To celebrate World Book Day, we invited a select group of leaders and experts from across the industry to reflect on the transformative power of the written word. We asked them to look beyond data and strategy and share the stories that shaped their thinking and the pages they return to for inspiration. In this special feature, Anindita Sarkar, Vice President — Brand & Communications, South Asia, dentsu, offers a personal glimpse into her literary journey—revealing the books that serve as a compass in both life and leadership. Read on.
Anindita’s reflection:
One book that’s had an impact on me: Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Without the Tiger, Pi wouldn’t have survived. He needed something to fear. Something that kept him awake, alert, unwilling to give up. It wasn’t about defeating the Tiger. It was about learning to live with it without being destroyed.
That feels uncomfortably real. Because when you are pushed to the edge, belief stops being noble. It becomes practical. Almost transactional. You hold on to whatever works.
And truth stops being clean. It becomes the story you tell yourself so you can get through. Maybe it’s not the most factual version. But it’s the one that keeps you alive.
A quote I connect with: “The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity; it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.”
What reading means to me: Reading is perspective. It’s inheritance. And sometimes, a quiet escape. It’s also my father’s voice -in my head now- steady, gentle, reading aloud. I remember how he would linger over Kabuliwala (by Rabindranath Tagore), that quiet recognition of a father losing time with his child. Or Chhuti – a child waiting to go home, carrying a longing too large for his small world.
I didn’t fully understand it then. But I inherited it anyway.
That’s what reading has been. A way of receiving emotions before I knew how to name them, and carrying them forward long after the story ends.
A book that I would recommend is: Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (the English translation by T. W. Clark and Tarapada Mukherji stays very close to the soul of the original).
It’s magnificent.
If you want to understand the depth of this country – not the loud, visible parts, but the quiet, everyday truths – this book gets you there. It doesn’t try to impress. It simply shows life as it is: small joys, slow suffering, dignity in the middle of very little.
It follows Apu and Durga growing up in a small village with almost nothing. And yet, it feels full of curiosity, mischief, and love.
I first read it aloud to my younger brother when I was getting ready to leave home for my undergrad programme. He was still in school. And I remember this one moment so clearly. When Durga dies. My brother just broke down. Uncontrollably.
We never said “I love you” growing up. We fought, we argued, we were constantly at each other. That was normal. But that day, I understood something I hadn’t before – how deeply he loved me!
And strangely, it was this story, of two siblings in a small, faraway village – that made that visