entertainment television
channels is hardly
unknown to TV-loving
Indians. While his rise
has been meteoric—his
second film Firangi
released on December 1—
there have been questions
on whether he may have
passed his peak. When
his once-popular show
Comedy Nights with
Kapil was taken off air in
2016, Sharma managed
to stay in the limelight
with The Kapil Sharma
Show, which was soon
scripted and sent on air.
But early this year, the
second show too was
pulled off air because of
controversies he had with
his peers. Sharma and his
long-time girlfriend Ginni
Chatrath are expected to
tie the knot in early 2018.

SS raJamouli (RAnK 15):

making iT large

The Telugu direcTor The sequel, Baahubali

burst into prominence
beyond Tollywood
with Baahubali: The
Beginning (2015), which
had a dream run at the
RAJAMOULI: P AnIL KUMAR fOR fORbes IndIA
2: The Conclusion, was a
bigger success making
Rajamouli a household
name. Having started his
career as a director of

box office nationally television programmes,

and internationally.
Made with a budget
of `180 crore, it is one
of the most expensive
films ever produced
in India. Interestingly,
Rajamouli (44) made a
blink-and-you-miss-it
appearance in the film.
Rajamouli is known to
helm out-of-the-box
projects, be it with
Baahubali, which was
rich on special effects,
Sye (2004), which
revolved around a
rugby match, or Eega
(2012), a fantasy film.

28 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 The list

14
praBhaS (RAnK 22): BruTe ranBir Kapoor
BoX oFFiCe STrengTh ` 55.33 crore
Actor
for The Telugu STar, 2017 haS
been a terrific year. Baahubali 2: The 15
Conclusion, the sequel to Baahubali: SS raJamouli
` 55 crore
The Beginning (2015), had a record-
Director
breaking domestic box office
collection, earning over `500 crore 16
from its Hindi version alone. The aJay deVgn
epic fantasy drama, originally made ` 48.83 crore
in Telugu and Tamil, was dubbed Actor
in multiple Indian and foreign
languages and went on to earn an 17
ariJiT Singh
estimated `1,700 crore worldwide. ` 48.67 crore
Prabhas (38), who debuted on the Singer/MuSiciAn
Forbes India Celebrity 100 List in
2015, is said to have been offered 18
several brand endorsements worth Kapil Sharma
`18 crore during the filming of ` 48 crore
tV PerSonAlity
Baahubali 2 but rejected them as
he wanted to focus on the film. In 19
the past, he has endorsed sports Varun dhawan
utility vehicle Mahindra XUV 500. ` 43.50 crore
Actor

20
amiTaBh Bachchan
` 40 crore
Actor

21
alia BhaTT
` 39.88 crore
Actor

22
praBhaS
` 36.25 crore
Actor

23
raVichandran aShwin
` 34.67 crore
SPortS

SanJeeV Kapoor (RAnK 34): a DiVerSe PlaTTer 24

raVindra JadeJa
The counTry’S firST show in Asia (at 18 years), premium cookware and ` 34.58 crore
television celebrity chef, glamourising cooking for bottled gourmet goodies, SPortS
Sanjeev Kapoor makes urban Indian households and about 150 cookbooks.
25
sAnJeev: sAchIn GOKhALe

it to the Celebrity 100 for the first time. He now Kapoor was honoured Suriya
List for the second year lords over a business with the Padma Shri in ` 34 crore
running. The 53-year- empire that is valued 2017 for his gastronomic Actor
old started off with one at over `1,000 crore exploits, putting him in
show, Khana Khazana, and includes a 24-hour the league of culinary 26
in 1992 that was the cooking channel, a chain elites like Tarla Dalal Kangana ranauT
` 32 crore
longest-running cookery of restaurants, a range of and Imtiaz Qureshi.
Actor

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 29

 Show Me
The Money
Strategic investments and
entrepreneurship are key tools for
celebrities to ramp up their brand
value. Here’s what some of the top
shots are dabbling in
by Ruchika Shah
khan: Subi Samuel / hinduStan timeS via Getty imaGeS; kohli: Jan kruGer-idi / idi via Getty imaGeS

VIRAT KOHLI

one8: Own brand to licence name to companies for special

SHAH RUKH KHAN
Red Chillies: Film production, state-of-the-art visual
effects studio, event management
Kidzania: Equity stake in edutainment park
KolKata Knight RideRs: Co-owns the two-time
champion, one of the few profitable teams in the Indian
Premier League
Cape town Knight RideRs: Along with GMR, bought in
Cricket South Africa’s new T20 Global League in June 2017
tRinbago Knight RideRs: Co-owns stake in two-time
Caribbean Premier League winner
edition products
wRogn: Co-owns the fashion retail brand
spoRt Convo: Backs London-based startup for sports
fans to share content and network
FC goa: Co-owner of Indian Super League’s Goan outfit
Chisel gyms: Chain of gyms and fitness centres
stepathlon Kids: Technology-driven online fitness
platform for children
muveaCoustiCs: Range of acoustics in association
with Hong Kong-based Zeeva
uae Royals: Co-owns a team in the International
Premier Tennis League (IPTL), which has been called
off this year due to financial troubles

30 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 The list

SACHIN TENDULKAR 27
Ajith KumAr
` 31.75 crore
smaaash enteRtainment: Investor in
Actor
a sports and gaming arena
univeRsal ColleCtabillia: Owns 21 28
percent stake in Universal Sportsbiz, a sports SAlim-SulAimAn
merchandising and fashion retail startup ` 31.05 crore
sRt spoRts: Owns sports management Singer/MuSiciAn
company
tRue blue: Co-owns fashion retail brand 29
SAinA nehwAl
in partnership with Arvind Fashion Brands ` 31 crore
smaRtRon: Investor in Internet of Things SportS
and Original Equipment Manufacturing
startup 30
saChin by spaRtan: Investor and advisor rohit ShArmA
with the Indian arm of Australian sporting ` 30.82 crore
gear firm SportS
KeRala blasteRs: Has 60 percent stake in
31
the Indian Super League (ISL) team VijAy
tamil thalaivas: Co-owns Tamil Nadu ` 29 crore
franchise in Pro-Kabaddi League Actor
bengaluRu blasteRs: Co-owns Bengaluru
franchise in the Premier Badminton League 32
indian aCes: Co-owns the IPTL franchise AnuShKA ShArmA
` 28.25 crore
Actor

YUVRAJ SINGH 33
PritAm
youweCan ventuRes teChnologies ` 25.69 crore
llp: Co-founded a seed fund with `50 Singer/MuSiciAn

tendulkar: mexy xavier; yuvraJ: dave m. benett / Getty imaGeS; dhoni: daniSh Siddiqui/reuterS
crore corpus to invest in internet startups.
Beneficiaries include Healthians, Cartisan, 34
SAnjeeV KAPoor
Sports365, SportyBeans, JetSetGo,
` 24.85 crore
EazyDiner tV perSonAlity
yRal: Digital marketing agency, a joint
venture with AdLift 35
youweCan: Forayed into the fashion retail BAdShAh
sector with clothing range designed by ` 23.14 crore
Shantanu and Nikhil Singer/MuSiciAn
yuvRaj singh CentRe oF exCellenCe:
36
Cricket training academy rAnA dAgguBAti
` 22 crore
Actor

37
MS DHONI mAheSh BABu
` 19.63 crore
Actor
seven by ms dhoni: Co-owner of
lifestyle brand 38
Fit7 and spoRtsFit: Co-owns the fitness miKA Singh
and gym brands ` 18.59 crore
biKe Festival oF india: Co-owns two-day Singer/MuSiciAn
grand biking fiesta
Chennaiyin FC: Co-owns ISL team along
39
jAyAm rAVi
with Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan ` 18 crore
RanChi Rays: Co-owner of Indian Hockey Actor
League team representing his hometown

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 31

 VIJAY (RANK 31):
HABITUAL HIT MAKER
VIJAY (43) HAD A BLOCKBUSTER
2017, starting on a high note
with the Tamil action film
Bairavaa, which garnered
`100 crore within four days
of its release in January. The
Tamil superstar continued
his strong run at the box
office with his second film
Mersal, an action-thriller.
According to Forbes, Mersal
is among only three Tamil
films to touch the `250-crore
mark in worldwide box office
collections. (The other two are
Rajinikanth’s Enthiran in 2010
and Kabali in 2016.) As one
of the most bankable actors
in Kollywood, Vijay is seen as
the successor to Rajinikanth’s
supremacy at the box office.

BADSHAH (RANK 35):

THE RIGHT NOTES

FROM BECOMING A FATHER TO A

baby girl to belting out
chartbusters, singer Badshah (32),
or Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia,
had a memorable 2017. He began
with the hit ‘Humma Humma’
in OK Jaanu and followed that
with the immensely popular
‘Tamma Tamma’ in Badrinath
Ki Dulhania. His new single
‘Mercy’, which features dancer
Lauren Gottlieb, is an internet
sensation, with over 12 million
views on YouTube so far. His
previous songs too continue to
do well: ‘Kala Chashma’ from
Baar Baar Dekho (2016) has
crossed 300 million views on
YouTube. He has now been
roped in to host MTV’s House
Party, a music show in which
he will be sharing his favourite
party songs with viewers.

32 | FORBES INDIA JANUARY 5, 2018

 The LIST

40
KARAN JOHAR (RANK 52): SONU NIGAM
STAR OF MANY STRIPES ` 17.35 crore
SINGER/MUSICIAN
THOUGH HE DID NOT DIRECT A MOVIE
in the period under consideration, Karan 41
SUNIDHI CHAUHAN
Johar (45) and his production house, ` 16.17 crore
Dharma Productions, produced three SINGER/MUSICIAN
films—OK Jaanu, Badrinath Ki Dulhania
and Ittefaq—in 2017. While the first sank 42
without a trace at the box office, the other SHANKAR-EHSAAN-LOY
two were well-received. But Johar laughed ` 16 crore
SINGER/MUSICIAN
all the way to the bank by being distributor
to the Hindi version of Baahubali 2: The 43
Conclusion, which earned `511.30 crore SHIKHAR DHAWAN
at the box office, making it the most ` 15.94 crore
successful movie of 2017. He has kick- SPORTS
started the shooting of his next directorial,
a segment for Bombay Talkies 2, which 44
stars Masaan actor Vicky Kaushal. Last SHAHID KAPOOR
` 15.88 crore
year, too, Johar hosted his popular talk ACTOR
show Koffee With Karan on which the
who’s who of the film industry made an 45
appearance. He has now turned radio SONAKSHI SINHA
jockey, playing the role of a love guru for ` 15.13 crore

BADSHAH: SHIVAM SAXENA / HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES; KARAN: AVINASH GOWARIKAR; JACQUELINE: TIANA KAMTE
a radio programme called Calling Karan. ACTOR

46
JACQUELINE NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI
FERNANDEZ (RANK ` 15.10 crore
57): A MIXED YEAR ACTOR

JACQUELINE FERNANDEZ 47
(32) struck gold at the box KABIR KHAN
` 15 crore
office with Judwaa 2, which
DIRECTOR
was 2017’s third-highest
Bollywood grosser with 47
collections of `138 crore. KAREENA KAPOOR KHAN
In the remake of the 1997 ` 15 crore
Salman Khan-starrer, she ACTOR
played her character with
aplomb, and charmed the 49
ALL INDIA BAKCHOD
audience with her comic ` 14.95 crore
timing. The success saw COMEDIAN
her being flooded with
endorsement offers. Her 50
other release, A Gentleman: DAVID DHAWAN
Sundar, Susheel, Risky, ` 14.75 crore
DIRECTOR
got a mixed box office
response, although 51
Fernandez pulled off IRRFAN KHAN
daring stunts in the film. ` 14.38 crore
She featured in Chandran ACTOR
Rutnam’s English crime-
thriller According to 52
Matthew. Her 2018 lineup KARAN JOHAR
` 14.13 crore
includes Drive and Race 3. TV PERSONALITY

JANUARY 5, 2018 FORBES INDIA | 33

 No Writers’ Block
Authors who have become literary brands are now attempting
to stretch their wings and create new revenue streams
Ashwin Sanghi’s career as an author was sealed when his The Rozabal Line sold 70,000-80,000 copies
When Writer AshWin
Sanghi was writing his first
novel, The Rozabal Line, it
was just a matter of getting
it done and published. The
first print run was 2,500
copies and it was anybody’s
KalpaK pathaK / hindustan times via Getty imaGes
guess whether there would
be a second book. It was
only when sales touched
70,000-80,000 copies that
Sanghi knew a second book
would happen. “Once you
have a successful book
out there then to a very
great extent your inertia
is also affected because
your publisher then starts
following up,” he says.
And only when the second
34 | forbes india january 5, 2018
By Monica Bathija
one—Chanakya’s Chant,
in 2010, a year after The
Rozabal Line—did well was
he convinced that there
should be no looking back.
He went on to complete
his third mythology-based
fiction The Krishna Key
(2012), after which he
co-wrote two books in
the Private series with
American crime writer
James Patterson, and
a non-fiction 13 Steps
series, co-written with
domain experts.
Unlike Sanghi, whose
writing career was more
or less unplanned, author
Amish Tripathi says he had
a very clear plan in his head
right from his first book: To
create an interconnected
universe of characters,
much like the Marvel
Universe, over the years.
His Immortals of Meluha
was the first in a trilogy on
Shiva and, two books down
in the second trilogy about
Ram, he points at the clues
he has left in each book that
bind not just the current
series but also the earlier
one. “If I had spoken about
the clues at that time people
would have said, ‘yeah,
yeah, you’ve got a 25-year
plan’. They wouldn’t have
believed it. But now that
the Ram Chandra series
has come out, people can
see the interconnectedness.
So now when I say this,
they can say ‘haan plan
hai’ [Yes, there’s a plan].”
The plan is to set up
a sort of writers’ centre.
“A project I am starting,
incorporating a company,
involves hiring writers. I
will tell them the story and
they will write the book,
which I will supervise.
What it does is, [it]
expands my capacity. It
has been done abroad. I
have started working on
some fiction books on this
model already,” he says,
adding his aim is to grow
it into a proper media
company that will then also
produce movies, TV series
and the like, based on his
interconnected world.
Even as readers don’t
seem to be getting enough
of their work, writers who
struck gold a decade or so
ago with their first books
are increasingly making
the most of their success.
This doesn’t just involve
churning out more pulp
on their own but setting
up content companies
and collaborative writing.
Having made a name for
themselves, the attempt
now is to extend the
brand and create new
 The list

52
John AbrAhAm
` 14.13 crore
Actor

54
ViJAy sethupAthi
` 14.08 crore
Actor

Writer Chetan Bhagat’s website has T-shirts with the author’s quotes on sale
revenue streams.
The success of Anand
Neelakantan’s Asura
proved there was a
market for mythology
of a less conventional
variety—while Asura is
the Ramayan written from
Raavan’s perspective,
the Ajaya series is the
Mahabharata from
Duryodhana’s point of view.
It also brought his
way the writing of the
prequel to the story of the
hit Baahubali films, after
director SS Rajamouli
approached him to tell
the historical epic in three
books that are planned to
be made into a mini-series.
And besides a 10-book deal
(five with Westland, four
with Penguin and one with
Jaico, two of which are
non-fiction) Neelakantan
is looking at forming a
content company so that
he can bring to the world
the folk and oral tales
he has been collecting
over the last 25 years.
“We have a huge oral and
performing arts tradition,
and that is my source,” he
says, adding he has nearly
18,000 stories. “I can keep
churning out stories as long
as I have time, that’s what
I believe. There is no end
to it, no dearth of stories.
But there’s only that much
I can do. Twenty years ago,
outsourcing changed the
Indian IT industry; I
believe if we can find
a business model, we
can supply stories to
the entire world.”
It’s a model that has
worked in the West,
points out Anish Chandy,
head of digital business
development and offline
sales at Juggernaut Books,
adding that while he
sees a similar attempt
in India, he isn’t quite
sure it will work here.
“Right now I don’t see
a trend of writers who
are monetising, but they
are trying to. There are
writers like Amish, Chetan
Bhagat, Ravindra Singh,
Twinkle Khanna; you
could also include people
like Ramachandra Guha
55
sonAm KApoor
` 14 crore
Actor
56
and Amitav Ghosh, who KAtrinA KAif
are successful writers ` 13.83 crore
across genres. Some like Actor
Bhagat branch out into 57
other avenues like speaking JAcqueline fernAndez
and motivational talks, ` 13.63 crore
but most writers haven’t Actor
created platforms, apart
58
from their books, that KAJol
they can monetise.” ` 13.38 crore
Bhagat, who is also in the Actor
Bollywood space, remains
in a league of his own as 59
dilJit dosAnJh
a brand; his website for ` 13.36 crore
instance also has T-shirts Singer/MuSiciAn
and frames with the
author’s quotes on sale. 60
But books will have to milAn luthriA
` 12.67 crore
be at the core. Durjoy Director
Datta, who was picked
up by Penguin Random 61
House in 2013, has written imtiAz Ali
15 in the last decade. Ravi ` 12.50 crore
Director
Subramanian, who has
written nine, has with 61
his latest novel branched sushAnt singh rAJput
out from the world of ` 12.50 crore
shanKar mourya / hindustan times via Getty imaGes
banking to write a general Actor
contemporary thriller. 63
Sanghi writes fiction and AnirbAn lAhiri
non-fiction under three ` 12.44 crore
different categories—the SportS
Bharat series, the Private
series and the 13 Steps
64
nehA KAKKAr
series—while mythologist ` 12.21 crore

“ We Can Supply
Devdutt Pattanaik writes Singer/MuSiciAn
prolifically about lessons
from Indian religious 65
Stories To The World.” texts. He also gives talks,
writes columns and
sAif Ali KhAn
` 12.17 crore
Actor
—Anand Neelakantan hosts TV shows.

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 35

 ‘Liberals Have Not Read
Ancient Indian Texts’
Author Amish TripAThi talks about the scientific theories in his works,
and why Indian mythology is a liberal’s best ally
Amish TripAThi hAs
come a long way since
self-publishing his first
book, The Immortals
of Meluha, in 2010.
(Westland Books, now
acquired by Amazon,
subsequently published
the book in 2016.) Since
then, he has written
four books based on
Indian mythology
which, the publisher
says, have sold four
million copies, and have
been translated into
19 Indian languages.
Tripathi speaks to
Forbes India about his
books and mythology.
Edited excerpts:
Q Do you look
at writers as
brands who are
in a position to
command their price?
I don’t like the term ‘brand’
being used for people. A
brand is something that
is curated and created
after market research.
A person is who he or
she is. Every person or
writer should be true to
themselves. Some readers
Vikas khot
will like it and some will
not. But it is important to
be true to yourself. I don’t
36 | forbes india january 5, 2018
by prAvin pAlAnde
a new deal with an
international over-the-
top platform. Meluha
was earlier going to be a
film, but now it will be a
TV serial. I believe there
is a lot of opportunity
for presenting positive
liberal messages from our
ancient past that can do
good to modern India.
Q How scientific are
the theories in your
books since they are
based on mythology?
Often, technology that we
don’t understand appears
like magic. One of the
things that drives my
thoughts is the concept
of plausibility. Whatever
I write about should be
in the realm of plausible
fantasy. For instance,
the theory behind how
think even sportsmen and somras works is based on
actors should be seen as modern scientific research.
brands. They are people There should be a logical
who endorse brands. connection within the
structure of the book; it
Q What is the update should not be in the realm
on your 2012 deal with of magical realism.
Dharma Productions for
making The Immortals Q You have said that
of Meluha into a film? we need to teach
The rights have been Indian mythology in
moved from Karan Johar’s schools, and it will
company. I have struck only help liberals.
Can you explain?
India’s liberals have not
realised that ancient Indian
culture is their biggest ally.
They don’t allow teaching
of Indian mythology in
our schools. If we allow
that to happen, it will help
the cause of liberalism
in the country. Liberals
have not read ancient
Indian texts; they tend to
primarily read Western
books. If they study
[Indian mythology] and
teach them in our schools,
it will aid their cause.
For instance, if you
want to fight for the rights
of transgenders and you
get international scholars,
they will talk down to us
and explain the plight
of transgenders. But
then there is the other
approach, from Ramayan.
‘Any man, any woman,
any transgender, any plant
or any animal should not
face any differentiation of
religion, caste or gender.
You love each other, you
come to me and you are
my people’. Lord Ram
has said this. Imagine
fighting for transgender
rights using this statement
rather than getting some
Western scholar.
 VIR DAS (rank 75): Desi goes global

VIR DAS (38) hAS been online streaming service

around the world in the last
one year, carving a place for
India on the global map of
comedy. He’s far from being
the only Indian stand-up
doing shows abroad, but he
clinched two major firsts
in 2017. His show Abroad
Understanding was the
first ever Netflix Original
from India; Aditi Mittal
was signed by the US-based
soon after. Das also sealed
a deal to have his own
segment called Rest of the
World on the Late Night
Show with Conan O’Brien
on TBS channel, a first for
an Indian comedian. He
began his Boarding Das
tour in 2017, to perform
in over 20 countries.
Das also starred in a few
films, including Shivaay.

MOhAnLAL (rank 73):

strong anD steaDy

MALAyALAM SupeRStAR one big success, two

Mohanlal (57) went
through a 51-day
fitness regime to
shed 18 kg for his
upcoming film Odiyan,
a fantasy thriller
where his character
can change his form.
In 2017, the five-
time National Award
winner starred in four
films: Munthirivallikal
Thalirkkumbol, 1971:
Beyond Borders,
Velipadinte Pusthakam
and Villain. It was
a mixed year, with
moderate ones and a
flop. Munthirivallikal
Thalirkkumbol
grossed `50 crore
worldwide while
Velipadinte Pusthakam
and Villain earned
`15-20 crore each.
1971: Beyond Borders,
however, tanked with
a collection of `6.7
crore. The actor shows
no signs of fatigue,
with four films slated
for release in 2018—
Odiyan, Lucifer and two
unnamed projects.

38 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 The list

66
SunIL gROVeR (rank 77): tIgeR ShROff
no breaKUP blUes ` 11.94 crore
Actor
ORIgInALLy DISCOVeReD by
the late TV personality and 67
comedian Jaspal Bhatti, Sunil fARhAn AkhtAR
Grover (40) started his career ` 11.92 crore
Actor
with the lead role in SAB TV’s
Gutur Gu in 2010. He achieved 68
fame after playing the characters yuVRAj SIngh
Ghutti, Rinku Bhabhi and Dr ` 11.60 crore
Mashoor Gulati in Comedy SportS
Nights with Kapil and the Kapil
Sharma Show. Earlier this year, 69
pAwAn kALyAn
Grover and Sharma got into an
` 11.33 crore
altercation on a Melbourne- Actor
Delhi flight while the crew
was returning from Australia. 70
After the incident, Grover left DhAnuSh
Comedy with Kapil and has been ` 11.25 crore
ambivalent about working with Actor
Sharma again. Grover has tied up
70
with colleagues Kiku Sharda and VIShAL bhARDwAj
Ali Asgar to launch a new show. ` 11.25 crore
Director

72
pARIneetI ChOpRA
` 11.19 crore
Actor

mohanlal: Yogen Shah / IndIa TodaY group / geTTY ImageS; SunIl: WaSeem gaShroo / hInduSTan
73

TImeS vIa geTTY ImageS; bhagaT: anShuman poYrekar / hInduSTan TImeS vIa geTTY ImageS
MOhAnLAL
` 11.03 crore
Actor

74
ARjun kApOOR
` 10.83 crore
Actor

75
VIR DAS
` 9.95 crore
comeDiAn

76
ChetAn bhAgAt (rank 82): Writing for Millennials ShRADDhA kApOOR
` 9.88 crore
Actor
the wRIteR hAD One bOOk ReLeASe The book also ran into a plagiarism row.
last year, his seventh novel One Indian The movie Half Girlfriend, starring Arjun 77
Girl, which had its share of hype and Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor, based on SunIL gROVeR
controversies. The book’s ads were his 2014 book by the same name, released ` 9.83 crore
displayed on Mumbai’s local trains (a in May. Bhagat co-produced the film. tV perSonAlity
first in the publishing world) and Bhagat The book and the film did
(43) went on record to say that as part of reasonably well and the author 78
the research he had his body hair waxed SIDhARth MALhOtRA
has retained a position on the
` 9.31 crore
to write from a woman’s point of view. Forbes India Celebrity List. Actor

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 39

 kIDaMbI srIkanTh (rank 83): HOLDING COURT
Cameron SpenCer / Getty ImaGeS
The year 2017 has been a breakouT
year for 24-year-old Kidambi
Srikanth as he won four Superseries
titles (two among them back-to-
back)—only the fourth men’s singles
player and the lone Indian to do so
in a calendar year. Extremely agile
40 | forbes india january 5, 2018
and a master at net play, Srikanth’s
conquests include reigning World
No 1 Viktor Axelsen, whom he
defeated on his own turf in the
quarterfinals of the Denmark
Open, and Chinese Olympic
gold-medallist Chen Long. A late
convert to the singles game—he
primarily played doubles before
his coach Pullela Gopichand asked
him to switch—Srikanth reached
a career-high rank of World No 2
before a leg injury halted his charge;
he finished the year as No 4.
 The list

79
Dulquer salMan
sunIl ChheTrI (rank 100): ` 9.28 crore
IN THE BIG LEAGUE Actor

The skIpper of InDIa’s

80
anurag basu
football team and its ` 8.35 crore
most capped player, Director
Sunil Chhetri is also
the fourth-highest 81
international goal allu arjun
scorer among active ` 7.74 crore
Actor
players. The 33-year-
old achieved the feat 82
with his match-winning CheTan bhagaT
strike, his 53rd, against ` 7.15 crore
Myanmar in March, Author
equalling England’s
Wayne Rooney (who 83
kIDaMbI srIkanTh
is now retired). He
` 6.13 crore
subsequently added SportS
more goals to his tally
to surpass Rooney 84
and now trails only aMIsh TrIpaThI
Portugal’s Cristiano ` 5.88 crore
Ronaldo, Argentina’s Author
Lionel Messi and USA’s
85
Clint Dempsey. With ajInkya rahane
his prolific scoring in ` 5.56 crore
the qualifiers, Chhetri SportS
has also led India to
the 2019 AFC Asian 86
Cup, the first time since CheTeshwar pujara
` 5.48 crore
2011. At home, Chhetri
SportS
is one of the most
expensive buys in the 87
Indian Super League MuralI VIjay
(ISL), with Bengaluru ` 4.20 crore
FC snapping him up for SportS
a reported `1.5 crore
to steer the club in its 88
alI asgar
inaugural outing at the ` 4.19 crore
prestigious league tV perSonAlity

89
kl rahul
matthew aShton, ama / Getty ImaGeS

` 4.04 crore
SportS

90
uMesh yaDaV
` 3.94 crore
SportS

91
shabIr alhuwalIa
` 3.49 crore
CompIled by anShul dhamIja, kathakalI Chanda, kunal purandare, monICa bathIja, ruChIka Shah, tV perSonAlity
Samar SrIvaStava, Sayan Chakraborty

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 41

 taapsee pannu: The accidenTal acTor
In her seven years as an actor, taapsee pannu has
built for herself an impressive résumé. The 30-year-old
has essayed a diverse set of characters across Hindi, Telugu
and Tamil films: From the critically-acclaimed Pink (2016),
Baby (2015), Aadukalam (2011, Tamil) and Vastadu Naa Raju
(2011, Telugu) to the commercial potboiler Judwaa 2, which
grossed over `100 crore this year. “I was never offered the
typical ‘heroine-ish’ Bollywood diva roles,” says Pannu.
It was a combination of free will and destiny that
brought her to the film industry. A computer science
graduate, Pannu once turned down an offer from IT

The Rising
major Infosys. “I didn’t want to be an engineer for the
rest of my life,” she tells Forbes India. Pannu, however,
nurtured ambitions of an MBA degree and a high-flying
corporate job. But those plans, too, failed to fructify.
Instead, her part-time modelling career in college
They may not be a part of our helped her bag her first movie Jhummandi Naadam,
List yet, but these are the stars a Telugu drama that released in 2010. Since then, she
has acted in about 20 films and co-starred with some
to watch out for of Indian cinema’s bigwigs such as Amitabh Bachchan,
Akshay Kumar, Dhanush, Prabhas and Mammootty.
by Anshul DhAmijA She also endorses seven consumer brands, including
Panasonic (mobiles), Women’s Horlicks, Honda
(two-wheelers) and hair-care brand Kesh King.
Mexy xavier

42 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 The list

92
sugandha mIshra
` 3.39 crore
TV PersonaliTy

93
bhartI sIngh
` 3.25 crore
TV PersonaliTy
nIvIn pauly: The hiT machine JeJe lalpeKhlua: on The Ball
94
the former Infosys employee Is one of hardIK pandya
IndIan football’s most excItIng prospect
` 3.04 crore
the most bankable stars in Malayalam films. since skipper Sunil Chhetri, Jeje Lalpekhlua sPorTs
He debuted in 2010 and delivered a string has impressed as much on the domestic
of hits starting with Thattathin Marayathu circuit as he has on the international stage. 95
in 2012. His romcom Premam (2015) earned In 2015, he scored a double, winning the Karan patel
`60 crore and became the highest-grossing I-League with Mohun Bagan and the ` 2.95 crore
Malayalam film ever at the time. A lot of Indian Super League with Chennaiyin TV PersonaliTy
Malayalam movies are made on a tight FC, scoring six goals and three assists in
budget, one of the reasons why Pauly hasn’t 96
the latter. The following year, he helped dIvyanKa trIpathI
made it to our list. But with his foray into India lift the SAFF Cup with three goals dahIya
the Tamil industry this year with Richie and was adjudged AIFF’s Player Of The ` 2.92 crore
(he’s had a bilingual release in 2013), and Year. His exploits have made him one of TV PersonaliTy
about 10 releases between now and 2020, it the highest-paid footballers in the ISL this
could well be a different story in the future. season, earning him a whopping `1.4 crore. 97
Krushna abhIsheK
` 2.90 crore
hs prannoy: SmaSh hiT TV PersonaliTy

along wIth KIdambI French and the Indonesian 98

Srikanth, HS Prannoy Opens. He also won the sanIa mIrza

spearheaded the charge of
Indian badminton on the
world stage, climbing 18
spots to end 2017 as World
No 10. The 25-year-old
made it to the semifinals of
two Superseries events—the
dIsha patanI: BriSK STarT KrItI sanon: caTwalK
disha, Kriti: saChin goKhale; nivin: neilson barnard / getty iMages; JeJe: viJayanand gupta / hindustan
` 2.80 crore
star-studded 82nd Senior
sPorTs
Nationals. Prannoy was the
most expensive buy at the 99
Professional Badminton bhuvneshwar Kumar
League, with the ` 2.53 crore
Ahmedabad Smash Masters sPorTs
picking him up for `62 lakh.
100
sunIl chhetrI
` 2.30 crore

tiMes via getty iMages; prannoy: robertus pudyanto / getty iMages

the 25-year-old, who made her debut wIth
the Telugu film Loafer in 2015, marked
her presence in Bollywood with the 2016
release MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. At the
end of that year, she was among the most
searched people on the internet in India
along with PV Sindhu and Vijay Mallya,
according to Google. In 2017, Patani starred
opposite Jackie Chan
in Kung Fu Yoga, which
was dubbed in Mandarin,
English and Hindi,
and grossed over $200
million worldwide.
Patani has also bagged a
slew of endorsements.
sPorTs
To STardom
model-turned-actor KrItI sanon forayed
into acting in 2014 with 1:Nenokkadine
(Telugu), which bombed, but her Bollywood
debut the same year, Heropanti, earned
her the Filmfare award for best debut. The
following year, she bagged a role in Dilwale
alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. 2017
was a mixed bag as Bareilly Ki Barfi was a
hit while Raabta flopped.
Apart from endorsing
many brands, she has
recently been roped in as
a brand ambassador to
promote New Zealand as
an education destination.
(additional reporting by KathaKali Chanda)

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 43

 High On Stardust
A rundown of the numbers that earned these personalities
a place in the roster of India’s highest grossing celebrities
by Neeraj gaNgal, NaaNdika tripathi, ruchika shah
InfOgrapHIcs by sameer pawar; IllustratIOns by chaitaNya diNesh surpur

rank earnings (` crore)

2 4

Shah ruKh aKShay

Khan Kumar
170.50 3 98.25 5

1
actor Virat actor
Sachin
Kohli tendulKar
Salman
Khan 100.72 82.50
SportS SportS
232.83
actor
 WHEELS OF FORTUNE: THE TOp DEck’S EaRNiNgS METER
eleven of the top 20 celebrities have seen their earnings dip compared with last year.
riding the Baahubali wave, SS rajamouli has found a place at no 15
2017 earningS (` crore) 2016 earningS (` crore)

50 100 150 200 250 300

17%
232.83
Salman Khan 270.33
170.50
Shah ruKh Khan 221.75

Virat Kohli
100.72
134.44
WOMEN cELEbRiTiES’
98.25 Share in oVerall
aKShay Kumar 203.03 earningS
82.50
Sachin tendulKar

21
58
68.75
aamir Khan*

68.00
priyanKa chopra 76.00
The number of women in The
63.77
mS dhoni 122.48 lisT. iT is eighT less Than lasT
hrithiK roShan
63.12 year’s. They collecTively
90.25
earned `462.58 Cr, around 5%
62.63
ranVeer Singh 67.42 less Than lasT year
59.45
deepiKa paduKone 69.75

57.63
avERagE EaRNiNgS pER
ar rahman 37.50 caTEgORy (` crore)
57.25
pV Sindhu
3.42
55.33
ranbir Kapoor 55.50

SS rajamouli* 55.00

ajay deVgn 48.83

8.10
48.67
arijit Singh actorS SingerS/muSicianS
60.15

Kapil Sharma
30.17
48.00
34.8 25.44

Sachin: chriS JackSon / Getty imaGeS; Salman, Shahrukh, Virat, akShay: Sachin Gokhale
Varun dhawan 43.50
25.00

amitabh bachchan 40.00

32.62

* these celebrities were not in the 2016 list in the absence of releases or endorsements

THE EaRNiNgS’ SEESaW

SportS directorS
300
24.54 18.5
250
Shah ruKh Khan
earningS (` crore)

200
aKShay Kumar

150
Salman Khan comedianS tV perSonalitieS

100 12.45 10.9

Sachin tendulKar

50
Virat Kohli authorS
6.52
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 45

caTEgORy TOppERS
earnings (` crore) rank

50 100 150 200 250

actorS SaLMaN kHaN 232.83 1

SportS viRaT kOHLi 100.72 3

SingerS/muSicianS aR RaHMaN 57.63 12

directorS SS RajaMOULi 55 15

tV perSonalitieS kapiL SHaRMa 48 18

comedianS 14.95 aLL iNDia bakcHOD 49

authorS 7.15 cHETaN bHagaT 82

TOp gaiNERS aND LOSERS (in % termS)

For shuttler pV Sindhu, 2017 has been an annus mirabilis as her rio olympics silver `63.7
medal opened the floodgates to a bevy of prize money and endorsements lakh
 % difference rank earnings (` crore)
that’s how much
GAINERS LOSERS Salman khan earned
2016
pv SiNDHU
2017 2016 2017 every day last year
SaNia MiRza
1,573.98
14.58 -80.79
2.8 earnings of
3.42 98
100 celebrities
13
57.25 (` crore)

aLLU aRjUN
-71.33
7.74
2,683.31
ajay DEvgN
8.1 502.88
27 81

16
48.83 cHETaN bHagaT
22.75 -68.57
7.15 earnings
82 of top 3
7.53 RaviNDRa
jaDEja
359.23 504.05
34.58 bHaRTi SiNgH
24
8.8 -63.05 3.25
5.75 SHaNkaR-
EHSaaN-LOy 16 93
178.26

42 DHaNUSH percentage share of the

-59.82 top 3 celebrities

18.78
viR DaS
3.75 9.95 28
70
165.33 11.25
75

46 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 SOUTHERN FLavOUR
the presence of these non-bollywood celebrities on the list makes the star cast more eclectic

14
Share of their
Number of Celebrities earnings in the
from the south iNdiaN film overall celebrity
100 list
iNdustry*, iN this year’s list
* ar rahman has not been considered because he has been a part of hindi and global mainstream cinema for a long time
11.6%
earnings (` crore) rank
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 TEaM EaRNiNgS
SS rajamouli 55 15 baaHUbaLi (` crore)

prabhaS 36.25 22 SS rajamouli 55

Suriya 34 25 prabhaS 36.25
ajith Kumar 31.75 27
rana daggubati 22
Vijay 29 31
113.25
rana daggubati 22 36

19.63 37
Team ‘Baahubali’
maheSh babu

jayram raVi 18 39

Vijay Sethupathi 14.08 54

total earnings
(` crore) has contributed
pawan Kalyan 11.33 69
310.335 over 4 percent of
dhanuSh 11.25 70
the total
earnings of the
mohanlal 11.03 73

dulquer Salman 9.28 79

allu arjun 7.74 81 celebrity 100 list
FiRST iMpRESSiON Box offiCe PerformAnCe oldest on the
CelBrity 100 list
average opening-day box office collections* of india’s top stars, over the past six years
AmitABh
amitabh: tim P. Whitby/Getty imaGeS; Sindhu: mark kolbe/Getty imaGeS

BAChChAn
number of releases First day average collections (` crore)

26.59 7
75 years
Salman Khan
`40 crore
Shah ruKh Khan 19.29 9

aKShay Kumar 10.86 17

aamir Khan 24.11 4

priyanKa chopra 11.5 6

hrithiK roShan 16.05 5

deepiKa paduKone 16.2 9

youngest on the
alia bhatt 9.2 8 CelBrity 100 list
PV
Kangana ranaut 4.81 10 sindhu
anuShKa Sharma 13.22 10 22 years
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 `57.25
Source: boxofficeindia.co.in *net box office collections
crore

48 | forbes india january 5, 2018

WEEkEND SpiN Box offiCe PerformAnCe

average opening-weekend box office collections* of india’s top stars, over the past six years
number of releases opening-weekend average collections (` crore)

Salman Khan 95.26 7

Shah ruKh Khan 64.92 9

aKShay Kumar 37.25 17

aamir Khan 82.95 4

priyanKa chopra 36.56 6

hrithiK roShan 56.31 5

deepiKa paduKone 51.98 9

alia bhatt 30.98 8

Kangana ranaut 16.19 10

anuShKa Sharma 52.61 10

0 20 40 60 80 100
Source: boxofficeindia.co.in * net box office collections

THE kHaNFORMERS Box offiCe PerformAnCe

how the Khans have dominated the list of the top ten bollywood movies of all time, in terms of box office collections*

rAnk moVie ColleCtions* (` crore) TOp 10 LiST: SUMMiNg THE

kHaNS’ cOLLEcTiONS
1 Baahubali 2: the Conclusion 506.5
= 1 Film
2 dangal 374.54
3 Pk 324.3 AAmir khAn
4 Bajrangi Bhaijaan 316.79
5 sultan 300.1

1162.56 ` Crore
6 dhoom 3 261.25
7 Chennai express 218.52
8 kick 214.04
sAlmAn khAn
9 3 idiots 202.47
10 krrish 3 198.6

Source: boxofficeindia.co.in

830.93
* net box office collections (domestic)

MOST pOpULaR ON SOciaL MEDia

instAgrAm
followers
(mln)
fACeBook
followers
(mln)
twitter
followers
(mln) shAh rukh khAn
deepika padukone 20.6 Virat Kohli 36 amitabh bachchan 31.7

priyanka chopra 20.5 Salman Khan 35 Shah rukh Khan  31.2

218.52
alia bhatt 19.3 deepika padukone 34 Salman Khan 28.8

Shraddha Kapoor  18.7 priyanka chopra 34 akshay Kumar 23.1

Virat Kohli 17.3 amitabh bachchan 27 aamir Khan 22.4

Source: boxofficeindia.co.in
as on 11 december 2017

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 49

 ToWear Is Human
Five years on, Salman Khan’s apparel brand seems
to be serving its higher purpose
A
flutter of activity heralds
Salman Khan’s arrival at Mehboob
Studios in Bandra, an upscale suburb
in Mumbai. Staff members race to his
car, whispering in hushed cohesion
that “he’s here”, while bystanders
look up from their phone screens.
Khan, who has dominated Hindi
cinema for close to three decades
along with the other two Khans,
Shah Rukh and Aamir, has just begun
shooting for Race 3. But today, at the
studio, just a few minutes away from
his home, Khan doesn’t want to talk
movies. Being Human Clothing, the
apparel brand he formally launched
with The Mandhana Retail Ventures
Ltd. (MRVL) in 2012 to support
the activities of the foundation he
set up ten years ago, marks its fifth
anniversary and he’s here to drum
50 | forbes india january 5, 2018
by VarSha meghani
up attention for that landmark.
“We couldn’t keep asking
people for donations, so we set
up the clothing line,” says Khan,
51, of the start, blowing circles
of smoke into the night air.
We’re seated in the studio
compound under a dimly lit blue tent.
Even in the poor light, Khan’s angular,
rough-hewn face and biceps—bulging
from beneath his black Being Human
polo—are visible. The Being Human
brand is the soft foil to the obvious
ruggedness. As is the origin story of
the venture, which was triggered by
his love for painting. After dabbling
in it for a bit, Khan realised he was
good and decided to get one of his
artworks printed on a T-shirt. He
wore it to actor Mithun Chakraborty’s
son’s film’s music release in late 2010.
Two days later, when he was driving
past Linking Road—Bandra’s busy
shopping street—he saw rip-offs of
his T-shirt all over. “I told myself,
‘This is it. We’ll sell T-shirts to make
money for the charity’,” recalls Khan.
A discussion with his family ensued
and the idea took off in a small way
in partnership with Cottonworld, the
Mumbai-based clothing company. The
T-shirt was retailed in three colours—
black, white and grey—with the
words ‘Being Human’ printed in small
typeface. These were initially made
in one batch of 5,000. “They flew off
the shelves,” says Khan, “So we made
another batch and those too sold out.”
It didn’t take long for him to realise
that he was on to something big. He
licensed the brand to Mandhana
Industries, run by Khan’s then
acquaintance and now friend Manish
Mandhana, in 2011 for the design,
manufacture, retail and distribution of
clothing and accessories. In December
2016, Mandhana Industries spun
off its subsidiary MRVL (formed in
2012), which handles Being Human
Clothing, into a separate listed entity.
“The idea was to create more long-
term value for our stakeholders,”
says Mandhana, adding that the
company posted a topline of `216
crore in FY17 on net profits of around
`20 crore. Mandhana pays Khan a
licence fee [an undisclosed percentage
of sales] for leveraging his brand.
At this point, I interject to ask
him how the name Being Human
Salman Khan
claims that every
penny earned
from Being Human
is put into charity
post taxes
came about, a name which took birth
in 2007 when he set up his charity
‘Being Human–The Salman Khan
Foundation’ to focus on health care
and education for the lesser privileged. in 1998; with culpable homicide when
He pauses, takes a long puff and
looks into the distance. “Have you
ever heard someone say, ‘Oh I’m just
human’?” Before I can nod in the
affirmative, he continues, “People
say it when they’ve made
a mistake. It’s an easy way
to justify the mistake. So forbes india
c e l e b r i t y 100
what we’re trying to say
is that instead of using rank
the term so conveniently,
just try and do your best. no.1
Even if it means smiling
at someone when you’re
in a bad mood… and to forgive. To
let it go. I think there should be an
expiry date on animosity, on hatred,
on not being able to forgive. I don’t
think you should stretch that too far
because life is too short to hate.”
This reflective version of the
superstar is a far cry from the brash,
impatient image he can’t seem
to shed. After all, Khan has been
under the scanner for decades: He
was charged with poaching the
endangered blackbuck in Rajasthan
he allegedly crashed his car into a
bakery in Mumbai in 2002, killing
one person and injuring four. Khan
has been acquitted in these cases,
but the matters still remain under
trial or appeal within
the judicial system.
What of the criticism,
then, that Khan’s charity
work is an attempt to clean
up his image? “It’s okay if
they think so. People say I’m
successful because of what
I do with the foundation.
If this is the formula to success, they
should also start charities,” he laughs.
N Chandramouli, who runs a
brand advisory, TRA, weighs in: “One
never starts such a large venture with
the only objective being a clean-up.
Khan’s motives may be multiple but
a positive fallout is that some of the
sheen of brand Being Human will
rub off on Khan’s otherwise brash,
controversy-oriented imagery.”
Sure enough, today Being Human
Clothing is the money earner for
Khan, all of which he claims to put
into charity post taxes. “We don’t
make any money from this venture.
After tax, every penny we get goes to
the foundation,” says Khan. He calls
on his staff member Loretta to give
details of the work they do in the
areas of health care and education.
She has the facts on the tips of her
fingers: The foundation supports
400 children’s heart surgeries a
year, provides assistance towards
life-limiting cranio-facial surgeries,
runs eye-camps and women’s check-
ups; it has also adopted two schools
in Mumbai as well as multiple
educational resources centres in
Maharashtra, among other initiatives.
“People who we help want to thank
me for it. But I don’t meet them. It’s
no big deal. There’s no need to take
mexy xavier
credit for something that you should
be doing as a human being.” That,
according to Khan, is being human.
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 51
 The World
At Her Feet
Whether it’s acting in American serials and Hollywood films, or playing
her role as the Unicef’s Goodwill Ambassador, Priyanka ChoPra
is creating ripples in the West. And she says this is just the beginning

by Salil PanChal & neeraj GanGal

forbes india
c e l e b r i t y 100
Rohan ShReStha

rank

no.7

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 53

 P
priyanka chopra is notching
up one milestone after another in
the West. The Miss World-turned-
Bollywood star-turned-global
celebrity was recently ranked eighth
on Forbes’s list of the World Highest-
Paid TV Actresses, with an annual
income of $10 million. Chopra,
who was appointed as the Unicef’s
Goodwill Ambassador in 2016, also
found herself in the 15th spot on
Forbes’s list of the most powerful
women in media and entertainment.
Acutely aware of the stardom that
she wears, Chopra, 35, says the fear
of failure or not being recognised in
another country did not even occur to
her. “There was none because in my
mind I never went anywhere. People
go to Lonavala [a popular hill station
around 80 km from Mumbai], I go to
Los Angeles. It’s like that… I treat the
world as a very small place,” the actor
enjoyed a robust viewership of 8.05
million, according to data from
Nielsen Company. The viewership
dipped to 4.53 million in Season 2
(2016-17), but Chopra’s popularity
remained undiminished. She bagged
two People’s Choice Awards (PCA)
for her role in Quantico: One in 2017
(Favourite Dramatic TV actress) and
another in 2016 (Favourite Actress in
a new TV series), becoming the first
South Asian actor ever to win a PCA.
Her popularity has ensured
a constant stream of offers. At
present, she is busy with the third
season of Quantico that is being
shot in Montreal, Atlanta and New
York. That apart, she stars in two
Hollywood films, A Kid Like Jake
(scheduled for a 2018 release)
that also features Homeland star
Claire Danes and Jim Parsons from
The Big Bang Theory, and Isn’t It cemented my ground as yet; it took
Romantic with Rebel Wilson. me many years in India to do it too…
The international projects have when you come from somewhere else,
kept the Jamshedpur-born actor it’s so unexpected… you just do the
away from Bollywood—she was last best that you can and it is not easy,
seen in Jai Gangaajal in 2016—but especially in a different country,”
her production house, Purple Pebble says the National Award-winning
Pictures (PPP), continues to churn actor with 2.07 crore Twitter and
out small-budget, content-driven 2.04 crore Instagram followers.
regional cinema like the Marathi Among the difficulties that Chopra
film Ventilator (2016), which won encountered while blending in a new
three National Awards. And more place was getting used to the “US pop
such films in India are on the anvil. culture”. “That was the hardest part,”

tells Forbes India over a half-an-hour
call from her New York residence.
Chopra isn’t exaggerating. Hers is
one of the most successful crossover
stories by an Indian actor. The
first season of Quantico (2015-16),
an American TV series in which
she plays FBI agent Alex Parrish,
H
aving worked hard for
over a decade to make a
mark in the Indian film
industry, Chopra knows
that she’s only scratched the surface
of the potential the global platform
offers. “I am right at the beginning of
my [Hollywood] journey. I have not
she explains. “People would crack
jokes and I would not understand
them. I didn’t understand pop culture
that well, having not spent enough
time there (just 2-3 years of shooting
for movies). Even in Quantico, I
played an American girl, not a girl
from India; she was born and raised
in America. So, every Sunday, I

“I Am rIghT AT The
Beginning Of My Hollywood Journey.
I hAve noT cemenTed my
Getty ImaGeS

ground yeT...It Is Not Easy.”

54 | forbes india january 5, 2018

had to convince a completely new
country about having an American
girl [in their lives]… that was tough.”
However, even in that unfamiliar
territory, Chopra banked on her
familiarity with the country where
she spent her teenage years. “That
was the edge for me,” she points
out. At the age of 12, Chopra went
to live and study with her aunt
and cousins in Massachusetts,
Iowa and New York. She returned
to India when she was 17. “I was
already tuned in to listening to [late
American rapper] Tupac Shakur.”
What would have helped her
further is her frequent travels to
the US since 2011 to record music
through a contract with Interscope
Records, whose best-selling artists
include Lady Gaga and Eminem.
“It was so cool being in the studio
with rapper will.i.am and RedOne
(Left to right from facing page): Priyanka Chopra as Unicef’s Goodwill Ambassador; in a still
from Quantico; with Dwayne Johnson in Baywatch
and meeting Bono and Bruce
Springsteen,” says Chopra, also a
trained Western classical singer.
She has sung three singles—‘In
My City’ with will.i.am, ‘Exotic’
with Pitbull and the cover version
of Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You
Love Me’—besides featuring in singing
collaborations with American DJ
duo The Chainsmokers, rapper DMX
and Australian DJ Will Sparks. And
it was her music that opened the
doors to American television for her.
At one of the music parties in
Los Angeles, Chopra met Keli Lee,
the then executive vice president
(casting) and now managing director
(international content and talent)
at Disney-ABC Television Group.
She even discussed the possibility
of a project with the actor’s agent
before flying down to India later.
“I was shooting for Gunday (2014)
when Lee came to the sets and said
she wanted to sign me as a talent,
giving me the option of a television
show after reading the scripts,”
Chopra recalls. “I was sceptical
about doing television in the US, but
they came with a very sweet deal.”
Immediately after, Chopra went
to Los Angeles, and chose Quantico
from the four scripts that she had
liked. That series not just brought
her to television screens in America
but also opened up newer avenues.
In 2017, she acted with professional
WWE wrestler and Hollywood star
Dwayne Johnson in the Paramount
Pictures movie Baywatch, based on
the popular 1990s television serial
with the same name. It slumped at
the box office with a domestic gross
collection of $58.1 million in the US
and Canada against a product cost of
$69 million. However, the actor says
the experience was worth it. “It was
fun and, in fact, shooting it was like
shooting for any Bollywood movie—
lots of crew and big sets,” says Chopra.
The tepid response to Baywatch
hasn’t deterred Chopra’s resolve to
take risks. It’s an approach that she
swore by even when she was finding
her feet in Bollywood. Consider this:
Just a year after making her debut as
an actor, she opted to play a negative
role in Aitraaz (2004) portraying the
wife of an elderly business tycoon
who falsely accuses her ex-lover of
raping her. The role was fraught
with risks and not something that a
‘typical actor’ would have opted for,
at least then, and especially in her
first few films. “While shooting for
the movie, people warned me that it
was a wrong career move and that
I would get stuck with vamp-type
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 55
 roles. It scared me like hell,” she
recalls. But the movie was well-
received and Chopra, in particular,
was lauded with several awards.
She faced a similar predicament
when she was approached for Fashion
(2008). The beauty queen was to
essay the role of a small-town girl
who becomes a supermodel in the
Madhur Bhandarkar film. “I was told
that girls did women-centric roles
only towards the end of their careers
to win awards. I was advised to work
with big stars and do Hollywood
tent-pole type movies,” says Chopra.
“I was afraid ki phir se gadbad kar di
(that I took a wrong decision again),
but the fact is that I did not know
any better.” But her belief in herself
“my cAreer hAs Been Full Of
Risky Choices. The greATesT
wAs noT knowIng ThAT
I Was Taking A Risk .”
turned out to be true. She bagged
the National Award for Fashion
and proved her critics wrong.
In a career spanning nearly 15
years, 52 movies and 53 awards,
including India’s fourth-highest
civilian award, Padma Shri (2016), the
actor continues to rewrite the rules
with her unique choices. “When I was
younger, I never saw a long-term plan.
I am not from the film community;
my career has always been full of
risky choices and I took decisions off
the paved path. My greatest risk was
me not knowing that I was taking
a risk,” Chopra tells Forbes India.
KevIn WInteR / Getty ImaGeS
Among the other brave choices
that she took in Bollywood was
working on diverse and challenging
projects like Krrish (2006, India’s first
superhero franchise), Barfi! (2012,
in which she played an autistic girl)
and Mary Kom (2014, a biopic on the
56 | forbes india january 5, 2018
Olympic medal winner). Filmmaker
Rakesh Roshan, who directed Chopra
in Krrish and Krrish 3, says: “She
has a rare mix of sex appeal and
Indianness. I saw two reels of Aitraaz
and realised that she was talented.”
But talent alone can’t take you
places. The sweat and toil that
goes behind the scenes often goes
unnoticed and that, claims the
actor, forms an integral part of her
preparation. “I have no specific
plan or a formula, but there is a
ridiculous amount of discipline
that goes into it,” she says.
A
s a go-getter, Chopra
has seen the highs and
lows that come along
with fame. The actor,
therefore, has a message for today’s
youth: “We live in a digital world
where anyone can have an opinion.
Someone’s opinion is not fact. It does
not matter; focus on your strengths
and not your inhibitions.” That’s
the way Chopra has lived her life,
brushing aside social media trolls,
and focusing on her work. “I am here
to work. People who like me, stay
around me and people who do not
like me, don’t have to,” she says.
Though based in the US for most
part of the year and occupied with her
international commitments, Chopra
is keenly involved in her production
house as well. PPP has several
projects in the pipeline, including
Sikkim’s first ever movie Pahuna, a
Konkani-Hindi venture called Little
Joe, a Marathi-Bengali biopic called
Nalini and two Bengali films, Brishtir
Oppekhyayy and Bus Stop E Keu Nei.
She may have won the world with
her varied feats, but Chopra says
she does not know what the future
holds for her. “I just know that it
is at a very interesting point where
I have been able to break concrete
a little bit by doing mainstream
characters in international TV or
movies. That’s the direction I want
to be able to go in,” she says.
We are nearing the end of the
interview, and Chopra needs to
head back to her trailer. But we
manage to ask her this last question:
If she had to walk away from the
arc lights, what would she want
to be remembered for? She pauses
for a while and says slowly: “As an
achiever, someone with integrity and
as a girl who had big dreams and just
went after them.” She seems to have
done well on that front already.
 Making
Feathers Fly
At 22, shuttler PV Sindhu has had podium finishes at all top international
competitions, including the 2016 Olympics. And she’s just getting started

by KathaKali Chanda
Reuben Singh / hinduStan timeS via getty imageS

forbes india
c e l e b r i t y 100

rank

no.13

58 | forbes india january 5, 2018

I
it’s a slow morning at a five-star
hotel in Nagpur, where the country’s
badminton fraternity has gathered
for the 82nd Senior Nationals. In the
lobby, a help desk is left unmanned
for the most part, some camera-
toting journalists amble aimlessly,
and players, Kidambi Srikanth and
HS Prannoy (World No 4 and 10
respectively) included, saunter
into the breakfast hall without
much fanfare. Only a few shuttlers
scurry to catch the next car to the
stadium, invoking a sense of urgency
that is typical of a semifinal day.
A little after 10.30 am, a car stops
at the porch and out steps PV Sindhu,
World No 3 and India’s top shuttler,
back from her morning practice. In
one stroke, the entire hotel lobby
springs to its feet, flashes pop like
corn and requests for sound bites are
hurled in the air. A crowd conjures
out of nowhere, phone cameras
flip into selfie mode and kids with
autograph books run with the people
thronging her 5’11’’, lithe frame.
Sindhu obliges all, sometimes
even doubling up to fit into the photo
frame. At 22, she is no stranger to
the frenzy once accorded only to
“when I used to Play The
Top Guns, I had nothIng
to lose. Post-Rio, there
Is a Lot Of Responsibility.”
60 | forbes india january 5, 2018
cricketers. Ever since she brought
back silver from the 2016 Olympics
in Rio, losing the final to Spaniard
and then World No 1 Carolina
Marin, she burst on to national
consciousness like a young Sachin
Tendulkar did on his 1989 tour to
Pakistan, with his imperious defiance
of the Wasims and the Waqars.
Sindhu followed up the silver with
her first Superseries win in China and
victories at the India Open and Korea
Open this year. But what turned social
media buzz and conversations about
the Hyderabadi into mass hysteria
was the 2017 World Championships
final against Japanese Nozomi
Okuhara: A lung-ripping, emotionally-
sapping, see-saw encounter that, at
110 minutes, was the second longest
duel in the history of women’s singles.
A match, with a 73-shot rally, that
Indonesian World No 6 Ratchanok
Intanon dubbed “history making for
women’s singles”. Sindhu lost by two
points, but gave sporting grit and
fortitude a new definition. Just like
PT Usha did with her stirring sprint
in the 1984 Olympics, or gymnast
Dipa Karmakar with her audacious
Produnova vault in 2016, that scripted
history but fell just short of a medal.
S
indhu isn’t India’s first
global icon in badminton.
It was Prakash Padukone,
who, in 1980, put India
on the world map by winning the
All-England Championships and
becoming World No 1. Two decades
later, in 2001, Pullela Gopichand,
now Sindhu’s mentor, repeated the
All-England feat. In 2012, Saina
Nehwal, a trainee at an academy
run by Gopichand, brought the
country its first badminton Olympic
medal (a bronze). Nehwal later
reached the No 1 rank as well (while
training with Vimal Kumar; she has
subsequently returned to Gopichand).
Besides, players like Chetan Anand
and Aparna Popat bolstered Indian
presence on the international stage
through the ’90s and the noughties,
hovering around the top 10 rankings.
But what set Sindhu apart from
the others, barring Nehwal, was her
Olympic feat. India’s fascination for
Olympic glory can be gauged by the
fact that Sindhu’s consecutive bronze
medals at the World Championships
in 2013 and 2014 failed to create a buzz
similar to her Rio show. Her Olympic
podium finish at the age of 21 not
only reinvigorated a country that was
resigned to returning empty-handed
from Rio, but also helped her step out
of Nehwal’s shadows definitively.
The performance brought home for
Sindhu cash rewards and incentives
that were hitherto reserved only for
cricketers. In the period between
October 2016 and September 2017,
she earned `19 crore (including prize
money and grants), and lapped up 16
brand endorsements (worth between
`70 crore and `80 crore), next only to
Virat Kohli, currently Indian cricket’s
man with the Midas touch. “Life
has changed completely in the past
year. I can’t go out and shop, I get
mobbed. At movie theatres, I have
to leave before the lights are back.
But,” she adds as an afterthought,
“I quite enjoy it. It feels nice.”
Sometimes, this candour is a
refreshing reminder of how young
Sindhu is; a fact that her long list of
Left: Sindhu’s parents, Ramana and Vijayalakshmi, were national-level volleyball players; the shuttler with mentor P Gopichand (second from left)
achievements tends to bury. Shorn of
those, she would be just another MBA
student at St Anne’s College, a degree
she is pursuing alongside badminton.
Her easy, uncomplicated nature is
reiterated when she discusses, among
other things, her love for Paris, junk
food—ice cream, pizza, burgers, what
have you—and mobile phones. “I
wonder how I gave up my phone for
three months before the Olympics,
when Gopi Sir asked for it,” she
says, rolling her eyes. “I must have
been in the zone at that moment,
because I had instantly said yes.”
But it’s this self-effacing persona
that Gopichand had to work hard
on for Sindhu to curb on the court.
“Off the court, she is one of the
nicest persons you’ll ever meet. That
sometimes would stop her from being
super-competitive,” he says. It’s part
of sporting lore how, one fine day,
Sindhu landed up for training and
Gopichand refused to let her play till
she stood in the middle of the court
and let out one roar after another.
“On-court aggression isn’t just
about gaining an advantage; it can be
quite cathartic,” says Shree Advani,
a mind coach who worked with
Sindhu in 2013 and 2014. “What I
first started noticing about her was
that she was more vocal on court
when she committed an error and
was more subdued and quiet when
she won points. We had to work on
reversing that.” Heartwarming images
of Sindhu picking up Marin and her
racket at the end of the loss in the
Olympic final may be reminiscent of
the genial person she is, but infused
in that character now is a combative
streak that lets out a roar or a searing
“I’m-that-good” look at her opponent
every time she hits an impeccable
drop or makes an impossible retrieve.
W
hile her on-court
belligerence is new-
found, Sindhu has
always been a fighter.
Her compatriot and men’s world
No 4 Kidambi Srikanth, who has
grown up playing with her, vouches
for it. “We’ve played together since
the juniors and Sindhu hasn’t ever
lost any match for want of a fight,”
says Srikanth. It’s also an attribute
that defines her brand value and has
helped her cobble together a name
even beyond her Olympic success,
says brand consultant Harish Bijoor.
Perhaps such on-court spunk
is only too natural for Sindhu,
the daughter of Ramana and
Vijayalakshmi, both national-level
volleyball players. Ramana, in fact, was
part of the team that won bronze at the
1986 Asian Games and was an Arjuna
awardee in 2000, a recognition that
his daughter would also earn in 2013.
As a child, Sindhu would
accompany her father to the volleyball
court and, just for fun, fiddle with
the badminton racket at the court
next door. As she took to the game,
her parents encouraged her to
pursue it. “Many people ask me why
badminton and not volleyball. My
father appreciated badminton because
it was an individual sport and only you
can control its result,” says Sindhu.
Sindhu started formal training
with Mir Mahboob Ali when she was
eight-and-a-half, and, at 10, shifted to
the Gopichand Academy that offered a
haRSha vadlamai foR foRbeS india; Raj K Raj / hinduStan timeS via getty imageS
larger pool of sparring partners. That
meant a punishing daily schedule of
waking up at 4 am, commuting about
28 km from her home in Secunderabad
to Gachibowli, where the academy
was located, returning home for
school and rushing back to practice
once school got over. It would often be
10 pm before she would return home.
But Gopichand, known to be an
exacting taskmaster, spotted the talent
powerhouse that Sindhu was and not
only ensured that she stuck to the
schedule but, in 2010, asked her to
arrive an hour earlier so that he could
spend more time with her. “The first
thing you notice about her is that she
would keep on fighting till the end. It
was clear that she would be the next
big thing in Indian badminton,” he says.
“In terms of her athletic physicality,
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 61
 Sindhu lost to World No 1
Carolina Marin at the 2016
Olympics, but her gesture
of picking up the Spaniard
and her racket after the loss
won her many admirers
there were signs that she would
become a tall, lanky player. So we made
her train accordingly, started working
extra on her strength so that she had a
low centre of gravity and could remain
steady at that height,” says Gopichand.
The gruelling routine yielded
results soon. In 2012, Sindhu defeated
reigning world champion and Olympic
gold medallist Li Xuerui of China at
the China Open Super Series. For
perspective, imagine a 17-year-old
beating Roger Federer in his own
backyard. And then came the two
bronzes at the consecutive World
Championships, where she outclassed
Wang Yihan and Wang Shixian, who
RichaRd heathcote / getty imageS
were part of the Chinese ‘Wall’ that
dominated world badminton. “At that
time, when I used to play the top guns,
I had nothing to lose. I went into these
matches with the mindset of giving my
best. But now things have changed.
Post-Rio, I am a lot more confident,
but there is a lot of responsibility
to do well too,” says Sindhu.
62 | forbes india january 5, 2018
Is this sense of responsibility
proving to be a tad too onerous?
While her close losses to Marin and
Okuhara at the Olympics and the
World Championships, respectively,
have attracted questions about
her finishing ability, Sindhu isn’t
doing herself a favour by losing
matches where she’s the favourite
and to opponents she has beaten
before. Consider her tame defeats
to Chinese qualifier Gao Fangjie
in the quarterfinals of the China
Open, where she was the defending
champion, and to Japanese Akane
Yamaguchi at the French Open. Or the
loss to Okuhara, whom she had beaten
handsomely in the Olympics semifinal.
Nine-time national champion
Aparna Popat, though, isn’t worried.
The nature of the game has evolved
over the past several years, she
believes, shutting off the Susi
Susanti-style domination of the ’90s.
“Women’s badminton today,” she
says, “is just like women’s tennis,
with a global representation and an
open field. It’s difficult for one person
to dominate. How do you sustain
yourself amid such stiff competition?
Just keep playing and adapting. Credit
to Sindhu’s team for helping her peak
at the right time. To continuously do
well at big events is a great thing.”
Gopichand, too, doesn’t read much
into the claims of inconsistency:
“She’s 22 and already has three
World Championships, Olympics,
Asian Games, Commonwealth and
Superseries medals. I don’t mind the
occasional losses if she can produce
such results. At the end of the day,
I don’t expect her to win every
match and tournament she plays.”
Clearly, Gopichand is betting on
Sindhu as the big-match player. But,
with competition heating up, she
will have to transform into a giant-
slayer in every match if she has to
upgrade her medal at the Tokyo
Olympics in 2020. And a billion
Indians are betting on that.
Shahid Kapoor admits
to being stuck in a rut at
the start of his career. But
as cinema changed, he
evolved into a fine actor
 Never
Said Never
How Shahid Kapoor weathered a rough start
to become one of Hindi cinema’s most relevant
actors—across generations and genres

by Neeraj GaNGal
PhotograPh by mexy xavier

forbes india
c e l e b r i t y 100

rank

No.44

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 65

S
shahid kapoor walks into his
Juhu office with energetic strides.
There is no sign of fatigue from
the frenetic promotions for his
film Padmavati. We are meeting in
mid-November, at which point the
movie is still set for a December 1
release. (This was, a few days later,
put in limbo after escalation of the
controversies over alleged factual
inaccuracies in the portrayal of
history by the filmmaker, Sanjay
Leela Bhansali. At the time of writing
this, approval is still pending from the
Central Board of Film Certification.)
At this juncture, though protests
about the movie are ongoing, the
matter isn’t as dire as it was when
we met the actor, dressed in all
black—a full-sleeve tee and knee-
length shorts. In fact, he’s sporting
his own recently-launched athleisure
brand, Skult (a portmanteau
of his initials and ‘cult’).
And he, like several of his
Bollywood brethren, is indeed a
cult of sorts to his 11-million plus
Instagram followers, and millions
more on Twitter and Facebook.
However, the celebrity status
wasn’t served on a platter to
Kapoor, even though he was
born to Bollywood, the legendary
Pankaj Kapur his father. In the
“i took chaNces that
Some Actors In My Generation
would Not have takeN.
aNd They Worked For Me.”
66 | forbes india january 5, 2018
early years, he recalls being “stuck
in a rut”. After the success of his
debut film, Ishq Vishk (2003), a
teenage romcom that became a
sleeper hit, and the commercial
gains from Sooraj Barjatya’s Vivah
(2006), a family melodrama panned
by critics but lapped up by the
masses, the actor was involved
in several forgettable films.
“I came in at a time when the
old was giving way to the new. But
the new hadn’t really found itself.
There were no [new] filmmakers;
there was no written word that was
fresh and different,” says Kapoor.
“I went with what I felt was the
right thing to do till, one day, I just
told myself that ‘I’m done’. I am
going to do what I want to do.”
That seems to have worked for
Kapoor, 36, who has earned critical
acclaim as well as mass popularity,
across genres and generations.
“Shahid has the unique distinction
of continuing to stay relevant not
just across the number of years
or films that he has done, but also
relevant to the changing times and
the preferences of the audience,
especially the youth,” says Vikram
Malhotra, CEO, Abundantia
Entertainment. “He has attempted
new characters, been part of genre-
breaking films and clearly managed to
stay ahead when it comes to picking
up the kind of work that he does.”
In hindsight, the actor counts
himself “lucky to survive”, to have
seen out that phase. Part of the
problem, he says, is that he made
his entry “when Bollywood was
still making those typical potboilers
with foreign locations, arms wide
open and songs, and all that jazz”,
and the new wave of meaningful
cinema was yet to hit the shores.
However, quality content mattered
to him. Consider his pedigree. With
Pankaj Kapur as father, kathak dancer
Neelima Azeem as his mother, and
maternal grandparents as journalists,
young Shahid was exposed to the best
of performing arts, world cinema and
literature since childhood. “As he was
growing up, there were conversations
about why I do the kind of work
that I do, and that intrigued him,”
Pankaj Kapur recalls. “He’s a quick
learner. He was intelligent enough
to understand where world cinema
is going, and where our Indian
cinema is heading towards.”
The universe was perhaps reading
his mind, and the actor’s career
trajectory changed the day a lanky,
curly-haired director walked into his
house to narrate a script titled Geet.
Eventually renamed Jab We Met
(2007), director Imtiaz Ali’s romcom
was a runaway hit. And Kapoor’s
measured portrayal of businessman
Aditya Kashyap caught the eye of
filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj who
called him to narrate the idea of his
next caper thriller. The conversation
laid the foundation for one of the
most successful director-actor
partnerships of the past decade,
with the two collaborating for
Kaminey (2009), Haider (2014)
and Rangoon (2016). Though
the third film had an indifferent
showing at the box office, the first
two are hailed as masterpieces.
Set against the backdrop of
 Mumbai’s underworld, Kaminey
featured Kapoor playing twins, one
with a lisp and the other with a
stutter. Besides delivering his best
commercial performance in a long
time, the smart and edgy film gave the
actor an opportunity to “rediscover”
himself. “There are many ways of
creating adaptations of the same
persona, but it’s difficult to create a
new persona altogether. And that’s
the first time I did that,” he says. “And
then I was addicted to it because,
creatively, it was so satisfying.”
Their next collaboration, Haider,
Bhardwaj’s adaptation of William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is clearly the
high point of Kapoor’s career. The
actor’s nuanced performance in the
titular role won him commercial and
critical success across continents.
Meanwhile, the film stirred up a
hornet’s nest due to its depiction of
the Indian Army and the minorities
in Kashmir. But the actor believed in
the project as much as his director
did (both did the film for free), and
Kapoor admits, “the most relevant
film” of his career has given him a lot
of strength, confidence and belief.
It also gave him the conviction
to take up projects such as Udta
Punjab (2016), where the teetotaller
Kapoor played a delusional, drug-
abusing rockstar. The Abhishek

Shahid & Pankaj: GaneSh Lad / FotocorP; haider: Viacom18 motion PictureS
Chaubey-directed film ended up
becoming the biggest opening
of his career, collecting `33.8
crore over the first three days.
“I met the literati of the country
when Haider was screened.
Everybody wanted to see it,
everybody had a point of view. So I
learnt a lot from their perspectives.
Udta was no different… it was another
controversial film because we were
talking about a problem that exists.
I think it’s appreciated when you
talk about things that are real issues
through movies,” Kapoor says.
“Of course, films should be about
entertaining people and giving them a
(Clockwise from top): Shahid Kapoor in Haider, one of his most acclaimed performances;
portraying a drug-addict in Udta Punjab; with co-star Kangana Ranaut in Rangoon; with good experience, but that should not
father and noted actor Pankaj Kapur be the only thing they find in cinema.”

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 67

 Kapoor had greenlit the script
as soon as he heard it, Chaubey
tells Forbes India. “I was quite
surprised,” he adds. “I asked him
what motivates him to do a film like
this. And he said that ‘I do regular
films—romantic and mainstream
ones—but when am I going to get
an opportunity like this?’ Given
that he’s a star, and he also needs
`100-crore films, I think it was pretty
brave of him [to do Udta Punjab].”
And once committed, Kapoor was
“immersed in the project”, adds the
director. “We used to have extensive
meetings regarding his character, and
he also helped the producer and me
in every way that he could. Also, he
backed us right till the end [through
the controversies]. For a director,
“the Biggest Compliment is if
PeoPle are talkiNg about
the Characters That I Have Played.”
that means a lot, to get support
from the main stars of the film.”
Bhansali and Padmavati are
now in similar need, given the
delayed release compounded with
death threats against the lead
actor Deepika Padukone, effigies
burnt and the general high-octane
drama surrounding the film.
To this, Kapoor says, “It’s
important for all of us to understand
that there is a larger issue at hand,
and that is the freedom of speech
and expression; and how tolerant
we are as a society… the film should
be given an opportunity, and from
the bottom of my heart I can say
that [the film] will only make you
feel proud about our culture and
heritage.” The period-drama stars
Padukone as the legendary queen
Padmavati, alongside Kapoor as
her husband Maharawal Ratan
Singh, and Ranveer Singh as the
68 | forbes india january 5, 2018
antagonist, Alauddin Khilji.
This tumultuous journey may
well end positively for all concerned,
including Kapoor, who flowers with
a good director and a great script.
Without those, he flounders.
There’s a familiar pattern
throughout Kapoor’s career: Either
dizzying highs of iconic roles or the
rough troughs of underwhelming
commercial failures. For every
Kaminey, he’s had a Dil Bole
Hadippa! (2009) or Teri Meri
Kahaani (2012); and a Haider has
been followed by an occasional
Shaandaar (2015) and Rangoon.
“My career’s been like that. It’s
been unpredictable and it’s seen
a lot of ups and downs. So this
is who I am, this is how I define
myself and this is the journey
that I have taken. And I believe
this is the journey that has been
written for me,” he says stoically.
No wonder the actor has shown
admirable calm amid every storm,
patiently clinging on to the wreckage
in pursuit of the next cult film.
“If you see, even in the regular
commercial roles, as an actor, he
has done well,” Pankaj Kapur points
out. Shahid’s “intelligence”, he
believes, lies in understanding that
there’s no “mathematics” that can
govern a film’s commercial fate.
Rather, his endurance is a result
of sticking to the basics: Choosing
the correct script, working with the
right directors and taking risks.
“I think that’s a great secret
of his success and clearly, going
ahead as well, it’ll hold him in
great stead because that gives you
longevity, beyond generations,”
says Abundantia’s Malhotra, adding
that Kapoor’s limited exposure
works in the actor’s favour.
In sync with his preference
for content-backed characters,
Kapoor’s next two movies after
Padmavati include Imtiaz Ali’s
untitled project and Batti Gul Meter
Chalu, directed by Shree Narayan
Singh, who earlier made Toilet:
Ek Prem Katha (2017). Kapoor is
said to be playing a lawyer in the
light-hearted social drama, based
on the corruption around power
distribution, resulting in mounting
electricity bills for consumers.
“The biggest compliment is
if people are talking about the
characters that I have played. That
for me is achieving something, way
beyond anything else,” Kapoor says.
“The definition of cinema is the
‘willing suspension of disbelief’,
where you choose to suspend the
knowledge of the fact that what you
are watching is not true. So when
you can achieve that, it is amazing.”
In fact, that pursuit of honest
work is what has kept Kapoor going
through the vicissitudes of his career.
“I didn’t let go of the voice that
is deep within, which is pure and
honest. It comes from your soul, from
your core, and every creative being
will understand what I am talking
about,” he says, gently nodding
with conviction. “I had times when
I was conflicted. But it [the voice]
always came back to me and I always
pondered, and I always waited.
And maybe I took some chances
that some actors in my generation
would not have taken. I took those
chances and they worked for me.”
 Beyond
Boundaries
AnushkA shArmA’s only plan has been to have no plan. And this
ability to take things as they come has helped her wear the many hats
of actor, producer and entrepreneur

By kunAl PurAndAre

forbes india
Errikos AndrEou

c e l e b r i t y 100

rank

no.32

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 71

 A
anushka sharma has everything
that a 29-year-old can ask for. A
glittering acting career that began with
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), fame that
allows her to make the choices that
she wants to, money that ensures the
freedom to live life on her own terms.
And above all, confidence and clarity
that have been constant companions
in her journey to becoming an actor
of substance. Yet, it is time for herself
that she yearns for. “Right now, my aim
“When you Set Plans For
Yourself, you are just
creating Boundaries.”
is to be able to sleep for seven hours
and work out,” she tells Forbes India
in a crisp telephonic interview on a
balmy Sunday evening in November in
Mumbai before rushing to the studios
to shoot for filmmaker Anand Rai’s
next, which also features Shah Rukh
Khan—her co-actor in her first film.
Though she is aware of her hectic
schedule and myriad things run
through her mind, she does not rush
through her answers even once.
Every question is met with a concise
reply that gives a deep insight into
the clear vision with which she deals
with tasks at hand. Whether it is
enacting the character of a Gujarati
girl in Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017),
diving into the post-production
work of her next home production,
72 | forbes india january 5, 2018
Pari, scheduled for a February 2018
release, or overseeing her clothing line
NUSH, Sharma has chosen to push
the boundaries. It is this approach
that has allowed the Ayodhya-born
actor to not only blend into a close-
knit film industry despite being an
‘outsider’ but also walk the talk.
“God has been supremely kind to
me. I never had any plans of becoming
an actor and don’t know what I would
have done had this not worked out,”
says Sharma, who started modelling in
her teenage years. “I thought I would
model for the rest of my life. But now
when I think of it, it’s not something
that I would have enjoyed doing for
so many years.” Fashion designer
Wendell Rodricks was awestruck by
her beauty when he spotted her at a
denims store in Bengaluru in 2006
and promised to put her on the ramp
if she came to Mumbai. “Anushka
struck me immediately as a person
with star quality. She was a star from
the time I set my eyes on her,” he says.
The spark in Sharma, then 19, was
also noticed by Yash Raj Films (YRF)
honcho and filmmaker Aditya Chopra
who offered her Rab Ne Bana Di
Jodi after being impressed with her
audition. “I auditioned for the film
without knowing who the co-actor
or director would be. I just happened
to give a good audition and was
shortlisted for it. Everything happened
so quickly… I don’t think I was
prepared for what was to come after
you become an actor,” recalls Sharma.
That could be the voice of a
newcomer, the daughter of an army
officer and a homemaker, far removed
from the film world. Today, having
proved her mettle as an actor for
almost a decade with hits like Band
Baaja Baaraat (2010), PK (2014) and
Sultan (2016), Sharma is adept at
accepting the good with the bad that
comes along with stardom. Even if it’s
criticism… like she faced from certain
quarters for choosing motherhood
over pursuing sport in Sultan.
Calling herself a realist, Sharma
says she has the ability to cut herself
out from such negativity. “You could
be winning the Nobel Peace Prize,
but there’d be enough number of
people to criticise you for what you
do. That’s the strange universe that we
live in today. To think that everyone
is going to like you and people are
constantly going to be encouraging of
you… you are going to find yourself in
constant disappointment,” she says.
The maturity that she displays while
dealing with fickleness that renown
brings is a result of her evolution as a
person, and something that she says
has helped her as an actor too. “My
personal growth as a human being is
of prime importance to me. I do feel
that reflects on you as an actor,” she
tells Forbes India. “It’s easy to get
stuck in a bubble and create a cushy,
comfortable environment around you.
But it is also a downfall as an actor.”
The individual progress that
she refers to is something that her
colleagues in the film world also
appreciate. Actor Ranveer Singh who
made his debut opposite Sharma
in Band Baaja Baaraat says: “It’s
wonderful to see how far she has
come. She was always amazing as an
actor, but her craft has gotten more
solid. She’s also come into her own
as a person. She’s comfortable with
herself and clear about her choices.”
Both actors have a common mentor
in Aditya Chopra, but Ranveer says

Anushka Sharma proved her mettle as an actor with her performance in Sultan (2016)
the YRF boss often cites Sharma’s
example to him to do the right things,
saying: “Tu nalaayak hai… seekh
kuch Anushka se… (You are useless,
learn something from Anushka).”
As an actor, she is open to be
vulnerable. That’s an essential and a
great quality in an actor, says Navdeep
Singh, who directed NH10 (2015), the
first film made by Clean Slate Films,
a production house set up by Sharma
and her brother Karnesh in 2014.
Another trait that hasn’t gone
unnoticed is her unselfishness. Ranveer
hasn’t forgotten the handholding
from her during the making of Band
Baaja Baaraat. “She was two films old
then and knew much more than me.
But she was gracious, generous and
open-hearted in terms of contributing
towards my development. I was
completely clueless... I was so raw
that it could get annoying, irritating,
but she was extremely patient with
me. I’ll always be grateful to her for
everything that she taught me when I
was a rank newcomer,” says the actor.
Neil Bhoopalam, Sharma’s NH10 co-
star, expects more surprises from her.
He calls Sharma his SRK [Shah Rukh
Khan], saying he imbibed a lot from
her during the shooting of the film,
just as she learnt from the superstar
on the sets of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.
Sharma had a dream debut, but she
calls Band Baaja Baaraat the turning
point of her career. “I wasn’t riding
on the back of someone else in Band
Baaja… it was on my own merit that
I got praise and so much love from
people. I owned my success. It wasn’t
borrowed from somebody else,” the
actor explains. The self-approval
only instilled a greater drive in her
to do quality work because the first
time she saw herself on celluloid, she
didn’t like seeing herself on screen.
Others, however, had a favourable
opinion. Celebrities like playback
singer Sunidhi Chauhan were gushing
about her talent. “Whether she’s
performing on my songs or acting or
doing advertisements, everything that
she does on screen, I see an absolute
conviction, hard work and focus
in her, in her eyes, in the way she
portrays herself,” says Chauhan, who
has sung chartbusters like ‘Ainvayi
Ainvayi’ and ‘Radha’ for Sharma.
As someone who had the
opportunity to know Sharma a bit
more personally, Chauhan says her
humility stands out. “She’s inquisitive
about what people think, how they
like her work and she wants to make
it better each time. She speaks less,
especially about her work, and does
more,” the singer tells Forbes India.
Ranveer calls her a special actor. “She
is naturally gifted. She’s an untrained
actor for the most part,” he says.
Juggling between multiple
commitments can be exhausting, but
Sharma does it with the finesse of a
professional. “I have been able to do
so much because I am open to things.
When you set plans for yourself, you
are just creating boundaries. I have
never created any for myself,” she says.
Singh of NH10 concurs. He says
despite being a first-time producer,
she was supportive of the film. “That’s
important, especially when you are
an actor-producer to realise that the
film is probably bigger than your part.
Often, actors forget that,” he says.
Her screen persona of a charming,
lively person extends to real life too. So
much so that the child-like enthusiasm
in her prompted her to give an
impromptu high five to her driver after
she was offered PK. Sharma, however,
says she is anything but the talkative
person that people perceive her to be.
“I am totally shy and a huge
introvert. I don’t like going out too
much. I like to be in my own space
and enjoy spending time with myself.
prEvious sprEAd: FAshion stylist : AlliA Al ruFAi; WArdrobE: nush Autumn WintEr collEction 2017;
I am a little bit of a recluse maybe,”
says Sharma, who recently tied
the knot with cricketer Virat Kohli
in a private ceremony in Italy.
Ranveer is aware of the reclusive
side of Sharma and therefore enjoys
pestering her even more. He says
although they share a “volatile
friendship”, he gets tremendous joy
in annoying her. “But we share a
mAkE up ArtistE : punEEt b sAini; hAir stylsit : yiAnni tsApAtori
great camaraderie. She’s an honest
person, almost to a fault,” he says.
It was with the same honesty that
Sharma started a beauty parlour at
her friend’s house in Bengaluru when
she was nine. They even distributed
pamphlets in the locality and some
women came to them, thinking it
was a legitimate business. Their
plans were scuttled when their
parents got to know of it. “It was
a disaster. It lasted just two days,”
says Sharma with a hearty laugh.
Thankfully, the same cannot be
said of her film career. It’s turned
out to be quite a success story.
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 73
 The
Expressionist
Although RajkummaR Rao didn’t make it
to the List, the actor who has made realism
mainstream has become one of the most
bankable stars of neo-Indian cinema

by aveek Datta
PhotograPhs by mexy xavieR

74 | forbes india january 5, 2018

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 75
O
one of the eagerly-anticipated
films of 2018 is Hansal Mehta’s
Omerta, where actor Rajkummar
Rao essays the role of Ahmed Omar
Saeed Sheikh, a British terrorist
of Pakistani descent, notorious for
killing Daniel Pearl, a journalist
with The Wall Street Journal.
The film debuted at the Toronto
Film Festival in late 2017 and garnered
rave reviews. “At the end of this
slickly mounted film, there’s no
lack of questions still dangling nor
hoped-for insights that fail to arrive.
Nonetheless, while you’re watching
it, Mehta’s freely imagined biopic
provides a fascinating Rorschach of
a figure who is, unfortunately, truly a
man of our times,” a review of the film
published in Variety magazine states.
The review is not only a tribute to
Mehta’s directorial brilliance, but also
speaks volumes of the realism brought
to the character by Rao, the film’s
lead actor. Rao, 33, has built quite a
reputation for getting into the skin of
the characters he portrays on screen.
And there is no length to which he
wouldn’t go to achieve this. So much
so that Mehta and Rao’s girlfriend
and actor Patralekha tell Forbes India
that they could barely recognise Rao
during shooting. And they weren’t just
talking about his physical appearance.
“i don’t bEliEvE in thE
Herd Mentality of trying to
do what Everyone Else is Doing.”
76 | forbes india january 5, 2018
“When I visited Raj on the sets of
Omerta, he had become this different,
annoying person,” recalls Patralekha,
who has known Rao for six years.
“There was such an eerie feeling
around him and he wasn’t the nice
person he otherwise is. I told him that
I didn’t want to be there and would
see him once his shoot is over.”
Mehta has known Rao since 2011,
when he first cast him in Shahid, a
biographical portrayal of lawyer and
human rights activist Shahid Azmi, for
which Rao bagged the National Award
in 2014. The two have collaborated
on multiple films—CityLights (2014),
Aligarh (2016) and now Omerta.
Speaking of their latest film, Mehta
says Rao, who has pursued a course in
acting from the Film and Television
Institute of India (FTII), imbibed the
darkness associated with the character
of Sheikh, even when the camera
wasn’t rolling. “He pulled out a dark
side to himself that you wouldn’t think
was possible, since he is such a gentle
soul otherwise,” says Mehta. “He
was mean, cold and slightly reserved
since that is what the character
demanded of him. We actually
used to keep distance from him.”
Bringing an element of “realism”
to the cinema that he does is his
“forte”, says Rao, who grew up in
Gurugram. “I do whatever it takes
to make the film relatable to my
audience,” adds Rao, who has acted
in 23 films over the last seven years.
It is this penchant for authenticity,
catering to an audience that is
increasingly looking for depth
of content over just star power,
which has made Rao one of the
most bankable brands of neo-
Indian cinema. His performance
in 2017 is a testament to this.
Rao (born with the surname Yadav
that he later changed to Rao, which
is derived from the title ‘Raosahab’
by which a lot of Yadavs in Haryana
are known) had six releases in 2017
of which five did decent business. He
bagged the Asia Pacific Screen Award
in Australia for Newton—which was
India’s official entry to the Oscars,
but failed to make the cut—that deals
with the experience of an honest and
upright electoral officer determined
to conduct free and fair polls in a
Naxal-controlled area. Rao also won
the Best Actor (critics) award for his
performance in Newton at the Star
Screen Awards, along with the Best
Supporting Actor award for his role
in Bareilly Ki Barfi. He was conferred
the Indian of the Year award (in the
entertainment category) by CNN-
News18 (the news channel is a part of
Network 18, publisher of Forbes India).
Though always fond of cinema, the
thought of becoming an actor never
crossed Rao’s mind till he watched
Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhania
Le Jayenge (DDLJ) in 1995. He was
immediately drawn towards the
larger-than-life world of celluloid and
its first citizens like Khan. “I went
‘wow’. Look at this guy (Khan). He
belonged to Delhi and did theatre
there. I was from Gurugram and could
immediately connect with him. I
thought, ‘I want this life’. I want to be
a part of this world that was amazing
and surreal,” Rao tells Forbes India.
Sporting a lean frame, after
shedding all the weight he gained to
play Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose for
the web series Bose: Dead/Alive, Rao
politely sought permission to rest his
leg on a chair as we sat down to chat.
He was nursing a broken ankle that
he picked up while pulling off a stunt
Rajkummar Rao in a still from the web series Bose: Dead/Alive; (right) with Kriti Kharbanda in Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana
in a dance reality show. The surgery,
a titanium plate attached to the ankle,
and crutches, however, weren’t
enough to dampen his cheerful
demeanour as he breezed through
an hour-long conversation and an
elaborate photoshoot in December.
But there is a crucial difference
between Rao and his inspiration
Khan, arguably the biggest superstar
of Indian cinema since the 1990s.
While Khan has been relatively less
experimental in his choice of roles,
choosing to stick to the paradigm
of the quintessential romantic hero
(Swades and Chak De! India were
notable exceptions), Rao continues to
explore characters that are as different
as chalk and cheese. Sometimes, he is
an immigrant from Rajasthan trying
to make ends meet in the concrete
jungle of Mumbai (CityLights), at
other times he is a heartbroken groom
out to exact revenge on his runaway
bride (Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana),
a pervert (Love, Sex Aur Dhokha),
or a male chauvinist (Queen).
Born into a middle class family—
his father was a government official
and mother a homemaker—Rao
graduated in arts from the Atma Ram
Sanatan Dharma College (ARSD),
a part of Delhi University’s South
Campus. While he would pursue
studies during the day, evenings
were devoted to theatre, first at the
Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts
and then with the Kshitij Theatre
Repertory. “Once I started doing
theatre, there was no Plan B. I knew
I just wanted to act. Though it was
a lot of hard work, I never felt tired
and really enjoyed those days,” says
Rao. “In fact, I feel I used to work
much harder then, than I do now.”
Rao feels his presence in cinema
was part of a divine plan. Theatre as
an activity had just restarted at ARSD
when he joined, so had the course at
FTII a year before he decided to apply.
It was FTII that, Rao says, fostered
his growth as an actor, introducing
him to the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis,
Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
While Khan and DDLJ may have
encouraged him to look at cinema as a
career, it was another cult film, Shool
(1999)—in which Manoj Bajpayee
plays a police officer fighting a
corrupt system—that propelled him
towards experimentation. Bajpayee
is now a friend, Rao says, after
they worked together in Aligarh,
a critically acclaimed portrayal of
Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras (played
by Bajpayee), a gay professor who
was suspended from the Aligarh
Muslim University for his sexuality.
“I don’t do anything for the heck
of it. I have never tried to connect
the dots and chalk out a plan,” Rao
says. “Even as I am doing some big
budget films, my decision to take
up a project is purely based on the
story and the script. I don’t believe
in the herd mentality of trying to
do what everyone else is doing.”
Rao admits that he is probably at
the right place at the right time. The
evolved taste of modern-day cinema
goers is in sync with his strengths as
an actor. “Content is king today as
audiences have access to international
stuff and expect the same quality here.
They discard anything perceived
to be mediocre. Ten to 15 years
ago, very few people were making
this kind of cinema,” he says.
Consumers of content gravitating
towards digital as a medium has also
allowed actors like Rao to explore
web series such as Bose. It was
commercially remunerative and
creatively satisfying enough for the
actor to devote five months of his
previous spread: styling: anisha & rochelle; Wardrobe: shirt and blazer: paul smith; trousers :
schedule, gain 12 kg and shave off half
his head, “since a wig and prosthetics
weren’t having the desired effect”.
“Rao is an actor who is not greedy
about the volume of the role he
gets to play, but about the kind of
cinema he gets to do,” says Mehta.
He is open to try new things, even
nm design; shoes : shutiQ; make up artiste : nitin; hair stylsit : vijay
if it’s a significantly trimmed role,
like in Gangs of Wasseypur–Part 2.
Patralekha, who has co-starred with
Rao in CityLights and Bose, says Rao
approaches his part as a collaborative
effort. “If a co-star is struggling, he is
more than willing to help. He lives,
breathes and sleeps acting; his growth
has been tremendous,” she says.
Mehta confesses that when he
thought of making Shahid with Rao,
it was difficult to find producers.
The film eventually got made over 11
months, with the shoot progressing as
funds were raised in tranches. Given
the brand Rao has built for himself,
that is now a thing of the past.
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 77
 theTaboo buster
AyushmAnn KhurrAnA’s earnings fall short of the
List’s price of entry this year. Yet, his unorthodox roles have
earned him a distinctive identity in Bollywood
F
from his debut film vicky donor
(2012), with its witty take on
infertility and sperm donation, to
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017),
which discusses the much-tabooed
topic of erectile dysfunction,
Ayushmann Khurrana’s penchant for
unconventional roles has earned him
a definitive identity in Bollywood.
The 33-year-old says he has no
qualms about being part of films that
explore beyond-the-pale subjects. “I
think you need to be courageous and
“you need To Be Courageous And
Experimental With Your Craft . acting
Abheet GidwAni
is about taking risks.”
78 | forbes india januarY 5, 2018
by Anshul DhAmijA
experimental with your craft.
Acting and film-making are about
taking risks,” Khurrana tells Forbes
India. “In this day and age, when
there are lots of options on digital
platforms to get edgy content, you
have to deliver something different
to pull people to the movie hall.”
The actor, who had made it to
the 2013 Forbes India Celebrity
100 List with net earnings of
`2.58 crore, adds, “It’s fun playing
taboo characters and subjects.”
His offbeat characters and a
rocking debut with Vicky Donor
notwithstanding, Khurrana could
not make a mark at the box office
with urban-centric romcoms like
Bewakoofiyaan (2014) and Meri Pyaari
Bindu (2017). However, his Dum Laga
Ke Haisha (2015), with its message
against body shaming, did not go
unnoticed at the box office and among
critics. He delivered two back-to-
back hits Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh
Mangal Saavdhan in 2017. Shubh
Mangal Saavdhan, where his character
suffers from a sexual disorder, is
an antithesis to Vicky Donor where
he portrays a sperm donor.
The actor admits that the films
that have worked for him are the ones
where he has either essayed a middle-
class person or ones set in small towns.
“If you’re changing yourself in every
film, and for every character, you will
get exhausted as an actor,” believes
Khurrana. “You [an actor] need to
establish yourself in a particular genre
first before making a shift,” he says.
And 2018 will see him do just that. In
his upcoming thriller Shoot the Piano
Player, he plays a visually-challenged
pianist. While it’s a new genre for
 Ayushmann Khurrana
says it’s fun playing taboo
characters and subjects

him, Khurrana’s ambition is

startlingly different. “I would
love to do a film which would
require me to go through a body
transformation. [I’m] just waiting
to show off my abs,” he laughs. [In
Bewakoofiyaan he did get a chance
to flaunt his abs, but only briefly.]
Khurrana, who says he wanted to
be an actor from a young age—“I
was always interested in theatre.
In class five, I played Shylock
in The Merchant of Venice”—also
had a few pit stops along the
way: The postgraduate in mass
communications worked as a
radio jockey and anchored
reality shows on MTV, Star
Plus and Colors before filmdom
beckoned. Acting apart,
Khurrana has also earned his
stripes as a playback singer with
one song each in six out of his
eight films. “I would only sing
if I’m required to… if it goes
with the character and narrative
of the film,” he asserts. The
two films in which he hasn’t
sung a song are Meri Pyaari
Bindu and Dum Laga Ke Haisha.
While in the former, his co-
star Parineeti Chopra essayed
a role which required her to
sing, in the latter, Khurrana had
played a character with a lot of
complexities. “I thought I should
separate the singer from the
actor in that particular film.”
He also has his own two-year-
old music band, Ayushmann
Bhava (Sanskrit for ‘blessings
for a long life’) that has
performed live in the US and
Dubai. “That’s my alternative
[career],” says the actor.
 Honey, They Shrunk
Your Screen
Why actors—both from the fringes and the mainstream—
are gravitating towards OTT platforms
T
till 2014, sumeet vyas, with 14
years of acting behind him, was
just another thespian waiting in the
wings. He had dabbled in theatre,
television and blink-and-you-miss
roles in films since he was 17. While
Vyas had wangled key roles in
some television serials, he says he
always wanted to focus on cinema.
There were tiny roles in movies
like Aarakshan and Aurangzeb
but, says Vyas, “The last thing that
did decently for me was English
Vinglish (in 2012).” He further tells
Forbes India over phone: “Film
actors and directors didn’t pay
much heed to TV actors. It was
almost like making a fresh start after
spending so many years in acting.”
However, Vyas did not have to
deal with this obscurity for long,
80 | forbes india january 5, 2018
bY Sayan Chakraborty
thanks to a phenomenon that was
beginning to unfold in India around
that time. It was called the web series,
a show that can be viewed only on
the internet. In early 2014, Vyas
agreed to act in such a show, The
Viral Fever’s Permanent Roommates,
despite being paid a pittance. “I
was like, we are anyway working in
theatre for free, so it doesn’t matter
if they pay or not,” he jokes.
The shooting proved to be more
cumbersome than he had anticipated.
“The first season was supposed to
be a weeklong shoot. But it took
about six days to shoot the first
episode itself,” recalls Vyas, who was
beginning to get impatient. After
all, engagements that paid his bills
had to be put on the backburner.
It all changed with the third
episode, which was uploaded on
YouTube one November midnight,
and clocked about 4 lakh views by 7
am. “That is when I realised that it
was big and not something that you
could take casually. By the time the
last episode came out, people had
started clicking pictures with me,
complimenting me,” says Vyas.
Today, the 34-year-old seems
to have finally found his feet in
Bollywood, after two seasons of
Permanent Roommates and Tripling,
both on The Viral Fever channel,
and Stories By Rabindranath Tagore
on Netflix. He recently starred in
a film, Ribbon, along with Kalki
Koechlin. Next up is Veere Di
Wedding, where he will share the
screen with Kareena Kapoor, Sonam
Kapoor and Swara Bhaskar.
Vyas is just one of the many
actors on the fringes who has gained
mainstream recognition through
over-the-top (OTT) platforms—
Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar,
Voot, Viu, AltBalaji and TVF, to
name a few. At the same time,
convinced by the original and
exclusive content available as well as
the diverse and huge reach of those
platforms, mainstream artistes, too,
are jumping on the bandwagon.
For instance, Radhika Apte, Saif
Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui
will star in an adaptation of Vikram
Chandra’s novel, Sacred Games, on
Netflix; Richa Chadda and Vivek
Oberoi headlined Amazon Prime’s
(From left): Tahir Raj Bhasin in a still from Time Out; Sumeet Vyas during a TVF shoot in Manali
Inside Edge; Swara Bhaskar is on
Voot with It’s Not That Simple
as is Tahir Raj Bhasin with Time
Out; and Anil Kapoor, never to
be kept out of the game, will be
seen on Amazon Prime’s Oasis.
For the actors, it is about being
where the audience is. “If you have
to be a movie star, you have to reach
out to the audience all the time. The
digital audience is the youth today
and this is the same youth who will go
to the theatres to watch your films,”
says Bhasin, who earned his stripes
in movies like Mardaani and Force
2. “In between big studio films, you
have to churn out digital content that
connects with the youth,” he adds.
Bollywood has obviously taken a
cue from Hollywood, where artistes
are, in fact, gravitating towards the
OTT platforms to stay relevant in an
adapt-or-die kind of an industry. Not
just the actors: Years after his show
Seinfeld went off air, comedian Jerry
Seinfeld reinvented himself for the
online platform with Comedians in
Cars Getting Coffee, which was first
distributed by digital platform Crackle,
and has now moved to Netflix (also
the home for his Jerry Before Seinfeld).
According to Richa Chadda of
Fukrey and Gangs of Wasseypur
fame, who recently acted in Inside
Edge for Amazon Prime, OTTs are
the way forward, given the shrinking
number of single-screen theatres and
the high cost of watching movies in
multiplexes. Meanwhile, most OTTs
operate on a “freemium” model
where a large part of the content can
be viewed for free while users shell
out a monthly subscription between
Rs 80 and Rs 500 for exclusive
content. “Digital doesn’t have the
same pressure as films in terms of box
office collections. Also, there is no
censorship. We can touch upon topics
which are a taboo. For instance, Inside
Edge had a caste angle,” says Chadda.
“The downside is that everyone now
wants to do a web series and all the
content is not up to the mark.”
Ashish Pherwani, head, advisory,
media & entertainment, at EY shares
Chadda’s optimism. “OTTs are alive
and kicking. Consumers want more
content for personal consumption
and OTTs are the best way to do that.
While TV and living room will always
rule, consumers are individualistic
and want to watch something of
their choice, not necessarily with
the family,” says Pherwani.
According to a July 2017 report
by EY and Ficci, the digital medium
is projected to clock a compounded
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26
percent between 2016 and 2021, albeit
on a lower base, as compared to TV,
which is poised to grow at a CAGR
of 11 percent. But, to leverage this
opportunity, Pherwani believes OTTs
need to differentiate themselves from
the rest of the pack with exclusive
content, among others. And the
OTTs seem to have taken note. “One
thing we noticed that we had to build
from ground up is originals, fiction
series that are of the highest quality.
There was a need for content that
customers couldn’t find on everyday
TV,” says Vijay Subramaniam,
head of Amazon Prime in India.
Netflix, for instance, has announced
four shows from India while Amazon
Prime, apart from announcing 21
exclusive shows, has bagged broadcast
rights to films like Padmavati,
starring Ranveer Singh and Deepika
Padukone, and Rajinikanth’s 2.0.
However, monetisation still
remains a hurdle. While Netflix
and Amazon Prime do not feature
free content, a significant part of
the content offered by homegrown
businesses comes for free. Most
OTTs, hence, are exploring multiple
revenue streams apart from traditional
subscription. “The propensity to
not pay is something you cannot
outrun. Hence you have to be
patient,” says Vishal Maheshwari,
country head at Viu India.
All said, proliferation of cheap
smartphones and inexpensive
internet connections have set the
stage for OTTs to flourish. And the
actors stand to benefit. As Bhasin
puts it, “Digital is the Indian Premier
League for entertainment. With its
quicker and shorter format, it has
done to entertainment what IPL
did to cricket 10 years ago.”
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 81
82 | forbes india january 5, 2018
Style ASSiStAntS: MAxiMilliAn PArkinSon And PAriS toribio; HAir And MAkeuP: SuzAnA HAllili uSing urbAn decAy And MArio bAdeScu; PHotogrAPHed At tHe ritz-cArlton, boSton

3O 3O
BILLION-DOLLAR
BUMBle
three years after leaving tinder amid a nasty dispute,
30 under 30 honouree Whitney Wolfe Herd is beating
her old colleagues at their own game, offering women
a dating app that’s designed for them—and entrepreneurs
a blueprint on how to succeed in a saturated field
By Clare O’COnnOr
W
hen Whitney Wolfe Herd started
planning an October launch party
for a new product at Bumble,
America’s fastest-growing dating-app
company, she was deliberate in her
choice of venue: The Manhattan space that for 57 years
hosted the Four Seasons restaurant, where regulars like
Henry Kissinger, Vernon Jordan, Edgar Bronfman and
Stephen Schwarzman created the ultimate power lunch.
The space now has a new name, new management
and a new menu. And, as Herd insists, a new perspective
on business. “The power lunch is no longer just for
men,” Herd announces to the mostly young, mostly
female crowd, before ceding the stage to the pop
star Fergie. “We all deserve a seat at the table.”
That table surely now includes the 28-year-old Herd,
who has changed the tenor of dating dynamics. By letting
women make the first move, Bumble has amassed over
22 million registered users, to Tinder’s 46 million, and at
croSS border
more than 70 percent year-over-year growth, to
Tinder’s roughly 10 percent, it’s closing the gap quickly.
Bumble began monetising via in-app purchases only
in August 2016 and will cross $100 million in sales
this year, a figure that—aided by the introduction of
tailored, hyperlocal advertising—is projected to double
in 2018. Herd turned down a $450 million buyout offer
from the Match Group earlier this year, according to
sources with knowledge of the conversations. And
PHotogrAPH by JAMel toPPin for forbeS
these sources maintain that Match approached the
company again this fall to discuss a valuation well
over $1 billion. This 30 Under 30 honouree retains
20 percent of Bumble, a stake that makes her a
centimillionaire. (Match declined to comment.)
It’s a stunning comeback. As co-founder and vice
president of marketing at Tinder, which has reinvented
how people date and mate, she was part of one of the
great business success stories of the smartphone age.
But then she found herself in one of the era’s great
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 83
 3O 3O
BILLION-DOLLAR BUMBLE

public dramas. In June 2014, she

sued Tinder for sexual harassment,
alleging that her ex-boss and ex-
boyfriend Justin Mateen called her
a “whore” and “gold digger” and
bombarded her with threatening
and derogatory text messages, which
she attached to her complaint. She
also alleged that Tinder, owned by
IAC and then by its Match Group
spinoff, had wrongly stripped her
of a co-founder title. The company
denied any wrongdoing, but
Mateen was suspended and then
resigned. Sean Rad, then the CEO
of Tinder, told Forbes in 2014 that
Herd bore part of the blame for
the bad blood between her and
Mateen. The suit was quickly settled
for a sum that Forbes previously
reported to be approximatel`y $1
million. (The settlement bars the
parties from discussing the case.)
There’s no question who the
founder of Bumble is. Rather than
sulk about Tinder, Herd decided to
compete against it. In doing so, she
belatedly entered one of the most
crowded and established digital
fields (over 90 percent of online
dating startups fail) and nonetheless
quickly carved out a lucrative
space by focusing on the needs of
one segment: Women. More than
10 percent of Bumble’s users pay
$9.99 for a monthly subscription
CeO Herd wants Bumble to empower women in dating, friendship and career
to access perks like extra time to
decide whether a suitor merits a they were having full debates about me,” Herd says.
message. At Tinder, just about 5 percent of users pay for a “I wasn’t running for office. I wasn’t trying to be on a
similar service, according to a report from the investment reality show. I was just a girl who left somewhere.”
firm Jefferies. It helps, of course, that her segment also When that abuse turned into rape and murder threats
happens to represent a majority of the population. from strangers, she deleted her Twitter account. Panic
“I just don’t harbour resentment toward attacks and paranoia followed. A Salt Lake City native who
anything or anywhere or anyone—I’m too busy,” attended private school and is a third-generation legacy
Herd says. But if success is the best revenge, at Southern Methodist
then nine digits in three years flat offers the kind University in Dallas, she
of vindication people make movies about. “The power retreated to Texas and the

H
erd’s path to Bumble was unintended. In the
lunch is no family of her then boyfriend
Michael Herd, who’s
months between filing suit against Tinder longer just for now her husband. “I was
and settling, she experienced the sort of men. We all broken,” she says. Trying
online abuse that’s all too familiar to women to give some purpose to
who make public sexual harassment allegations. “I was
deserve a seat this trauma, Herd began
being told the ugliest things by complete strangers, and at the table.” sketching out a women-

84 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 croSS border

only social network called Merci, which would focus

on positivity. “No compliments on physicality,”
“What if clause—she took Andreev
up on his offer. He’d make
she says. “Compliments about who they are.” women make an initial investment of
Then came an unsolicited email from someone with
an unfamiliar address and a Russian name, Andrey
the first move, about $10 million for launch
marketing and commit
Andreev. Born in Moscow and based in London, send the first additional funds to fuel
Andreev in 2006 had founded Badoo, an online dating message? And growth, taking 79 percent
network that is today the world’s largest, with over of the company. She’d be
360 million registered users in 190 countries. Herd
if they don’t, the founder, the CEO and
had met Andreev at a dinner in 2013 while she was at the match a 20 percent owner, with
Tinder, and she’d made an impression. “To be honest,
I immediately fell in love with Whitney’s passion and
disappears all the autonomy those
titles imply, while tapping
energy,” says the thick-accented Andreev, who has after 24 into Badoo’s infrastructure
acquired a reputation as a recluse because he rarely hours.” and Andreev’s know-how.
grants interviews. “I thought she was a very cool lady Both have come in handy.
and that I should be watching her very carefully.” At Badoo, Andreev has a
When she didn’t reply, his team emailed Herd’s decade’s worth of A-B tests, data on the effectiveness of
lawyers, wishing her well with her legal battle and adding various monetisation efforts and experience of bringing
that he’d like to work with her. “My original idea was a product to scale that have no parallel in the dating
to get her as CMO at Badoo,” says Andreev, who’s 43. market. When the time came to start charging users
As it turned out, Herd had plans to visit her little for in-app perks, for instance, the team at Bumble was
sister at cooking school in Paris, and she made a pit stop able to develop sophisticated technology to support
in London. She didn’t want any part of his job offer. subscriptions from day one thanks to input from Badoo.
“Dream on—I’m not for hire,” she recalls saying. “I’m From September to December of that year, Herd flew
starting a company, and I don’t want to be in dating.” She between Texas and London around 15 times. She and
did pitch him on Merci, though. While Andreev liked Andreev brought in two of her fellow former Tinder
the idea of a women-centric social brand, he thought executives, Chris Gulczynski and Sarah Mick, to design
Herd should stick to her forte and his: The dating sector. the new app’s back end and user interface. (The two left
They spent days walking around London’s streets and Bumble in April to launch their own agency but still share
parks together, exchanging ideas. Andreev told her the 1 percent of equity not held by Andreev and Herd.)
he wanted to pair her innate talent for marketing and One night, over cocktails, Herd stumbled upon
branding with the infrastructure, capital and resources Bumble’s special sauce. “I always wanted to have a
at his disposal after almost a decade at Badoo. scenario where the guy didn’t have my number but I had
After she settled the Tinder lawsuit in September his,” she recalls telling Andreev. “What if women make
2014—which, conveniently, did not contain a non-compete the first move, send the first message? And if they don’t,

BIRDs Of A fEAthER
Niche-dating sites abound. These are some of the best known

Christian Mingle Hater Farmers Only JDate Wingman

DOwNLOADs:
NEARLy 1 MILLION
The site for finding a “God-
centred relationship” was
launched way back in 2001.
It’s now owned by niche-
dating umbrella company
Spark Networks. Among the
first questions at sign-up:
How regularly a potential
member attends church.
DOwNLOADs:
250,000
Founded in 2016, the app
lets you find love by com-
paring pet peeves as well
as interests. Hate Vladimir
Putin? Slow walkers? TV’s
The Bachelor? Find some-
one to kvetch with.
DOwNLOADs:
300,000
The dating portal “for farm-
ers, ranchers and country
folks” has been going
strong since 2005. Such
has been its success that
Ohio-based founder Jerry
Miller went on to launch
CurvesConnect.com for the
plus-size community and
their admirers in 2016.
DOwNLOADs:
250,000
The one-stop shop for
meeting and mingling with
fellow Jewish singles went
live during the dotcom
boom in 1997. Those who
don’t happen to be mem-
bers of the tribe can declare
whether they’re “willing to
convert” or not.
DOwNLOADs:
10,000
For single friends too ner-
vous to sign up themselves,
this app lets you send pals
on blind dates. The makers,
design studio Moa DW,
added gamification: Make
the most matches and top
the leaderboard.
Source: App Annie

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 85


3O 3O
BILLION-DOLLAR BUMBLE
the match disappears after 24 hours, like in Cinderella,
the pumpkin and the carriage? It’d be symbolic of a
Sadie Hawkins dance—going after it, girls ask first. What
if we could hardwire that into a product?” It was the
kind of brilliant tweak that comes from someone who
understands the target demographic because they’re in
it. After toying with names, the two settled on Bumble,
confident that branding details like hives and bees would
prove a marketing boon. The app went live in December
2014 and garnered over 100,000 downloads in its first
month. “Women were ready for this,” says Dave Evans,
an industry consultant who has chronicled hundreds of
bad experiences women have had with men on dating
apps. “Women got scared years ago. This goes way back.”
I
t’s 105 degrees outside Bumble’s new headquarters
in an otherwise residential neighbourhood in north
Austin, Texas. The oppressive August heat hasn’t
stopped passersby from gawking at the building’s
exterior. For its grand opening, artists have covered
the sunflower-yellow roof and walls with thousands
of oversize pastel balloons. It looks like the inside of a
gumball machine. Pedestrians take selfies in front of
it; cars linger, drivers asking the name of the company
inside. At Bumble, even something as ostensibly mundane
as a crosstown move is a marketing opportunity.
Bumble has 70 employees, approximately 85
percent of whom are women, including in all the top
jobs, Andreev aside. The new office reflects that, from
posters and neon signs espousing various Bumble
mantras like “You’re a Queen Bee”, “Be the CEO
Your Parents Always Wanted You to Marry” and
“Make the First Move”. When Bumble hands out its
cream-and-yellow sweaters as gifts at events—the
familiar honeycomb logo on the front, along with
the word “Honey”—there’s invariably a scramble.
“I think it’s part of feeling empowered, being
proud enough to say ‘I’m on this service’,”
Evans says. “On the street, if I was wearing an
AdultFriendFinder shirt, it’d be a different story.”
The bee theme and Bumble’s signature yellow are
front and centre in the app, which works like this:
When two users of the opposite sex match by swiping
right on each other’s profile, the woman must send her
potential date a message first or the connection is void.
By giving women control over the initial contact,
Bumble feels more polite and walled-off than competitors,
avoiding the unsolicited photos—including the occasional
male genitalia—that plague online dating. Last year
Bumble banned shirtless mirror selfies (common in male
profiles on Tinder); they were the most-left-swiped
photos. This doesn’t mean Bumble can prevent all abuse
or unpleasant experiences—but it does undercut them.
The more controlled environment has resulted
86 | forbes india january 5, 2018
croSS border
in surprising dividends. Hundreds of thousands of
women indicated on their profiles that they weren’t
there only for love. They also cared about friendship
and career. Hence BFF, an offshoot that focuses on
platonic connections between women, and Bizz, which
launched officially at the October party at the old Four
Seasons in New York and offers a challenge to LinkedIn,
with the same women-first interface that Bumble’s
users have grown accustomed to. “We’re taking out
the soliciting nature and the sexism that exists in
networking,” Herd says. “We think we have a chance.”
Success for these offshoots has been modest so far.
Bumble BFF has been tried by over 3 million users,
but just 500,000 are active
in a typical month. Bumble
Bumble feels Bizz is too new to evaluate,
more polite but like taking on Tinder
and walled with a product customised
for just under half the
off, avoiding workforce, even modest
the unsolicited success carries huge
potential. “To be able to test
photos that at that scale is something
plague online most startups can’t do,” says
Evans, the consultant. “They
dating can seed that network with
millions of people on Day 1.”
Of course, there’s at least one other dating startup that
also has the scale—and enough men and women—to delve
into such areas. Rad, who is still at Tinder running its
mergers and acquisitions arm, Swipe Ventures, declined
to comment for this story (as did Mateen). But the
company is obviously taking notes on Bumble’s
moves: Last year Tinder also expanded into platonic
relationships with an investment in Hey! Vina, a fast-
growing female-friendship network. And then there’s
the keen interest of Tinder’s parent, the Match Group,
which remains the biggest player in the online-dating
business in the United States. The publicly traded
company, which in addition to Tinder owns Match.
com, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish and other niche dating
sites, would clearly like to add Bumble to its roster.
“Look, Match has been lucky, because they have 45
different brands,” says Brent Thill, who covers the dating-
app market for Jefferies. “But probably the one brand that
seems to have caught everyone’s imagination is not theirs.”
Herd wouldn’t comment on the attempted buyouts,
but selling to Tinder’s parent and folding Bumble under
the same corporate umbrella would, of course, serve as a
poetic coda to the ugliness of 2014. Indeed, among those
at the headquarters dedication were representatives
of a high-profile Hollywood production company that
is contemplating making a movie about her saga. It is,
Herd acknowledges with a laugh, a pretty good story.
 3O 3O
Music
Cardi B, 25
Musician, hip-hop
Playboi Carti, 22
Musician, hip-hop
Jovin Cronin-Wilesmith,
Tim Luckow, 27, 29
Co-founders, Stem
What never grows old? The burning desire of youth to reinvent Lauren Daigle, 26
Musician, contemporary Christian
the world. That ambition and impatience is on full display in Will Dzombak, 29
the 2018 edition of the Forbes 30 Under 30, an encyclopaedia Manager, Wiz Khalifa
Jackie Evancho, 17
of creative disruption featuring 600 young stars in 20 different Musician, classical
industries. Selecting these youthful visionaries is an annual H.E.R., 20
Musician, R&B
challenge: We vet thousands of nominations, leaning on the Joe Jonas, 28
collective wisdom of Forbes’s online community, ace reporters Musician, pop
Khalid, 19
and a panel of A-list judges. It takes months, and in the end we Musician, R&B
pulled out 20 superstars—posing with their superpowers—who JaQuel Knight, 28
Choreographer
were photographed in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Kesha Lee, 29
Recording-mix engineer
Atlanta. Prepare to be inspired Lil Uzi Vert, 23
Musician, hip-hop
Lizzo, 29
EditEd by CAROLiNE HOWARd WitH NAtALiE SPORtELLi Musician, hip-hop
Marshmello, 25
DJ-producer

Playboi Carti, 21 Matt Meyer, 28

Agent, Paradigm
MUSiCiAn Maren Morris, 27
Musician, country
There’s no bigger role model for Offset, Quavo, Takeoff,
Playboi Carti than A$AP Rocky, the 26, 26, 23
Harlem-born rapper who earned Musicians, hip-hop, Migos
$14.5 million last year (and graced
Mike Posner, 29
the cover of 2016’s 30 Under 30 Musician, pop
issue). “He laid out the platform, and
I just went with it,” says Carti, who Phil Quist, 29
joined Rocky’s A$AP Mob collective Agent, Creative Artists Agency
and landed a six-figure deal with Bebe Rexha, 28
Interscope Records in late 2016. Musician, pop
His warbling flow and relentless Thomas Rhett, 27
trap beats allowed his single ‘Mag- Musician, country
nolia’ to clock 150 million Spotify Travis Scott, 26
spins, and his self-titled debut LP Musician, hip-hop
reached No 12 on Billboard’s album
charts. Playboi Carti fans also de- Drew Silverstein, 29
light in his fashion sense: Eccentric, Co-founder, Amper Music
brightly coloured outfits (accented SZA, 28
by designer handbags) have become Musician, R&B
a hallmark of his performances. His Emily Warren, 25
rising stardom resulted in landing Musician, pop
an Adidas video campaign this sum- Hayley Williams, 29
mer that earned him an estimated Musician, rock, Paramore
six-figure payout. So how long until
his earnings put him among the top WondaGurl, 21
Producer
hip-hop artistes? “We’ll see,” says
Carti. “Hopefully tomorrow.” Young MA, 25
—Zack O’Malley Greenburg & Musician, hip-hop
Natalie Robehmed Young Thug, 26
Musician, hip-hop
PLAyboI CARTI WEARS A PoLyAMIdE SHIRT Chris Zarou, 28
($1,153) ANd LEATHER ANd CoTToN SNEAk- Manager, Logic
ERS ($703) by off-WHITE C/o VIRGIL
AbLoH. PAINTER jEANS by AMIRI ($825).
dATEjUST WATCH by RoLEx. Judges:
Skylar Grey, singer-songwriter
(Under 30 Class of 2013)
Bob Moczydlowsky, managing director,
Techstars Music
PhotograPhS BY Jamel Toppin FoR FORBES. Creative StYle DireCtor: Joseph DeaceTis. Kevin Olusola, Grammy-winning
StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson anD paRis ToRibio; grooming: suzana hallili member of Pentatonix
using uRban Decay anD maRio baDescu; PhotograPheD at The RiTz-caRlTon, bosTon
(Under 30 Class of 2016)

88 | forbes india January 5, 2018

 cRoss boRDeR

Food & Drink Amandla Hollywood

Stenberg, 19 & Entertainment
Erik Brust, Connor Wray, 25, 25 ACTOR-AUTHOR
Co-founders, JonnyPops
Fatimah Asghar, Sam Bailey, 28, 28
Jordan Buckner, 29 “oftentimes when we play black wom- Co-creators, Brown Girls
Founder, TeaSquares en, we have to play either the pain or
Olivia Blaustein, 29
Aaron Caddel, 26 the comedy,” says Amandla Stenberg.
Agent, Creative Artists Agency
Founder, Mr Holmes Bakehouse “just now are we starting to have
three-dimensional, nuanced black Kara Brown, 29
Sommer Carroll, 26 Writer
Co-founder, Dirty Lemon Beverages characters for young women.” After
landing a part as Rue in 2012’s Hunger Steven Caple Jr, 29
Marian Cheng, 29
Co-founder, Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings Games, she starred in an adaptation of Director-writer
the young-adult bestseller Everything, Ben Davis, 28
Benjamin Chesler, 25 Everything, playing, Maddy, a teenage
Co-founder, Imperfect Produce Agent, WME
polymath in an inter-racial relationship.
Ayesha Curry, 28 Eric Fleischman, 28
The 2017 love story grossed a healthy Co-founder-producer, Defiant Studios
Chef-personality $61.5 million on a $10 million budget.
Chase Damiano, She has pushed herself beyond Sabaah Folayan, 27
Jeremy Martin, 29, 29 film and television, co-authoring the Director-producer
Co-owners, Commonwealth graphic novel series Niobe: She Is Jermaine Fowler, 29
Joe Coffee Roasters Actor-comedian
Life—the first to be internationally
Mike Dee, nick Devane, 27, 26 distributed with a black female author, Micah Fowler, 19
Co-founders, Foodworks artist and main character. Actor
Graham Fortgang, In 2015, Don’t Cash Crop My Corn-
Max Fortgang, 25, 28 Sam French, 28
rows, a video about cultural appropria- Head of Strategy & Business
Co-founders, MatchaBar tion she’d made for her high school Development, A24
David Foulquier, 27
Owner, Fooq’s
Peter Yang, 29 history class, went viral. Stenberg, who
has also created two short films, sees
Gigi Gorgeous, 25
CO-FOUnDER, POKéWORKS Digital star
Daniel Honig, 28 herself in the director’s chair soon. “I
Founder, Happy Valley Meat definitely feel it is my responsibility as Amanda Hymson, 29
What’s in a sushi burrito? Like someone who’s been given a platform Agent, United Talent Agency
Victoria James, 27
traditional ones, it contains rice and at a very young age to utilise it in a Riley Keough, 28
Corporate beverage director, Cote,
Gracious Hospitality Mangement avocado, but the similarities end there. way that reaches people and helps Actor
Roasted seaweed wraps replace flour people and makes them happy.”
Laura Johnson, 26 or corn tortillas, and inside are such in-
Joel Kim Booster, 29
Founder, You & Yours Distilling —Natalie Robehmed, Madeline Berg & Comedian-writer
gredients as raw salmon, tuna, mango, Hayley Cuccinello
Justin Kamine, 28 pickled ginger and wasabi aioli. Zoe Kravitz, 29
Co-founder, KDC Ag The idea of a sushi burrito caused Actor
Daniel Kurzrock, so much salivation in America last Daniel Kwan, 29
Jordan Schwartz, 28, 27 year that a video of one prepared at Director
Co-founders, ReGrained Peter yang’s Pokéworks went viral on Sasha Lane, 22
Tracy Lawrence, 28 facebook, accumulating 49 million Actor
Co-founder, Chewse views. from there, his six-seat Manhat-
Juan Pablo Martinez Zurita, 21
irene Li, 27 tan shop had two-hour lines morning
Digital star
Co-founder, Mei Mei till night for the rest of the year. “It
Restaurant & Street Kitchen was make or break for us,” says yang, Madina nalwanga, 17
Marguerite Mariscal, 28 who co-founded the company with Actor
VP, brand and design, Momofuku $150,000 in savings in 2015. Sono Patel, 29
Shawn nagpal, 29 yang’s work is serving up poke— Producer-writer
Founder, Nagpal Restaurant Group pronounced poh-kay—to new clientele. Ben Platt, 24
Grant Pinkerton, 29 The dishes of raw fish are rooted in Actor
Pitmaster-owner, Pinkerton’s Barbecue traditional Hawaiian cuisine, and Poké-
Esther Povitsky, 29
works serves bowls (fish and noodles,
Amanda Pizarro, 25 Actor-comedian
Co-founder, The Salty Donut rice or quinoa), salads (with add-ins
like lotus-root chips, seaweed and Madeline Sayet, 28
Anna Polonsky, 29 edamame) and the aforementioned Director
Co-founder, The MP Shift Yara Shahidi, 17
burritos prepared on a Chipotle-style
César Ponsonnet, 29 assembly line. A meal costs about $12. Actor
Maître d’, Le Bernardin Pokéworks should bring about $15 Alia Shawkat, 28
Grant Reynolds, 29 million in revenue this year. yang, who Actor
Partner, Delicious Hospitality Group immigrated to San diego from China
Trey Shults, 29
Carlie Steiner, 26 at the age of six and whose first job Director-producer-writer
Co-owner, Himitsu was as a drive-through attendant at a
burger joint, hopes to reach 100 stores Kofi Siriboe, 23
Michael Tierney, 28 Actor
Founder, Mikey’s by 2020. “We focus on customisation
because we saw a trend for diners to Hailee Steinfeld, 21
Peter Yang, 29
Co-founder, Pokéworks be more conscientious of what they’re Actor-musician
eating,” yang says. “We wanted to Amandla Stenberg, 19
Amy Zitelman, Jackie Zitelman,
28, 29 have that option for everybody—just Actor-author
Co-founders, Soom Foods the way they like it.” Kaitlyn Yang, 29
—Maggie McGrath, Natalie Sportelli & Founder, Alpha Studios
Maria Zizka, 29
Chloe Sorvino
Cookbook writer
Judges:
Judges: PETER yANG WEARS A SUEdE jACkET
(PRICE UPoN REqUEST), CoTToN T-SHIRT
AMANdLA STENbERG WEARS A STRETCH
CoTToN-ANd-WooL dRESS by yIGAL
Rachel Bloom, writer, comedian,
Nicholas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, ($128) ANd STRETCH jEANS ($198) by AzRoUëL ($890) ANd SANdALS by
co-creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Nathaniel Ru, co-founders, Sweetgreen joHN VARVAToS. LEATHER SNEAkERS by GIUSEPPE zANoTTI ($845). EARRINGS by (Under 30 Class of 2016)
fRATELLI RoSSETTI ($560). LINGUA NIGRA ($128). Gale Anne Hurd, CEo,
(Under 30 Class of 2012)
Lee Schrager, founder, South beach and Valhalla Entertainment
StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paR- StYle aSSiStant: John anThony Kathleen Kennedy, president, Lucasfilm
New york Wine & food festivals kinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa; bonilla; hair anD makeuP: kaThleen
Christina Tosi, chef-founder, Milk bar grooming: suzana hallili maRsh Mira Nair, director, producer, writer

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 89

 3O 3O
Michael Tubbs , 27
cRoss boRDeR Law & Policy Mayor, City of Stockton
Kevin Wang, 23
Erik Altieri, 29 Co-founder, FOSSA
Executive director, National
Consumer Judges: Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws
Heather Weiner, 28
Associate general counsel,
Technology Kayvon Beykpour, co-founder,
Periscope (Under 30 Class of 2017) Lauren Aronson, 29
Office of the Governor of Illinois
Jason Willick, 24
Jim Breyer, founder, breyer Capital Press secretary, House Ways & Assistant editorial features editor, the
Sam Bernstein, Sundeep Kumar, Whitney Wolfe, founder, Means Committee Wall Street Journal
23, 25 bumble (Under 30 Class of 2017) Yaniv Barzilai, 29
Co-founders, LoftSmart Counter-terrorism policy advisor for Judges:
Maia Bittner, 29 North Africa, Department of State Ivan Fong, general counsel, 3M;
Co-founder, Pinch James Braid, 28 former general counsel, department
Oliver Cameron, 29 Deputy chief of staff, Office of US of Homeland Security
Co-founder, Voyage Representative Ted Budd Timothy Hwang, co-founder, fiscalNote
Alexander Chen, 29 (Under 30 Class of 2016)
Abhishek Chandra, Adam
Chekroud, April Koh, 23, 25, 26 Equal Justice Works fellow, National Mike Needham, CEo, Heritage Action
Center for Lesbian Rights for America
Co-founders, Spring Health
Georges Clement, Laurence Tribe, professor, constitutional
Annie Cheung, 28 law, Harvard Law School
Co-founder, Noon Home Daniel Kass, 27, 27
Co-founders, JustFix.nyc
Francis Davidson, Lucas Pellan,
25, 25 Ann Conant, 27 Michael Tubbs, 27
Co-founders, Sonder Assistant to the deputy director,
White House Domestic Policy Council MAYOR, STOCKTOn, CALiFORniA
Daphne de Jong, 28
Technology programme manager, Lisa Conn, 29 few American cities have the same
Amazon Prime Air Strategic partner manager,
communities-civic leadership, notoriety as Stockton, California.
Susan Fowler, 26 Facebook fifty miles from the state capital of
Editor-in-chief, Increment magazine Sacramento, the city has long been
Allison Drutchas, 29
nick Handel, 25 Counsel, autonomous vehicles, plagued by gangs and violent crime (49
Product manager, machine learning, General Motors murders in 2016, down from a high of
Airbnb 71 in 2012). Native son Michael Tubbs,
Chelsea Follett, 27
Susan Ho, 29 Managing editor, HumanProgress.org the city’s youngest-ever mayor and the
Co-founder, Journy first African-American to hold that of-
Rafael García Aceves, 29 fice, wants to change that. He wants to
Matt Howard, Alex Wyler, 28, 28 Former programme coordinator,
Co-founders, EatStreet Transparencia Mexicana replicate a programme pioneered in the
bay Area that pays monthly stipends to
Devin Jameson, Matt Reiners, Artem Goldman, 26 young men determined to be likely to
Jake Reisch, 24, 28, 28 Co-founder, Visabot
PHiLiP & MiCHAEL: StYle aSS iStantS: maximillian paRkinson, sophia chaRles, ka Rina WiDJaJa; grooming: suzana hallili

Co-founders, Eversound engage in gun violence to stay out of

Jeet Guram, 29 trouble and provides mentoring, intern-
Linda Jiang, 28 Senior advisor to the administrator, ships and even travel opportunities. “In
Head of industrial design, Essential Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Products Services a city of 315,000 people, it’s less than
Han Jin, 29 Philip Kimmey, 28 Tsion Gurmu , 29
100 guys who commit 70-80 percent
of our violent crime, meaning less than
Co-founder, Lucid CO-FOUnDER, ROVER Legal fellow, African Services
Committee 100 people control the narrative and
Kerry Jones, Shruti Merchant, the image of our city,” Tubbs says.
28, 24 At a startup hackathon in 2011, Philip Christian Haigh, Eva Shang, 23, 21 Tubbs came face-to-face with
Co-founders, HubHaus kimmey overheard someone pitch Co-founders, Legalist
Stockton’s violent realities in 2010.
Brian Jones, Luke Schoenfelder, an idea: build an Airbnb for pets. He Victoria Herrmann, 27 He had left home two years earlier to
28, 28 walked up to the local Seattle venture Managing director, The Arctic attend Stanford University and had no
Co-founders, Latch capitalist who had thrown out the Institute
plans to return. Then a cousin’s murder
Sneha Keshwani, 24 plan, Greg Gottesman, and introduced Aditi Juneja, 27 changed his priorities. “Made me really
Product manager, LinkedIn himself. “I like dogs—I think I can build Excelsior service fellow, New York think about what was the point of going
this thing,” he said. State Homes & Community Renewal
Philip Kimmey, 28 to a school like Stanford,” Tubbs says,
Co-founder, Rover for the past six years, kimmey has Charlie Kirk, 24 “if it wasn’t for doing something to
led Rover’s engineering efforts as it be- Founder, Turning Point USA
Carly Leahy, Afton Vechery, 28, 28 make my community better?”
came top dog in the pet-care space. Its Brian Miller, 26
Co-founders, Modern Fertility —Jeremy Bogaisky, Christopher
site and app connect owners to sitters Director of legal and public affairs,
WeiHua Li, Arun Saigal, 28, 26 Denhart, Derek Draplin & Avik Roy
and walkers, and more than 140,000 of Center for Individual Rights
Co-founders, Thunkable these caretakers have signed up. Every Travis nembhard, 29
Marah Lidey, 28 four seconds, someone books a service Administrative law judge,
Co-founder, Shine on Rover, and the company charges DC Department of For-Hire Vehicles
George Matus, 20 pet owners roughly $20 for a walk and Rohan Pavuluri, 21
Founder, Teal about $35 per night for an overnight Co-founder, Upsolve
Tariq Meyers, 25 stay, typically taking about 27 percent
Jacob Reses, 27
Head of inclusion and diversity, Lyft for itself. With almost $160 million in Director of strategic
Ali Mohamed, 22 funding, Rover acquired its main com- initiatives, Heritage Action
Founder, Vound petitor, dogVacay, in an all-stock deal for America
in March for an undisclosed sum. Jordan Richardson, 29
Maggie Moran, 29
Head of product, Hopper “The opportunity here is actually Senior policy analyst,
massive,” says kimmey, the father of Charles Koch Institute
Tyler Palmer, 27 a 10-month-old apricot-coloured toy
VP of operations, Patreon Alvand Salehi, 27
poodle. “on Rover, somebody’s going Senior technology advisor,
Chris Smothers, 29 to treat your dog just like you do. you The White House
Co-founder, Spacious know they’re going to love them.” Hernandez Stroud, 29
Scott Sundvor, 27 —Biz Carson & Kathleen Chaykowski Visiting assistant professor of law,
Co-founder, Nima Washington and Lee University
David Walker, 29 PHIL kIMMEy WEARS A CoTToN CREW- School of Law
MICHAEL TUbbS WEARS A CASHMERE SUIT ($11,460),
Co-founder, Triplemint NECk ($39) ANd CoTToN HoodIE ($98) Mary Elizabeth Taylor, 28 CoTToN SHIRT ($870), SILk-ANd-CoTToN TIE ($290)
by MARINE LAyER, jEANS by RAG & boNE
Ashley Yuki, 29 ($195), ANd LEATHER SNEAkERS by WINGS Special assistant to the president, ANd CoTToN PoCkET SqUARE ($220) by kIToN.
SoCkS by PoLo RALPH LAUREN ($23) ANd LEATHER
Product manager, Instagram + HoRNS ($355). The White House SHoES by fRATELLI RoSSETTI ($640).

90 | forbes india January 5, 2018

Finance John Traver, 29
CO-FOUnDER, FRAME.iO
Sunil Abraham, 29
Quantitative researcher, Ever watched a facebook video? There’s
Two Sigma Investments a good chance it was made using frame.
Anne-Victoire Auriault, 29 io, a subscription-based web platform
VP, Goldman Sachs for creating videos. It takes traditional
Ben Bologna, 29 editing software and, using a page out of
Managing director, Maverick Slack’s playbook, adds a new layer that
Capital makes it easier for multiple people to
collaborate. frame.io has 380,000 users,
Vitalik Buterin, 23
including firms like Snapchat, Apple and
Founder, Ethereum
disney. “With those higher-end clients
Olaf Carlson-Wee, 28 it’s more pressure to keep the platform
Founder, Polychain Capital developing,” john Traver says. More than
Danielle Cooper, 28 700,000 videos are uploaded monthly to
VP, Bank of America frame.io, which has raised $32.2 million.
Tom Dadon, 26 “People are pivoting to video because it’s
Head of mergers and acquisitions, the preferred way to consume informa-
Kraft Heinz Co tion,” says Traver. “People typically aren’t
reading as much as they used to.”
Wendy De La Rosa, 28
Co-founder, Common Cents Lab —Madeline Berg, Emily Inverso
& Mark Joyella
Michael Dechert, 29
Analyst, Farallon Capital
Management RyAN WILLIAMS (LEfT) WEARS A CoTToN
jACkET by bELSTAff ($1,095), CoTToN T-SHIRT
Michael Ding, 27 by koTN ($30), jEANS by PT PANTALoNI To-
Investment analyst, Coatue RINo ($395), ANd LEATHER SNEAkERS by To
booT NEW yoRk ($375).
Management
joHN TRAVER WEARS A LEATHER jACkET
Maria Egee, 29 by MISbHV ($1,380), CoTToN SHIRT by joHN
Director, Bank of America VARVAToS ($118) CoTToN PANTS by MARCELo
bURLoN CoUNTy of MILAN ($511), ANd LEATHER
Quinten Farmer, 27 booTS by HARRyS of LoNdoN ($895). jEWEL-
Co-founder, Even LERy by joHN VARVAToS. CLASSIC fUSIoN
PoWER RESERVE WATCH by HUbLoT ($16,700).
Jonathan Fife, 29
Portfolio manager, BlueMountain
Capital Management Khaled Khatib , 21
Lalit Gurnani , 28 Cinematographer, The White
Helmets
Associate, Goldman Sachs
Jack Kramer, nick Martell, 29, 29
Jason Guss, 28 Co-founders, MarketSnacks
Co-founder, Octane Lending
Benny Luo, 29
Peter Gylfe, 29 Founder, NextShark
Founder, Bay Street Capital Partners
Charlie neiman, 29
Salim Hirji, 28 Senior content acquisition manager,
Principal, Apollo Global Ryan Williams, 29 Media Amazon Video

StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa; grooming: suzana hallili
Management Olivia nuzzi, 24
CO-FOUnDER, CADRE
Amol Jain, 29 Sarah Adler, Washington correspondent,
Analyst, Duquesne Family Office Mackenzie Barth, 26, 26 New York Magazine
What does Ryan Williams think
Thomas Kamei, 27 Co-founders, Spoon University Alexandra Petri, 29
about commercial real estate? Columnist, Washington Post
Senior associate, Morgan Stanley “A pretty jurassic industry,” he says. Laila Alawa, 26
Cadre, he insists, is the dawn of a new Co-founder, The Tempest Phillip Picardi, 26
Charles Korn, 29 Digital editorial director,
Partner, Pershing Square Capital age. He founded the startup in 2014 Emma Allen, 29
Cartoon editor, New Yorker Teen Vogue & Allure, Condé Nast
Management with heirs to the kushner real estate
Erin Lee Carr, 29 Lauren Shippen, 26
David Levine, 29 fortune: Harvard classmate josh, Creator, The Bright Sessions
co-founder of oscar Health, and jared, Documentary filmmaker
Principal, Blackstone Group Jacob Smilovitz, 28
son-in-law of US President donald Brent Chow,
Luca Lin, Christina Qi, Jonathan Sophia Dominguez, 28, 25 Director, M&A and investments,
Trump. Their business offers an online New York Times
Wang, 27, 26, 26 Co-founders, SVRF
marketplace for pre-vetted real estate
Co-founders, Domeyard Marley Dias, 12 Clint Smith, 29
deals: “A digital stock market for real Author
Fahmi Quadir, 27 estate today and for other alternative Founder, #1000blackgirlbooks
Founder, Safkhet Capital Sky Dylan-Robbins, 28 Peter Sterne, 26
asset classes in the future,” says Wil-
Management Founder, The Video Consortium Senior reporter,
liams. It collects fees from investors— Freedom of the Press Foundation
Douglas Schadewald, 28 the company insists they’re 40 percent Aaron Edwards, 26
VP, Barclays Special projects editor, The Outline Ben Taub, 26
less than private equity fund fees. Staff writer, New Yorker
David Sklar, 29 Investors have used Cadre to close Caroline Fairchild, 27
Managing news editor, LinkedIn Jacob Tobia, 26
VP, Bank of America a dozen deals, worth a total of
Author
Saron Tesfalul, 28 $1 billion. for now, Cadre is open to Windsor Hanger Western,
only accredited investors (folks with at Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, John Traver, 29
VP, Bain Capital Annie Wang, 29, 29, 28 Co-founder, Frame.io
least $1 million in net worth).
Ryan Williams, 29 Co-founders, Her Campus Media Lilly Workneh, 26
—Nathan Vardi, Antoine Gara, Lauren
Co-founder, Cadre Cooper Hefner, 26 Senior editor, Black Voices, HuffPost
Gensler & Kristin Stoller
Grant Wonders, 27 Chief creative officer, Playboy Rachel Zarrell, 28
Portfolio manager, Enterprises New initiatives lead, BuzzFeed
Viking Global Investors Judges: Jazmine Hughes, 26
Leon Cooperman, founder, omega Associate editor, New York Times Judges:
Charles Young, 28 Advisors Magazine Jim Bankoff, CEo, Vox Media
VP, Morgan Stanley
Steven Schonfeld, founder, Schonfeld Andrew Kaczynski, 28 Brian Stelter, senior media correspon-
Julia Yu, 28 Group Senior editor, KFile, CNN dent, CNN (Under 30 Class of 2014)
Investment analyst, Vlad Tenev, co-founder, Robinhood Rupi Kaur, 25 Elaine Welteroth, editor-in-chief,
Millennium Management (Under 30 Class of 2016) Author Teen Vogue

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 91

 3O 3O cRoss boRDeR

Manufacturing Austin Russell, 22

& industry FOUnDER, LUMinAR TECHnOLOGiES

At the centre of the race to build the

Jeremy Adams, 27 first self-driving car is Austin Russell,
Co-founder, Prestige Custom who has developed an advanced lidar
Manufacturing sensor (similar to radar, only with lasers,
Rachel Benyola, 29 not radio waves) that helps autonomous
Founder, AnneeLondon vehicles see and understand the world
Aaron Birt, 27 around them. Luminar’s sensors can see
Co-founder, Kinetic Batteries ten times farther than other lidar systems
Jacob Boudreau, and with 50 times higher resolution.
Sean Henry, 19, 21 Luminar has spent the past five years
Co-founders, Stord in stealth mode, engineering and manu-
Miriam Brafman, 26 facturing all major components of its
Founder, Packlane lidar system from the chip-level up. “We
were focussed on building up a product
James Cao, Rain Wang, 25, 28
Co-founders, Skelmet that worked, and wanted to show the
world the major advantages that we
Ryan Chan, 26 made rather than just an idea on a Post-it
Founder, UpKeep
Note,” says Russell, a Thiel fellow, who
Robert Davis, left Stanford after three months to ac-
Abbas Haider, 27, 28 cept the $100,000 grant that encourages
Co-founders, Aspetto
budding entrepreneurs to drop out of
Jesse Dombrowiak, school and begin a company.
Zack Hurley, 29, 29 Luminar has raised $36 million and
Co-founders, Indie Source
employs more than 250 people. based in
Karen Dubbin, 28 Portola Valley, California, it will soon be-
Science director, Aether gin a 10,000-unit run out of its R&d and
Michael Eilers, 29 production facility in orlando, florida,
Digital thread leader, GE Aviation for multiple customers, including Toyota
Abraham Espinoza, Matthew Research Institute, developing autono-
Rooda, 25, 24
Co-founders, SwineTech
mous vehicles. “I have a huge passion for
really making an impact on people’s lives
Seema Bansal, 26
Dave Evans, 29 in the sense that it’s creating something CO-FOUnDER, VEnUS ET FLEUR
Co-founder, Fictiv fundamentally new,” Russell says. “Not
Aaron Guan, 28 just like, some type of new app on your you can only stop to smell the roses if
Founder, Boco Technology phone, but something that can really they’re still alive. And a garden-variety
change the way people move.” bouquet doesn’t last longer than one
Jeff Herman, David Pain, 29, 27
Co-founders, Fabric8Labs —Amy Feldman, Alex Knapp week in a vase. The roses from the green-
StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, sophia chaRles, kaRina WiDJaJa; grooming: suzana hallili

& Joann Muller thumbed Seema bansal, on the other

Tance Hughes, 27
hand, last an entire year in full bloom
Founder, Southern Designs You Wu, 27 without water. “We treat them with
Rustom Jehangir, 29 Founder, Pipeguard Robotics our proprietary wax-based solution,”
Founder, Blue Robotics Alexandra Fine, 29
Judges: Co-founder, Dame Products explains bansal, who bootstrapped the
Daisy Jing, 28 New york-based ecommerce business
Founder, Banish Rodney Brooks, founder, baxter Robotics Beatrice Fischel-Bock, 26
Co-founder, Hutch with her now-fiancé Sunny Chadha, 28,
Jemuel Joseph, Cindi Marsiglio, VP, US Manufacturing
in 2015. “but the rose’s texture, its shape
Alexis Rivas, 24, 24 and Sourcing, Walmart Marshall Haas, 27
Co-founder, Need/Want and a little bit of its scent remains.”
Co-founders, Cover Sean Petterson, founder, StrongArm
Technologies (Under 30 Class of 2017) bansal and Chadha grow the flowers
Brent Keller, 28 Cathy Han, nicolas Porter, 28, 27 on a farm in Ecuador, where they’re cut
Co-founder, Via Separations Co-founders, 42 Technologies
before being delivered to New york by
Sly Lee, 28 Rami Helali, Benjamin Sehl, air. from there, “we remove the colour
Co-founder, Emerge Mackenzie Yeates, 29, 29, 28
Tyler Mcnaney, 25 Retail Co-founders, Kotn
from the roses, then we can go ahead
and dye them any Pantone colour,” she
Alexis irene, 24
Founder, Filabot
David Ouaknine, 27
& Ecommerce Founder, Static Nails
says. besides traditional shades of red,
champagne and white, customers can
CEO, CDI Furniture Dylan Jacob, 23 opt for blue, green, silver or lavender.
Sarah Ahmed, 28 Founder, BrüMate Prices start at $39 for a single rose, with
Daehee Park, 29
Co-founder, Tuft & Needle Founder, Warp + Weft Robert Kirstiuk, Joseph Lee, 22, shoppers typically spending between
Seema Bansal, 22 $300 and $1,500 for large arrangements.
Corinne Prevot, 26 Co-founders, Coastline Market
Founder, Skida Headwear & Sunny Chadha, 26, 28 Venus ET fleur is profitable, and
Accessories Co-founders, Venus ET Fleur Andy Krantz, 28 revenue, estimated at $7.5 million,
Jan Bednar, 26 Co-founder, Paravel has grown by 226 percent in the past
isaac Rami, 28
Founder, Karity Founder, ShipMonk Ali Kriegsman, 26 year. by the end of the year, bansal
Henry Burner, 14 Co-founder, Bulletin and Chadha plan to open their second
Austin Russell, 22 distribution centre, in Los Angeles, where
Founder, Luminar Technologies Founder, Buttonsmith Lynn Le, 29
Meghana Dhar, 29 Founder, Society Nine their long-lasting flora is already the talk
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, of the town. back on Valentine’s day
Kartik Tiwari, 27, 29 Director, retail partnerships, B8ta Alissa Lentz, 28
Founder, HERO New York 2016, khloe and kourtney kardashian
Co-founders, Starsky Robotics Jess Edelstein, Sarah Ribner,
29, 28 posted Venus ET fleur bouquets on
Mike Tomovich, 28 Alex Lin, 26
Co-founders, PiperWai Co-founder, Hush Instagram. “our phones did not stop
Co-founder, Kuvée ringing,” bansal says. “And the emails
Michael Markesbery,
kept pouring in.”
Rithvik Venna, 25, 24
AUSTIN RUSSELL WEARS A CoTToN SHIRT by dAVId doNAHUE ($35), jEANS by PT PANTALoNI Co-founders, OROS —Clare O’Connor, Vicky Valet
ToRINo ($395) ANd LEATHER booTS by HEINRICH dINkELACkER ($925). & Katherine Love

92 | forbes india January 5, 2018

Brad McDonald, 29
Co-founder, Agroy Talia Goldberg, 27
Jeremy Miller, 29 VP, BESSEMER VEnTURE PARTnERS
Founder, Label
At first, Talia Goldberg figured she’d go
Jordan nathan, 25
Founder, Vremi down a well-travelled Silicon Valley ca-
reer path: Spend two years meeting with
iyore Olaye, 23 founders as an investment associate,
Product development engineer,
Walker & Co then build her own startup. five years
later, “it turns out I really loved invest-
Akash Shah, 29 ing”, says Goldberg, the youngest-ever
Co-founder, Care/of
vice president at 106-year-old bessemer
Lauren Stokes, 28 Venture Partners.
Founder, Lauren James She works with some of its most
Julia Zhu, 27 promising investments, such as gift-card
Founder, Few Moda marketplace Raise, business video
Amanda Zuckerman, 26 platform Vidyard and ServiceTitan, which
Co-founder, Dormify makes software for home-services com-
panies. In March 2017, she co-led besse-
Judges: mer’s participation in a $48 million fund
Rebecca Kaden, partner, Union Square raise for a korean peer-to-peer payments
Ventures
firm called Toss; in october, a $20 million
Neil Parikh, co-founder, Casper (Under
raise for shipping startup Shippo. “My
30 Class of 2015)
best days are the ones when entrepre-
Kendra Scott, founder, kendra Scott
jewelry neurs that we’ve spent time with—that
we really want to invest in—pick us.”
Emily Weiss, founder, Glossier (Under 30
Class of 2015) —Alex Konrad & Lilly Knoepp

SEEMA bANSAL WEARS A jACqUARd ANd

PoLyESTER dRESS by ST joHN ($1,395) ANd

Venture Capital
LEATHER SANdALS by jIMMy CHoo ($895).
EARRINGS ($245), 5-LINE bANGLE bRACELET
($545) ANd 11-LINE bANGLE bRACELET
($1,340) by offICINA bERNARdI. GoLd LoVE
bRACELET ($6,300), jUSTE UN CLoU bRACE- Damir Becirovic,
LET ($6,800) by CARTIER.
Dino Becirovic, 25, 25
StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paR- Investors, Index Ventures
kinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa;
hair anD makeuP: suzana hallili
Michael Caso, 28
Managing partner, Rosecliff
Ventures

StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa; grooming anD hair & makeuP: suzana hallili
Art & Style Vipin Chamakkala, 29
Principal, Work-Bench
Andrew Farage, 26
Rocco Basilico, 28 Senior associate, United
CEO, Oliver Peoples Talent Agency Ventures
Meriem Bennani, 29
Artist
Joseph nahmad, 27
Founder, Nahmad Contemporary Adam Vanunu, 28 Jason Fiedler, 28
Principal, Red Sea Ventures
Vivian Brodie, 27 FOUnDER, COTTOn CiTiZEn Charlie Friedland, 29
Chelsea neman nassib, 29
Specialist, Christie’s Co-founder, Tappan Partner, Geodesic Capital
Maryellis Bunn, 25 When Adam Vanunu told his father Elizabeth Galbut, 28
nicolas Bijan Pakzad, 26
Co-founder, Museum of Ice Cream that he wanted to study fashion Managing partner, SoGal Ventures
Co-owner, House of Bijan design, his dad persuaded him to find
Adam Charlap Hyman, Andre Talia Goldberg, 27
Herrero, 28, 28 Davidson Petit-Frère, 28 his way through the family business, VP, Bessemer Venture Partners
Interior designers, Charlap Hyman Fashion designer, Musika Frère American dye House, a denim-dyeing-
& Herrero and-distressing factory for brands like Wei Guo, 29
Bunny Rogers, 27 Founding partner, Uphonest Capital
Jourdan Dunn , 27 Artist Calvin klein and j Crew. but in late
Model 2009, his father died of colon cancer, Zachary Hargreaves, 28
Diamond Stingily, 27 Principal, Founders Fund
Awol Erizku, 29 Artist leaving the oldest son as the boss
Artist of an eight-figure-revenue business. Jennifer Kaehms, 26
Martine Syms, 29 Unscrupulous staffers embezzled more Associate, Canvas Ventures
Manuel Gutierrez, 26 Artist
Beauty influencer than $2 million. “I didn’t know who to Anna Khan, 29
Ashley nell Tipton, 26 trust,” he says, “but I had to step up”. Senior associate,
Jasmin Larian Hekmat, 29 Fashion designer, Ashley Nell Tipton by 2012, with funding from the Bessemer Venture Partners
Founder, Cult Gaia
Adam Vanunu, 28 factory, he launched Cotton Citizen, a Vivek Ladsariya, 28
Poppy Jamie, Leo Seigal, Suki Founder, Cotton Citizen line of high-end T-shirts and sweats. Partner, Sinewave Ventures
Waterhouse, 27, 26, 25 Celebrities like Gigi Hadid and
Co-founders, Pop & Suki Armando Veve, 28 Sam Lerer, 29
Illustrator kourtney kardashian wear the brand’s VP, General Atlantic
Maria Kazakova, 29 $225 jogging pants and $195 cropped
Fashion designer, JAHNKOY Lauren Wasser, 29 Susan Liu, 29
Model
sweatshirts, and Cotton Citizen sells in Principal, Scale Venture Partners
Karlie Kloss, 25 more than 300 stores worldwide. With
Model Ramtin naimi, 27
Chloe Wise, 27 2018 revenues projected to exceed $15 Founder, Abstract Ventures
Lily Kwong, 29 Artist million, Vanunu says: “It’s not neces-
Landscape designer, Studio Lily Maria Salamanca, 25
Sean Yoro, 28 sarily just one T-shirt that you’re buy- Senior associate,
Kwong Artist ing. you’re buying into the lifestyle.” Unshackled Ventures
Asher Levine, 29 —Susan Adams, Samantha Sharf
Fashion designer, Asher Levine Santosh Sankar, 29
Judges: & Michael Solomon Co-founder, Dynamo
Sandy Liang, 26 Ashley Graham, model-advocate (Under
Fashion designer, Sandy Liang 30 Class of 2016)
AdAM VANUNU WEARS A LEATHER jACkET by SAINT LAURENT ($4,990), CoTToN T-SHIRT by
Olivia Locher, 27 Cynthia Rowley, fashion designer CoTToN CITIzEN ($65), jEANS by j bRANd ($188) ANd LEATHER booTS by CoMMoN PRojECTS
Photographer Michael Xufu Huang, collector and ($695). GoLd WATCH by RoLEx.
Benjamin Milstein, 22 museum co-founder, M Woods TALIA GoLdbERG WEARS LEATHER bIANCA jACkET ($998) ANd SILk jULIA ToP ($328) by ToRy
Founder, Grey Space Art (Under 30 Class of 2017) bURCH. jEANS by j CREW ($110) ANd PATENT LEATHER SANdALS by GIUSEPPE zANoTTI ($895).

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 93

 3O 3O cRoss boRDeR Leah Sibener, 26
CO-FOUnDER, 3T BiOSCiEnCES

The latest weapons in the fight against

Andrew Schoen, 27 cancer: your own white blood cells,
Principal, NEA
which scientists genetically modify
Eric Scott, 29 to attack tumours. 3T biosciences,
Partner, SciFi VC founded by Leah Sibener with research
Ryan Shmeizer, 27 partner Marvin Gee and VC Luke Lee, is
Investor, Spark Capital using machine learning to predict what
Steve Sloane, 27 chemicals would be on cancer cells but
Principal, Menlo Ventures not normal ones. Then it uses a new
Malinka Walaliyadde, 28 genetic-engineering process to modify T
Deal partner, Andreessen Horowitz cells, a type of white blood cell, to target
Olivia Wang, 28 those chemicals. In theory, those T cells
VP, Head of US, ZhenFund should be able to attack tumours in ways
Rei Wang, 29 competing therapies can’t—taking on
Director, Dorm Room Fund/ breast, lung and prostate cancers. 3T
First Round Capital biosciences has reportedly secured in-
Lisa Wang, 29 vestors like Asset Management Ventures,
Founder, SheWorx facebook billionaire Sean Parker, Peter
Brayton Williams, 28 Thiel’s Thiel Capital and Charles River
Co-founder, Boost VC Ventures. “for us, success is helping
Kareem Zaki, 29 people,” Sibener says.
Investor, Thrive Capital —Matthew Herper, Sarah Hedgecock
Muzzammil ‘MZ’ Zaveri, 29 & Ellie Kincaid
Partner, Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers
Stephanie Zhan, 24 Health Care
Associate, Sequoia Capital
Omar Abudayyeh, Jonathan
Judges: Gootenberg, 27, 26
Ann Miura-Ko, partner, floodgate MD-PhD, PhD candidates, Broad
Chetan Puttagunta, partner, New Enter- Institute, Harvard-MIT
prise Associates (Under 30 Class of 2015)
Adelanwa Adesanya, Shuo Qiao,
Brian Singerman, partner, founders fund 27, 27
Sarah Tavel, partner, benchmark Co-founders, Moving Analytics
Waleed Asif, Alamin Uddin, 25, 24
StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, sophia chaRles, kaRina WiDJaJa; grooming, hair anD makeuP: suzana hallili

Co-founders, NexHealth
Science Alexendar Pérez, 28
MD/PhD candidate, Weill Cornell/ Cody Daniel, 28 Manik Bhat, Eric Conner, Daniel
Levenson, Alex Villa, 27, 28, 25, 27
Rockefeller/Memorial Sloan CO-FOUnDER, 3SCAn Co-founders, Healthify
Tyler Allen, 25 Kettering
Tomas Pfister, 29 Andrew Brimer, Abby Cohen,
PhD candidate, North Carolina State Analysing tissue samples is a laborious,
27, 26
University Staff research scientist, Apple manual process that hasn’t changed Co-founders, Sparo
Dinesh Bharadia, 29 Ritu Raman, 26 significantly in a century. Scientists still
Post-doctoral fellow, MIT Sol Chen, Evan Ehrenberg, 22, 24
Assistant professor, University of cut tissues into slices, stain them and
Co-founders, Clara Health
California, San Diego negar Reiskarimian, 28 examine them through a microscope. for
PhD candidate, Columbia University Cody daniel, that’s not good enough. Giffin Daughtridge, 29
Kristi Bradford, 27 Co-founder, UrSure
Senior instrument systems engineer, Peyton Robertson, 16 “We need to develop better tools, better
Planetary Resources Inventor understanding of the world around us ivonna Dumanyan,
and better methods of continuing the Gabrielle Levac, 23, 25
Ritchie Chen, 29 Conor Russomanno, 29 Co-founders, Fathom AI
Postdoctoral fellow, MIT Co-founder, OpenBCI human endeavour here on Earth.”
To that end his company, 3Scan, Kevin Eisenfrats, 24
Cody Daniel, 28 Lauren Sherman, 29 Co-founder, Contraline
Co-founder, 3Scan Post-doctoral fellow, Temple offers a modernised alternative. Instead
University of fewer than ten slices, its robotic mi- Trit Garg, 28
natalya Gallo, 29 Resident physician, Stanford Health
PhD candidate, University of Hao Sun, 29 croscope can turn a small tissue sample
Assistant professor, University of into up to 60,000 slices. Then rather Care
California, San Diego
Pittsburgh than producing stained, two-dimensional Jeffrey Huber, Garrett Spiegel,
Erik Hoel, 29 28, 29
Post-doctoral researcher, Danielle Szafir, 29 images, its machine vision creates robust,
Assistant professor, University of 3d images, which can be better explored. Co-founders, Standard Cyborg
Columbia University
Colorado, Boulder “The opportunity to influence the course Doug Jacobs, 28
Ashlee Howarth, 29 Primary care resident physician,
Postdoctoral fellow, Fred Turner, Sam Parlett, 22, 26 of humanity through clever tools and
Co-founders, TL Biolabs insightful design is a real responsibility,” Brigham & Women’s Hospital and
Northwestern University Harvard Medical School
Deep Jariwala, 29 Spin Wang, 27 says daniel, who has helped 3Scan raise
Co-founder, TetraScience $21 million in funding. Alistair Johnson, 28
Assistant professor, Research scientist, Laboratory for
University of Pennsylvania Liang Wu, 29 —Alex Knapp, Sarah Hedgecock
Computational Physiology, MIT
Patrick Kaifosh, 29 Post-doctoral fellow, University of & Matt Perez
California, Berkeley Moufeed Kaddoura, 25
Co-founder, CTRL-Labs Co-founder, ExVivo Labs
Tomas Leijtens, 29 Amber Yang, 18 Judges:
Founder, SEER Tracking Danielle Bassett, associate professor, Kunwoo Lee, 29
Post-doctoral fellow, Stanford Co-founder, GenEdit
University Zhou Yu, 29 University of Pennsylvania; MacArthur
Assistant professor, University of fellow Oren Miron, 29
Karthish Manthiram, 29 Research associate, Harvard
Assistant professor, MIT California, Davis Sabrina Pasterski, Phd candidate, Har-
William Zeng, 28 vard University (Under 30 Class of 2015) Medical School
Aaron Meisner, 29 Director, software and applications,
Co-founder, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Rigetti Computing Cody dANIEL WEARS CASHMERE SUIT ($9,050), CoTToN SHIRT ($870), SILk TIE ($290) ANd
Prineha narang, 28 You Zhou, 29
CoTToN PoCkET SqUARE ($220) by kIToN. LEATHER bELT by PENGUIN ($20) ANd LEATHER
Assistant professor, Harvard Post-doctoral fellow, Harvard
SHoES by fRATELLI RoSSETTI ($660).
University University LEAH SIbENER WEARS A SILk GRACE ToP ($298) ANd STRETCH CoTToN VANNER PANTS ($258)
by ToRy bURCH. SANdALS by SAM EdELMAN ($100).

94 | forbes india January 5, 2018

Eric Pahl, Dalton Shaull, 24, 23
Co-founders, HealthTech Solutions
Kyle Powers, 29
Co-founder, PrestoDoctor
Andreas Puschnik, 29
Fellow, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub
Siddarth Satish, 29
Founder, Gauss Surgical
Akshaya Shanmugam, 29
Co-founder, Lumme
Leah Sibener, Marvin Gee,
Luke Lee, 26, 26, 28
Co-founders, 3T Biosciences
Cody Simmons, 29
Co-founder, DermaSensor
Sourav Sinha, 28
Co-founder, Oncolinx
Cathy Tie, 21
Co-founder, Ranomics
R Danae Vachata, 29
Co-founder, Dynamic Surgical;
Mallium
Lea von Bidder, 27
Co-founder, Ava Science
Andrew Warren, 28
Founding scientist, product
development lead, Glympse Bio
Travis Whitfill, 28
Co-founder, Azitra
Cheryl Zogg, 28
MD-PhD candidate, health law
fellow, Yale School of Medicine, Yale
Law School
Judges:
Peter B Bach, director, Center for Health
Policy & outcomes, Memorial Sloan
kettering Cancer Center
Cigall Kadoch, assistant professor,
paediatric oncology, dana-farber Cancer
Institute (Under 30 Class of 2014)
Steven L Salzberg, professor, biomedical
engineering, computer science, biosta-
tistics, johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine
Rogelio ‘Roger’
Nores, 28
FOUnDER, STOnEWAY CAPiTAL
It was obvious to Roger Nores that if
Argentina wanted to end its frustrating
Arjun Singh, 29
CO-FOUnDER, GRADESCOPE
As a berkeley computer science Phd
student, Arjun Singh taught Artificial
Intelligence (AI). but when it came time
to correct his student’s work, he found
himself stuck using decidedly simplistic
tools. “It was like, ‘We’re teaching AI
and yet we’re still sitting here with a
red pen on paper grading this stuff’.
That’s crazy.” With that in mind, Singh
developed Gradescope, an app that
scans and grades exams—from multiple
choice tests to math proofs and essays—
and provides teachers and students with
instant feedback. “It helps instructors
understand what their students are do-
ing much more effectively. They can say,
‘okay, on question 1, my students got a
60 percent average on it. Why did that
happen? I need to go back and teach
that better’.” Some 10,000 instructors
and 300,000 students at 450 schools
worldwide, including MIT and Imperial
College London, have used Gradescope
to pore over 25 million pages of work.
—Caroline Howard & Justin Conklin
RoGER NoRES (LEfT) WEARS A WooL-ANd-
CoTToN SUIT by LUIGI bIANCHI MANToVA ($1,395),
CoTToN SHIRT by EToN ($245), SoCkS by GoLd-
ToE ($19) ANd LEATHER SHoES by To booT NEW
yoRk ($395).
ARjUN SINGH WEARS A SUEdE jACkET by bEL-
STAff ($1,495), CoTToN ELASTANE PoLo SHIRT by
boSS ($145), CoTToN kHAkI PANTS by SLoWEAR
INCoTEx ($350) ANd LEATHER SNEAkERS by To
booT NEW yoRk ($350).
Matthew Murbach, 26
Co-founder, Battery Informatics
Lane nelson, 29 Education
Co-founder, Switched Source
Fatema Basrai, 27
Jess newman, 29 Executive director, Leadership
Director of US agronomy, SAISD
Anheuser-Busch InBev

StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa; grooming: suzana hallili
summer electric outages, it needed Michael Benko,
more power plants. So the young in- Rogelio ‘Roger’ nores, 28 EJ Carrion, 28, 28
vestment manager and CEo of Stone- Founder, StoneWay Capital Co-founders, Student Success Agency
Energy Way Capital set out to build them.
first he negotiated with the
Ethan novek, 18
Founder, Innovator Energy
Vinay Bhaskara, Zack Perkins,
Johan Zhang, 23, 22, 22
government, which agreed to buy Annie Ostojic, 15 Co-founders, CollegeVine
Liam Berryman, 21 whatever power Nores could generate Inventor Yoran Brondsema,
Co-founder, Nelumbo at a fixed price for ten years. With that Thomas Ketchell, 28, 29
Lauren Otto, 27 Co-founders, Sutori
David Bierman, 28 deal in hand, Nores went to Siemens,
Founder, Marigold Power Founder, Laminera
the German industrial giant, and con- Elyse Burden, 28
Cassie Bowe, 28 vinced it not only to get on board with Jake Rozmaryn, 27 Co-founder, Real World Scholars
Associate vice president, supplying and building four new plants, Vice president, strategy and business
development, Antenna Group Xiaohoa Michelle Ching, 27
Energy Impact Partners but also to loan Nores $100 million to Founder, Literator
Emily Callahan, Amber Jackson, get rolling. Then Nores hit Wall Street, Saheb Sabharwal, 29
Allyson Dias, 28
28, 28 and in early 2017, raised $500 million in Vice president, CSL Capital Programme manager, Thiel Fellowship
Co-founders, Blue Latitudes a debt offering bought by the likes of Management
Katie Fang, 26
Maher Damak, Karim Khalil, 27, 27 blackRock and fidelity. His plants, set Tirthak Saha, 25 Founder, SchooLinks
Co-founders, Infinite Cooling to go online by 2018, will power more Grid modernisation engineer,
than 800,000 homes and businesses. American Electric Power Shiv Gaglani, 28
Molly Grear, 28 Co-founder, Osmosis
PhD candidate, University of “If you’re one of those electricity Lauren Salz, 29
Washington companies that focuses on [emerging Jonathan García, 28
Co-founder, Sealed.com Senior director, strategic
ian Hamilton, 25 markets], you’re always doing a public
Yichen Shen, 28 partnerships and external affairs,
Founder, Atlas Energy Systems good.”
Post-doctoral associate, MIT Portland Public Schools
Eli Harris, Hannah Sieber, Lei —Christopher Helman & Aaron Tilley
Adam Small, 28 nick Garvin, 25
Wang, Fan Zheng, 24, 26, 29, 28 Founder, Stackup
Co-founders, EcoFlow Tech Co-founder, Urbix Resources
Justin Whiteley, 29 Emily Graslie, 28
Hannah Herbst, 17 Tian Li, 29 Chief curiosity correspondent,
Inventor Post-doctoral researcher, University Co-founder, Emergy Labs
The Field Museum
Prateek Joshi, 29 of Maryland, College Park
Founder, Pluto AI David Magid, 29 Judges: Andrew Hermalyn, 29
David Crane, operating advisor, Pegasus EVP, university partnerships
Robert Kabera, 29 Founder, YSG Solar and programmes, 2U
Capital; former CEo, NRG Energy
Founder, Credimarks Chadwick Manning, 28 David Freed, project manager, NET Jomayra Herrera, 24
Alden Keefe Sampson, Marshall Co-founder, ElectrIQ Power Power (Under 30 Class of 2017) Analyst, education investments,
Moutenot, 27, 26 Scott Martin, 25 Bryan Sheffield, founder, Parsley Energy Emerson Collective
Co-founders, Upstream Tech Principal, 8 Rivers Capital

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 95

 3O 3O
Maxxie Goldstein, 26
cRoss boRDeR Co-founder, MEYVYN
Stephan Goss, 29
Co-founder, Zeeto
Andrew Hill, 29 Anna Hu, 26
Co-founder, LiftEd Co-founder, Brizi
Danielle Hughes, 26 Amir Kabbara, 29
Co-founder, Detroit Speaks Head of marketing automation,
Amazon Appstore, Amazon
Ricky Hurtado, Elaine
Townsend Utin, 29, 27 Jeff Lopez, 27
Co-founders, NC Scholars’ Founder, Gloob Marketing
Latinx Initiative Allen Mask, 29
Melissa Lee, 28 Vice president of marketing,
Co-founder, The GREEN Program intelligence and partnerships,
Sonos
Jackey Li, Maggie Peng, Jack Tai,
Kevin Wu, 28, 28, 29, 29 Rachel Mercer, 29
Co-founders, OneClass SVP, head of digital strategy and
invention, Deutsch
Justin Ling, 28
Co-founder, EquitySim Etienne Mérineau, 29
Co-founder, Heyday.ai
Raza Munir, 29
Co-founder, Climb Credit Colby Reed Miller, 29
Senior director, sales and content
Mark Pavlyukovskyy, 26 development, Oath
Co-founder, Piper
Eric Mogil, 28
Christopher Rim, 22 Director of digital innovation,
Founder, Command Education Michael Kors
Group
Thea neal, 29
Hilary Shirazi, 29 Social media leader, Hallmark
Senior manager, corporate
development, LinkedIn Colette Patnaude, 29
Co-founder, Expand Entertainment
Arjun Singh, 29
Co-founder, Gradescope Alandha Scott, 28
Head, YouTube Originals product
Jesse Vaughan, 28 marketing, YouTube
Co-founder, Landed
Mark Shore, 28
Tony Weaver, 23 Co-founder, Strike Social
Founder, Weird Enough Productions
Sara Sindelar, 28
Richard Werbe, 24
StePhan anD george: StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, sophia chaRles, kaRina WiDJaJa; grooming: suzana hallili

WW event strategy
Co-founder, Studypool manager, IBM
Richard ‘Prince Ea’ Williams, 29 Everette Taylor, 28
Filmmaker-poet Founder, PopSocial
Ryan Williams, 28 Elizabeth Walton, 29
Co-founder, Jopwell Vice president, marketing, Yext
Judges: Marlowe Williams, 28 George
Charles Best, founder, donorsChoose.org
Senior brand manager, PepsiCo ‘HotshotGG’
Stacey Childress, CEo, NewSchools
Jennifer Wong, 29
Vice president of marketing, Tune Georgallidis, 27
Venture fund Stephan Goss, 29 nina Yiamsamatha, 29 FOUnDER, COUnTER LOGiC GAMinG
Wendy Kopp, co-founder, Teach for All CO-FOUnDER, ZEETO Product marketing manager,
Joe Vasquez, co-director, Runway
Instagram Standing in front of a sold-out Madison
Incubator (Under 30 Class of 2017)
As a Swiss immigrant studying at the Square Garden crowd in 2015, George
University at Albany, Stephan Goss lived Judges: Georgallidis basked in the adoring
off money from affiliate marketing: He’d Andrew Essex, former CEo, Tribeca cheers of tens of thousands of specta-
Marketing advertise companies’ products across Enterprises and droga5 tors. He and his five-person team had
the internet, and they’d give him a Cindy Gallop, founder, MakeLoveNotPorn accomplished something there that the
& Advertising commission every time he sent them a Anda Gansca, co-founder, knotch (Under knicks and Rangers haven’t in years.
paying customer. In 2011, a health care 30 Class of 2016) They’d won a championship—top place
Brunno Attorre, 28 client led him to a lucrative insight. If he Bozoma Saint John, chief brand in the North American League of Leg-
Co-founder, Uru could identify high-value web visitors, officer, Uber ends Championship Series, one of the
such as diabetics, the client would be world’s biggest e-sports associations.
Christina Baldassarre, Rocco
Baldassarre, 29, 28 willing to pay him over six times more, STEPHAN GoSS WEARS A WooL SPoRT Their performance caught the atten-
Co-founders, Zebra Advertisement or $8 per lead, as opposed to the usual jACkET ($498) ANd PoCkET SqUARE ($30) tion of more than just the arena’s fans.
by joS A bANk; CoTToN SHIRT ($295), SILk
$1.25. So he started showing visitors a In july 2017, the business that owns the
Travis Chambers, 29 TIE ($160), WooL PANTS ($450), ANd bLACk
Founder, Chamber.Media one-question survey that asked whether LEATHER bELT ($350) by CANALI; SoCkS by stadium, the Madison Square Garden Co,
they were diabetic. If the users said yes, GoLdToE ($19). LEATHER doUbLE-MoNk purchased Counter Logic for an undis-
Shirley Chen, 29 Goss would show them relevant ads
STRAP SHoES by MAGNANNI ($435).
closed sum. “It’s been a scary, exciting,
Founder, Narrativ
immediately after. That strategy became fun ride,” says Georgallidis. He founded
Melanie Cohn, 29 the basis for zeeto, which has boot- Counter Logic Gaming in 2010 when e-
Senior manager, digital and social
media, Dunkin’ Donuts
strapped its way to 80 employees and Games sports were still a novelty, and he grew
projects revenue climbing by 27 percent it both as the player ‘HotshotGG’ and
Benjamin Conway, 29 to $43 million this year. now as president. He faced the same
Co-founder, VNTANA Anele Andeshmand, 28
Today Goss has about 25 engineers tribulations as player-managers in other
Jenelle Coy, 25 Head, North America partnerships
and seven data scientists working at his and development, Twitch sports, including a rebuilding period that
Founder, Coy + San diego-based company on thorny followed a disappointing 2014, when
William Danilow, 26 math problems, such as determining the Becca Bair, 29 Counter Logic was a game away from
Senior copywriter, David&Goliath series of survey questions that generate Co-founder, Twin Otter Studios being kicked out of its league. Counter
Corbett Drummey, 27 the most ad revenue. “I have never had Caitlin Banford, 28 Logic now pulls seven-figure annual
Co-founder, Popular Pays a boss,” he says. “I’ve never had a job, Technical product manager, Riot revenues and features a full roster of 33
Adam Friedman, 28 actually. I was really able to develop Games players plus coaches, a physical thera-
Executive, global client strategy, everything from scratch.” Søren ‘Bjergsen’ Bjerg, 21 pist and chefs.
Creative Artists Agency —Jeff Kauflin & Jennifer Rooney Professional gamer, Team SoloMid —Matt Perez & David Ewalt

96 | forbes india January 5, 2018

Bryce Blum, 29
Founding partner, ESG Law Kelly Peeler, 29
James Boehm, 21 FOUnDER, nEXTGEnVEST
Co-founder, Mixer
Americans owe more than $1.4 trillion
Tucker ‘iijeriichoii’ Boner, 24
in student debt. And kelly Peeler thinks
Streamer
that whopping figure may very well be an
Ashly Burch, 27 underlying cause of economic instability.
Voice actor She worked at jPMorgan Chase right after
nicky Case, 23 the 2008 crash, and while there, she says,
Game designer “I got my hands dirty understanding the
Lauren Cason, 27 dynamics around the student loan market
Senior artist, ustwo Games and how predatory this whole process was
for the 70 million [Generation z] people
Lester Chen, 29
Global head of e-sports, YouTube who will be entering the financial system
for the first time... I’m a huge believer that
Sam Coster, 28 the next financial crisis is rooted in the
Co-founder, Butterscotch student loan market.”
Shenanigans
She left her Wall Street job to found
David DeCarmine, 29 NextGenVest, a financial advice company
Founder, Game Jolt helping Gen z better navigate the financial-
Guzman Diaz, 26 aid process via text message. Its customers
Investor, Index Ventures (all high school seniors and college
Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach, 28 students) can text for advice at all hours
YouTuber of the day—and they do. queries at 10 pm
on Sunday aren’t uncommon. Neither are
Sabina Foisor, 28
ones at 1 am on Tuesdays. So NextGenVest
Woman Grandmaster, US Chess
is staffed accordingly, with advisors avail-
Federation
able 24x7. The service is already available
Toby Fox, 26 in 13 cities, and Peeler hopes to be in 25
Game designer more next year. NextGenVest promises
George ‘HotshotGG’ personalised advice honed by machine
Georgallidis, 27 learning based on data points such as type
Founder, Counter Logic Gaming of school and location. NextGenVest uses
Leighton Gray, this information to connect students with
Vernon Shaw, 20, 29 relevant grant opportunities. In all, Peeler
Co-writers, Game Grumps says, customers have saved more than $39
Robyn Tong Gray, 27 million through increasing access to the
Co-founder, Otherworld Interactive more than $2.7 billion in financial aid that
goes unclaimed each year.
James iliff,
—Alexandra Wilson
Alexander Silkin, 27, 26
Co-founders, Survios
Sue Lee, 27 Kelly Peeler, 29
Founder, NextGenVest

StYle aSSiStantS: maximillian paRkinson, Deb milsTein, paTTie baRbosa; hair anD makeuP: suzana hallili
Partnerships associate, Twitch
Erik Martin, 24 Tara Pham, 28
Senior education program manager, Co-founder, Numina
Unity Technologies Eli Pollak, Earl St Sauver, 28, 26
Andrew Maximov, 27 Co-founders, Apollo Agriculture
Technical art director, Naughty Dog Diana Rau, 27
Blake Rochkind, 29 Co-founder, Veterati
Agent, United Talent Agency Victor Santos, 26
Jake Stauch, 26 Co-founder, AirFox
Founder, NeuroPlus Matthew Scanlan, 29
Eric Stirpe, 29 Co-founder, Naadam
Season lead writer, Telltale Games Michael Schoenfeld,
Stanislav Vishnevskiy, 29 Samuel Silverman, 29, 29
Co-founder, Discord Co-founders, EB5 Affiliate Network
Jenny Xu, 20 Social Ohad Elhelo, 28
Founder, Our Generation Speaks
Tenzin Seldon, 28
Co-founder, Kinstep
Founder, JCSoft
Saleem Young, 23
Entrepreneurs Brin Enterkin, 27
Founder, The African Soup
Sheldon Smith, 29
Professional gamer, Most Valuable Founder, The Dovetail Project
Gaming Andrew Foote, 29 Phil Wong, Ann Yang, 24, 24
Alberto Altamirano, 28 Co-founder, Sanivation
Co-founder, Cityflag Co-founders, Misfit Juicery
Judges: Jack Amend, 26
Gator Halpern, Sam Teicher, 27, 27
Arthur Woods, 29
Co-founders, Coral Vita
Shawn Layden, president, Sony Founder, Web Neutral Project Co-founder, Imperative
Interactive Entertainment America
Aerica Banks, 29 Mary iafelice, 28
Co-founder, humble ventures Elvis Zhang, 19
Ralf Reichert, CEo, ESL Co-founder, Beacon Founder, Oxy2
Kim Swift, design director, EA Motive Ebele ifedigbo, 29
Yuja Chang, Watson Yim, 27, 24
Studios (Under 30 Class of 2013)
Co-founders, Aira Co-founder, The Hood Incubator Judges:
Liz Chen, Cristina Leos, 29, 26 Robert Lee, 26 Jean Case, CEo, Case foundation
GEoRGE GEoRGALLIdIS WEARS A LEATHER
boMbER jACkET by PHILIPP PLEIN ($4,495), Co-founders, MyHealthEd Co-founder, Rescuing Leftover Cheryl Dorsey, president, Echoing Green
WooL SWEATER by boSS ($215), ANd jEANS Cuisine
Lisa Curtis, 29 Randall Lane, editor, Forbes magazine
by PT PANTALoNI ToRINo ($395). HEAdSET by
LoGITECH ($100). Founder, Kuli Kuli Jay Lipman, Douglas Scott, 29, 29 Teju Ravilochan, co-founder, Uncharted
Co-founders, Ethic (Under 30 Class of 2017)
Arpit Dhupar,
Kushagra Srivastava, 25, 22 Patrick Mateer, 24
Co-founders, Chakr Innovation Founder, Seal the Seasons kELLy PEELER WEARS A CoTToN-ANd-SILk
SydNEy dRESS by ToRy bURCH ($448) ANd
Ashley Edwards, 27 Reyna Montoya, 27 PATENT LEATHER SANdALS by GIUSEPPE
Co-founder, MindRight Founder, Aliento zANoTTI ($1,195).

January 5, 2018 forbes india | 97

 3O 3O cRoss boRDeR Julio Jones, 28
WiDE RECEiVER, ATLAnTA FALCOnS
Sports
Jose Altuve, 27
julio jones is best known for one-hand- Second baseman, Houston Astros
Enterprise ed catches and toe-tap touchdowns, but
away from the gridiron the NfL star has
Canelo Alvarez, 27
Boxer
Technology been making headlines for something
Tori Bowie, 27
else. He’s a principal investor in a $200
Track athlete, Team USA
iyinoluwa Aboyeji, 26 million real estate development outside
Atlanta that will bring a mix of shops, David Braun, 28
Co-founder, Flutterwave
offices, apartments and condos to an Manager, corporate partnerships,
Syed Ahmed, iba Masood, 29, 28 Harlem Globetrotters
Co-founders, TARA area adjacent to the Mall of Georgia. It
started small, he says, with the intent to Kam Chancellor, 29
Dani Arnaout, Jihad Kawas, 27, 20 create a local destination for Atlanta’s Strong safety, Seattle Seahawks
Co-founders, Abstract Layer
suburban population, a group that Patrick Collins, 28
Kumesh Aroomoogan, includes jones and some teammates. NFL agent, CAA
Anshul Vikram Pandey, 25, 26 “All the guys, we always had to drive like Anthony Davis, 24
Co-founders, Accern
45 minutes to an hour, all the way down- Forward, New Orleans Pelicans
Sabrina Atienza, George town, to do something,” jones says. Giovani Dos Santos, 28
Ramonov, 27, 28 That inspiration has grown into Forward, LA Galaxy
Co-founders, Qurious a massive enterprise that has been
Alison Gallagher, 28
Ethan Barhydt, described as a new centre of gravity for Executive, CAA
Daria Rose Evdokimova, 26, 24 the I-85 corridor. The project, named
Co-founders, VoiceOps Ariston, will include more than 160,000
Dior Ginyard, 29
Manager, player affairs,
Zeina Barr, 29 square feet of retail space, over 500 NFL Players Association
Co-founder, Raise the Barr apartments and a 21-storey hotel and
condominium. jones says it’s just the Braden Holtby, 28
Greg Brockman, 29
Goaltender, Washington Capitals
Co-founder, OpenAI start of his off-field career in real estate.
He’s already proven himself to be Julio Jones, 28
Tiffany Chu, Daniel Getelman,
prolific on the field. Since the Atlanta Wide receiver, Atlanta Falcons
29, 27
Co-founders, Remix falcons traded away five draft picks Gus Kenworthy, 26
to select jones sixth overall in the 2011 Freestyle skier, Team USA
S Zayd Enam, 25
CEO, Cresta draft, he’s become perhaps the best Hilary Knight, 28
wide receiver in the game. His team re- Forward, Boston Pride
Gregory Falco, 29
warded him in 2015 with a five-year, $71 Kyle Larson, 25
Co-founder, NeuroMesh
Joseph Fasone, 23 Joseph Fasone, 23 million contract extension that landed Driver, Chip Ganassi Racing

StYle aSSiStant: John anThony bonilla; grooming: suzana hallili; PhotograPheD at The WesTin, JeRsey ciTy, neW JeRsey.
him at No 43 on last year’s list of the
Founder, Pilot FOUnDER, PiLOT Kawhi Leonard, 26
world’s highest-paid athletes. Forward, San Antonio Spurs
Yuan Gao, 29 —Chris Smith & Dan Kleinman
Co-founder, Mavrx At 16, joseph fasone decided to skip his Jessica Long, 25
senior year of high school and become Swimmer, Team USA
Michael Garland, Percia Safar,
26, 27 IT director at WeWork, a co-working- Christina Milano, 26
Co-founders, WorkRamp space startup. Seven years later, he’s the Director of business development,
founder and CEo of his own promising Excel Sports Management
Enis Gayretli, İlker Köksal, 27, 27
startup, Pilot, a fibre-optic internet Amanda nunes, 29
Co-founders, Botanalytics
service provider for businesses in New Fighter, UFC
Jon Goldsmith, nik Liolios, 19, 20 york City, Philadelphia, Washington, dC,
Co-founders, Tetra Anthony Rizzo, 28
and boston. Pilot takes advantage of the First baseman, Chicago Cubs
Micah Green, 21 unused fibre-optic cables already under
Founder, Maidbot a city. “The infrastructure was there, but Alex Rosen, 28
Counsel, Major League Baseball
Lucy Guo, Alexandr Wang, 23, 20 there wasn’t the right service provider,”
Co-founders, Scale fasone says. Preetam Sen, 29
Pilot has raised $32.3 million to Director, Partnership Sales
Jay Hammonds, 25 (Americas), City Football
VIP Operations, Facebook build a service that’s faster than its com-
Group
Khizer Hayat, 28 petitors by orders of magnitude. Typical
internet speed is around 18.7 megabits Daniel Sillman, 28
Co-founder, ThroughPut CEO, Relevent Sports
per second. Pilot’s slowest service is 100
StYle aSSiStant: maximillian paRkinson; grooming: suzana hallili

Vinay Hiremath, Shahed Khan, Jack Sock, 25

megabits per second, and it offers three
Joe Thomas, 25, 22, 27
Co-founders, Loom more tiers—one 10 times faster, another
100 times faster and a third 1,000 times
Karson Humiston, 25 faster. Its nearest competitor is Verizon
Founder, Vangst
fios, which is speedier than Pilot’s base
Richie Hyden, 29
option but slower than its others. Given
Co-founder, IRIS.TV telecom’s consolidation craze, Pilot
Leif K-Brooks, 27 looks ripe for acquisition, but fasone
Co-founder, Octane AI
claims he isn’t interested.
Saurabh Ladha, 26 —Helen AS Popkin & Samar Marwan
Co-founder, Doxel
Joel Pazhayampallil, Will Song,
Sameep Tandon, 27, 27, 27 Judges:
Co-founders, Drive.ai Stewart Butterfield, co-founder, Slack
Soroush Salehian, 29 Theresia Gouw, co-founder, Aspect
Co-founder, Aeva Ventures
Chris Wanstrath, co-founder, Github
Erik Schluntz, 24
Co-founder, Cobalt Robotics joSEPH fASoNE WEARS A CASHMERE boMb-
Steven Valencsin, 29 ER jACkET ($6,995), A CASHMERE SWEATER
($1,045), ANd A CoTToN PIqUE jERSEy
Founder, Growers PoLo SHIRT ($475) by bRUNELLo CUCINELLI;
CoTToN PANTS by 34 HERITAGE ($175); 997
Leo Yeykelis, 29
LEATHER SNEAkERS by NEW bALANCE ($340);
Quantitative UX research lead, ANd STAINLESS STEEL RECoRd CoLLECTIoN
Waymo WATCH by LoNGINES ($2,025).
Tennis player, Team USA
Matthew Stafford, 29
Quarterback, Detroit Lions
Sloane Stephens, 24
Tennis player
PK Subban, 28
Defenceman, Nashville Predators
Christian Taylor, 27
Track athlete, Team USA
Anthony Vennare, 28
Co-founder, Fitt
Zachary Weiner, 25
Co-founder, Overtime
Judges:
Steve Ballmer, owner, LA Clippers;
former CEo, Microsoft
Simone Biles, olympic gold medal gym-
nast, Team USA (Under 30 Class of 2017)
jULIo joNES WEARS A WooL SUIT ($1,795) ANd
CoTToN SHIRT ($395) by ALbA. GLoVES by
Alex Morgan, olympic gold medal
UNdER ARMoUR ($45). bIG bANG SAPPHIRE ALL soccer player, Team USA
bLACk WATCH by HUbLoT ($64,000). (Under 30 Class of 2015)

98 | forbes india January 5, 2018

Star
Power
Forbes’s annual list of America’s top young
innovators always includes famous faces.
Now we’re putting the spotlight on four
of these celebrities—two alumni and two
newcomers—and their disruption of the
entertainment industry and beyond
Karlie Kloss, 25
Model, founder, Kode with
Klossy
30 under 30 debut: 2018
“I didn’t go into this with the plan to
build an education non-profit,” says
supermodel-turned-philanthropist
Karlie Kloss, whose Kode with Klossy
has taught over 500 girls the basics of
computer programming. “I really went
into all this out of my own curiosity of
wanting to learn what the heck coding
was because it was building massive
enterprise value for people in a short
period of time.”
Kode with Klossy runs a summer
camp that aims to fix the gender
disparity in software engineering.
It launched last year as a two-week
programme for young women (ages
13 to 18) in New York, Los Angeles
and Kloss’s hometown of St Louis and
soon expanded to nine more cities
with plans to grow further. It also
sponsored monthly scholarships
for women at the Flatiron School, an
adult-education company in Manhat-
tan where Kloss took an intensive
two-week coding class in 2014.
She enjoyed that experience—her
favourite subjects in school had been
math and science—but found coding’s
male-dominated ranks disturbing.
Kloss figured her audience (she earned
$9 million from June 2016 to June 2017
fronting brands like Swarovski and
Express) made her the perfect person
to change that. “I realised, here I am
with this platform and reach to young
women across the country and around
the world,” says Kloss, a 36-time
Vogue cover girl with 7 million follow-
ers on Instagram. “If I could just help
a handful of girls, that would be really
meaningful.” And, Kloss says, she’s just
getting started. “I plan on building a
big business at some point, too.”
—Natalie Robehmed
Anton ‘Zedd’ Bieber and Lady Gaga and released
solo smashes like last year’s multiplati-
Zaslavski, 28 num ‘Stay’—while becoming the anti-
DJ of the DJ universe. To distinguish
MusiciAn
himself from competitors, he created
30 under 30 debut: 2014
a graphics-heavy live show that feels
like watching a videogame projected
Before regularly scoring six-figure
onto a movie screen with a custom
nightly fees spinning thumpy elec-
visual for each song. A cable runs from
tronic tunes, Zedd got his start playing
his computer to the front of the house,
classical music at the age of four. He
learnt how to plan performances with
where a team of technicians makes
sure everything syncs up, including the
meticulous detail, an ability that’s
obvious in his carefully choreographed
programme’s lasers and pyrotechnics.
shows today, which feature less of
“It used to be really cheap to make a
show—I used to be able to keep all the
the freewheeling song selection used
by most popular DJs. “I see myself as
money,” Zedd recalls. “Now the shows
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
an artist who presents a show,” says
Zedd, who earned $19 million this year
As costs continue to escalate in
and $85 million over the past five.
a musical arms race, Zedd is flirting
with the idea of reinventing the DJ
“It’s almost like when you go to the
model again by turning to something
movies. You’re not going to buy your
with which he’s very familiar: Live
ticket and see a movie and, if you don’t
instrumentation. “I think I will one day
like it, expect the movie to change in
go unplugged.”
real time.”
—Zack O’Malley Greenburg
Zedd has produced hits for Justin
ZEDD wEArS A coTToN PoLo SHIrT BY VErSAcE coLLEcTIoN ($225), coTToN uNDErSHIrT BY
ZANEroBE ($50), AND JEANS BY rAG & BoNE ($195). HEADPHoNES BY DouBLE ZEro ($199).
JEwELLErY BY VITALY (PrIcES uPoN rEquEST); BrAcELET BY cHAN LIu (PrIcE uPoN rEquEST).
GroominG: suzana Hallili using urban decay and Mario badescu;
PhotoGrAPhed At THe riTz-carlTon, bosTon
KArLIE KLoSS wEArS A coTToN TwEED JAcKET BY ProENZA ScHouLEr ($1,990), SILK
cAMISoLE BY DIor (PrIcE uPoN rEquEST), JEANS BY DrIES VAN NoTEN ($315), AND SATIN
PuMPS BY GIANVITo roSSI ($675).
Style ASSiStAntS: MaxiMillian Parkinson and Paris Toribio. GroominG: suzana
Hallili using urban decay and Mario badescu. PhotoGrAPhed At THe
riTz-carlTon, bosTon
January 5, 2018 forbes india | 99
esther Povitsky, 29
Actor-coMediAn
30 under 30 debut: 2018
In her college years, Esther Povitsky
would regularly take the three-hour
train ride to chicago for comedy
classes at Second city and Improv-
olympic, troupes that count Amy
Poehler and Tina Fey as former
members. when the Great recession
hit, she dropped out of the university
of Illinois at urbana-champaign to
pursue her passion in Los Angeles.
“I watched both of my parents lose
their jobs,” Povitsky says. “I was like,
‘why am I paying all this money to be
in school, and there’s no guarantee? I
might as well just do the thing I really
want to do’.”
The move paid off. She notched
bit parts in sketches on Jimmy Kimmel
ESTHEr PoVITSKY wEArS A SILK BLouSE ($305) AND A VIScoSE-ELASTANE SKIrT ($238) BY
ELISABETTA FrANcHI, AND PATENT LEATHEr BooTS BY BrASS PLuM ($90). SILVEr corAL rING
($165) AND BrASS corAL rING ($95) BY STrANGE LoVE DESIGNS.
PhotoGrAPh by eTHan Pines for forbes
Style ASSiStAnt: regina cHerePinsky. hAir: doMinique calvillo.
mAkeuP: kyMber blake.
100 | forbes india January 5, 2018
3O 3O
Live! and on comedy central’s Key and
Peele before landing a role playing cross border
Maya on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in 2016 (a
show created by and starring under
30 alumna rachel Bloom)—and then
shifted to the business side as a show
creator. Povitsky first wrote a short
called Alone Together with Benji Aflalo,
another up-and-coming comedian,
about their male-female friendship,
and then the pair decided to turn it
into a TV show. They pitched it to pro-
duction companies in the fall of 2015;
Freeform, a Disney-owned TV channel,
picked up the series order last year. “I
didn’t have a plan B,” Povitsky says. “I
didn’t have anywhere else to turn but
comedy, so I had to stick with it.” The
network gave her the ultimate vote of
confidence in october, renewing her
show for a second season before it
even aired.
—Natalie Robehmed
Kendrick lamar, 30 grown into a force. He has earned two
visits to the white House and grosses
MusiciAn more than $1 million a night on the
30 under 30 debut: 2013 road and even more for big festivals
like coachella. Next up: A slate of
Kendrick Lamar came of age on the international dates from Amsterdam
streets of compton, california, the to Stockholm in early 2018. Meanwhile,
violent landscape that has featured his songs have clocked over 2 billion
prominently in the music created by spins in the past year, more than
scores of hip-hop artists. He drew Beyoncé’s or Bruno Mars’s.
inspiration from his background for Lamar probably won’t return to the
an entirely different venture: A 2014 white House anytime soon, but he’s
partnership with reebok to create using his star power to tackle some of
a signature pair of sneakers—one today’s toughest issues. He decried
red, one blue, symbolising peaceful Photoshop’s creation of unrealistic
coexistence of the notorious Bloods beauty norms on his multiplatinum
and crips gangs. album DAMN, released this past April;
“Any kind of business outside of at last year’s Grammys, he won five
art and culture and hip-hop, I have to awards, including Best rap Album,
have full creative control,” says the and performed in chains and a prison
seven-time Grammy winner. “And uniform to raise awareness about mass
having that control, I always wanted to incarceration.
have something that represents more “It’s really about failure, not being
than just a price tag.” He’s earned in fear of that,” Lamar says. “once you
$78.5 million over the past five years, tackle that and block that idea, and
including a career-best $30 million this you know it’s okay to actually make
year, and inked a new Nike deal this a mistake or to fail at something, you
summer. get back up and try it again.”
In the music business, Lamar has —Zack O’Malley Greenburg
KENDrIcK LAMAr wEArS A coAT BY XIMoNLEE, ZIP TurTLENEcK BY PIècES uNIquES ($65),
VELVET TrouSErS BY HAIDEr AcKErMANN, LEATHEr BELT BY DoLcE & GABBANA ($545).
JEwELLErY BY cHroME HEArTS.
Style ASSiStAntS: MaxiMillian Parkinson and Paris Toribio.
GroominG: suzana Hallili using urban decay and Mario badescu.
PhotoGrAPhed At tHe riTz-carlTon, bosTon
 Recliner
ReclineR2
When children
take centre stage
on celluloid
P/106

ReclineR 1 A selection from celebrity photographer Nemai Ghosh’s archive

Farida Jalal
on the sets of
Satyajit Ray’s
film Shatranj ke
Khilari (1977)

photo by nemai ghosh; image souRced fRom dag modeRn

Recliner 1 Photo feature

Set in Time
curated by mexy xavier | PhotograPhs by nemai ghosh

Nemai Ghosh (84) is best

known as the photo-
biographer of Satyajit
Ray, documenting the
filmmaker’s personal and
professional life from
1967 till his death in 1992.
He has also documented
the works of filmmakers
Mrinal Sen, Goutam Ghose
and MS Sathyu, apart
from a variety of Bengali
theatre, landscapes, and
portraits. A common
element in Ghosh’s
images is an unusual
candidness, which he
achieves through the
excellent rapport he
creates with his subjects
and his gentle demeanour.
His works have been
exhibited globally.

This selection of images

include six from Ghosh’s
extensive archives,
and two from his book
Satyajit Ray and Beyond

On the sets of City of

Joy, directed by Roland
Joffé in Calcutta (now
Kolkata) in 1992, Ghosh
photographed the film’s
three protagonists—Om
Puri, Shabana Azmi
and Patrick Swayze—as
they sat talking during
a break from work
 Ray was a common mentor
for Ghosh and actor
Sharmila Tagore. Here
she is sitting on a black
Ambassador while on a break
during the shooting of Ray’s
Aranyer Din Ratri in 1969

sharmila, amitabh bachchan and Jaya bhaduri: images sourced from dag modern

Amitabh Bachchan and

Jaya Bhaduri at the Ritz
Continental hotel in 1973.
Before they married,
Bachchan would frequently
go to Calcutta to visit
Bhaduri, when she was
a bigger star than him

january 5, 2018 forbes india | 103

Recliner 1 Photo feature

Girija Devi (far left), renowned vocalist of the Seniya and Benaras gharanas, and Kishori
Amonkar (far right) of the Jaipur gharana perform in the mid-1990s on the occasion of
Dol Purnima at the residence of businessman Harshavardhan Neotia, in Calcutta

104 | forbes india january 5, 2018

 Ustad Bismillah Khan photographed at his home in
Varanasi, in 1989. Ghosh was accompanying filmmaker
Goutam Ghose, who was making a documentary on Khan
Filmmaker and actor Aparna Sen, in 1981 at Calcutta’s
Indrapuri Studio, on the sets of 36 Chowringhee Lane, for
which she won the National Film Award for Best Direction
Smita Patil, on the sets of Abhinetri, at Calcutta’s
Indrapuri Studio in 1986-87. Produced by Satyajit
Ray and directed by his son Sandeep, Abhinetri
was part of a television series called Satyajit
Ray Presents, based on his short stories
Rekha, shot on the sets of a Govind Nihalani film in 1982
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 105
Recliner 2 films

Child protagonists
in films do much
more than play lead

The Kids
characters—they hold
a mirror to a world
messed up by adults

a r e (n o t ) By Radhika OBeROi

A l r i g h t

106 | forbes india january 5, 2018

A
schismatic world is a
problematic one. Torn
asunder by adults unable
to keep peace with
political, religious or moral ideals
that contradict theirs, it is hostile to
children. And yet, they are expected
to navigate the uncertainties—a
sudden redrawing of boundaries,
unrest in the state or neighbourhood,
violence on the streets, in schools,
or at home—created by grown-ups.
At the sixth edition of the
Dharamshala International Film
Festival (DIFF) this year, several
films were preoccupied with the
predicaments of children. The child
protagonist emerged either as a
survivor, or a victim, or merely a
Land of the
Little People is about
four children who turn
an abandoned military
camp in israel into an
arena of atrocities
body that swells the numbers of the
anonymous dead. Commenting on the
selection of these films, Ritu Sarin,
who co-founded DIFF in 2012 along
with filmmaker husband Tenzing
Sonam, says, “Our main section this
year had a number of films with kids
as protagonists: Ashwatthama, Land
of the Little People, Village Rockstars
and Communion. Although this was
coincidental, we do have a soft spot for
films that feature children, so perhaps
there was a subliminal selection
process happening.” The venue of
the festival—the Tibetan Children’s
Village school in Dharamshala—
perhaps also called for a befitting
roster, she adds on a lighter note.
Typically, children, and young
“The best children’s films force us to reconsider
our own certainties as adults.”
adults are befuddled targets and tragic
fatalities in dramas orchestrated by
grown men and women. A poignant
example is New Delhi-based director
Dheeraj Jindal’s The School Bag,
which is a fictional retelling of the
2014 terrorist attack on the Army
Public School in Peshawar; at least
132 children were killed in the
massacre. In the film, little Farooq’s
persistent pleas for a new school bag
as a birthday present, and his mother’s
ultimate giving in, become a comment
on a milieu racked by terrorism.
The schoolbag—a proud emblem of
certitude and discipline—becomes
the metaphor of uncertainty and
irredeemable loss. “Whenever you
read about a tragedy in the papers,
or see images, you see footwear or
other personal items covered in
blood,” says Jindal. “The schoolbag
is meant to be a symbol of something
terrible that has just occurred.”
Other DIFF films also examined
how the tenuous happiness of young
people is destroyed by outdated social
mores and morality. Norwegian-
Pakistani filmmaker Iram Haq’s
feature film What Will People Say is
the tale of a precocious 16-year-old,
Nisha, who lives in Oslo with her
regressive Pakistani family. Nisha
is sexually aware and exploratory,
and her family is perturbed by this.
When her father Mirza walks into
her bedroom and finds her with a
boy, he assumes they have had sex.
Fearing the censure of Oslo’s Pakistani
community, he takes her to Islamabad,
and leaves her, against her wishes,
with a bucolic throng of relatives.
“It’s a relevant story. It examines
what can happen when someone is
in a position of authority or controls
your life in some way,” says actor Adil
Hussain, who plays the anguished
Mirza. What Will People Say is a
series of decisions that are calamitous
for Nisha but seen as appropriate
steps in a prudish community. It also
denunciates people who migrate to the
West in search of better opportunities,
but carry the baggage of oppressive
values. With biographical undertones,
Haq’s film examines Nisha’s
bewilderment and torment. Ekavali
Khanna, who plays Nisha’s despotic
mother Najma, highlights how
migrant communities cling to beliefs
that no longer serve them: “They move
to the West for more freedom, but
are trapped by regressive attitudes.”
Other child protagonists, in a
vastly different portrayal of human
misadventure, are eager perpetrators
of violence. Israeli director Yaniv
Berman and Palestinian producer
Tony Copti’s Land of the Little
People is about four children who
turn an abandoned military camp
into an arena of atrocities. When
they discover two army deserters
Victor BezrukoV
hiding there, they plot to reclaim
their territory. By far the most
disturbing scenes are those in which
the four unleash violent acts of
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 107
Recliner 2 films

retribution upon the fugitives. Unlike

the archetype ragamuffin of Hindi
cinema—orphaned and abused,
but lovable despite the sloughing
away of innocence—there is nothing
redemptive about these children. “In
Israel, children mature early as violent
people,” says Berman, adding that in a
society constantly racked by war, “one
prepares a child to be a tough guy”.

M
ainstream Hindi cinema
has grappled with the joys,
sorrows and perplexities
of children through a variety of stories.
An example from recent times that
suggests itself for its contemporariness
and sensitivity is Taare Zameen Par
(2007), which highlights the havoc
wrecked by dyslexia on children and
their families. The film’s creative
director and writer Amole Gupte
hosted a talk show on Sony TV
called Bindaas Bol in the mid-1990s,
which dealt with the complexities
of parent-child relationships and
peer pressure. “Taare Zameen Par
is a byproduct of sitting and talking
with children for a decade,” he says,
referring to the insights he gathered
through Bindaas Bol. He mentions our
tendency to judge and label children
as “clever” or “dull” or “quick” or
above: The School Bag is a fictional account of the 2014 terror attack that killed at least
“slow”, and hopes that Taare Zameen 132 children in Peshawar; Nisha, 16, with her father Mirza in What Will People Say
Par is a gentle condemnation of this.
“Teachers ought to teach, not judge; ‘Lakdi ki kaathi’ in Masoom (1983)— examples of an imaginative retelling of
in schools, even a slightly different or fantastic elements, such as in folktales and mythology with a moral
child is not tolerated by the staff.” Haatim Tai (1990), Chhota Chetan lesson. CFSI Chairperson Mukesh
Gupte’s subsequent films—Stanley (1998) and Bhootnath (2008). It was Khanna, however, highlights the
Ka Dabba (2011), Hawaa Hawaai also common for child actors such inclination of current filmmakers:
(2014) and Sniff (2017)—have been a as Baby Tabassum, Jugal Hansraj, “The whole point of children’s
continuation of his portrayal of the Baby Guddu and Master Bittoo to films has become festival-oriented;
world through the eyes of children. sing, dance and mouth dialogues directors want to win the Best
Traditionally, Bollywood films in films that were thematically for Director at Cannes!” He talks about a
were indifferent to the child- adults, with oblique references need for films that drive children to
centredness that Gupte ushered to their own joys and sorrows. the theatres: “If you can’t make films
into the mainstream, and dealt with The formation of the Children’s like the Harry Potter series, at least
children, or entertained them on Film Society of India (CFSI) in 1955 make something like Shaktimaan.”
screen, by incorporating slapstick was intended to encourage films In an essay titled ‘The Death
comedy, fantastic elements, or specifically for children. Work of Children’s Cinema’ in the book
comic action scenes. Often this was done under its aegis include Shyam Hindi Cinema: An Insider’s View
done by including incidental songs Benegal’s Charandas Chor (1975), Sai (2009), author Anil Saari rues the
like ‘Phoolon ka taron ka’ in Hare Parānjpye’s Jadu Ka Shankh (1974) swift passing of an enthusiasm for
Rama Hare Krishna (1971), the title and Sikandar (1976), and Mrinal children’s films, which was initiated
song of Yaadon ki Baaraat (1973) or Sen’s Ichchapuran (1970), which are by the Indian New Wave in the

108 | forbes india january 5, 2018

Clockwise from left: Dhanak is about the journey a visually impaired child and his sister must undertake to restore his eyesight;
Stanley Ka Dabba is about a schoolboy’s painful secret; Taare Zameen Par highlights the havoc wrecked by dyslexia on children
1970s, “Regrettably, there were no
new or younger directors waiting to
step in once the ‘seniors’ moved out.
Nobody was impatient to seize the
opportunity that suddenly became
available. Even more regrettably, of
the luminaries of new Indian cinema,
only Satyajit Ray was to return
constantly to children’s films.”
The work of filmmakers such as BV
Karanth (Chor Chor Chup Ja, 1975), or
Kantilal Rathod (Adventure Of Sugar
Doll, 1964) would become examples
of a drive that held promise but did
not culminate into a movement.
D
reams great and small, and
the obstacles that must
be overcome to achieve
them are the gossamer material of
recent films with child protagonists.
For instance, Nagesh Kukunoor’s
filmography—Rockford (1999), Iqbal
(2005), and Dhanak (2016)—is
either about the messy business
of coming-of-age, or about the
ephemeral ambitions of children.
But the filmmaker says, “These
three films that children identify
with most were not written for
them. I chose not to dumb down the
stories; in fact, I was quite surprised
when Dhanak won an award in the
children’s film category at Berlin.”
Dhanak, which premiered at
the 65th Berlin International Film
Festival and won the Crystal Bear
Grand Prix for best Children’s Film,
is the story of 10-year-old Pari,
and her visually impaired brother,
eight-year-old Chotu, who walk a
long distance to school every day,
and tell each other stories about
films of their favourite stars, either
Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan.
The film is also about the arduous
journey they must undertake in a
bid to restore Chotu’s eyesight.
These seemingly insignificant
ambitions of children are also
portrayed in Nila Madhab Panda’s
I Am Kalam (2011), which hinges
on its child hero’s question: “Why
can’t poor kids go to school, father?”
His father’s response, “Destiny!”
simply isn’t good enough for Chhotu,
who, inspired by APJ Abdul Kalam,
sets about altering his own destiny.
“I had lost my childhood in the
struggles of life. I wanted to tell the
story of a child who creates his own
destiny,” explains the filmmaker.
It isn’t easy, though, to slip under
the skin of children and tell their
story. “The biggest challenge is
how to filter out the director’s own
perspective from that of the children.
The most successful films with
children as protagonists are those
that manage to present a worldview
that is entirely from the child’s
perspective,” says Sarin, citing the
1959 French Drama Les Quatre Cents
Coups (The 400 Blows), directed by
François Truffaut, as an example of a
film that has succeeded in this. “This
is a difficult thing to achieve; as adults,
we have lost the ability to think and
see like children.” The child’s eye,
or a view of the way things are, or
ought to be, makes for forceful and
intimate cinema. Says Sarin: “The best
children’s films force us to reconsider
our own certainties as adults.”
january 5, 2018 forbes india | 109
 Thoughts
On StardOm

Overnight stardom
can be harmful to
your mental health.
Yeah. It has ruined
a lot of people.
—CLint
eaStWood
Whenever I start feeling
too arrogant about myself, I
always take a trip to the US. The
immigration guys kick the star out
of my stardom.
—Shah rukh khan
I have both joyful In rock stardom
and heartbreaking there’s an absolute
moments in life, economic upside to
even now. Stardom self-destruction.
Eastwood: stEphanE MahE / REutERs; Khan: MaRK Blinch / REutERs; Bacall: danny MoloshoK / REutERs; hayEs: BEttMann / GEtty iMaGEs;

doesn’t give us —Courtney Love

everything.
—viJay I don’t think about
Sethupathi stardom anymore. I’m
way past that phase.
—akkineni
nagarJuna

Stardom isn’t a profession,

it’s an accident.
—Lauren BaCaLL

you would think The main ingredient

BowiE: REutERs; woodEn: adREEs latif / REutERs; MERcuRy: GEtty iMaGEs

that a rock star of stardom

being married to a is the rest of
supermodel would
be one of the the team.
greatest things in
the world. it is. —John Wooden
There is a price
for stardom, and, —david BoWie
unfortunately, one’s
family shares in
the payment.
—heLen hayeS

...All you have in the

end is to look back i won’t be a rock star.
and like the choices i will be a legend.
you’ve made. —Freddie
—Matt daMon MerCury

110 | forbes india janUary 5, 2018

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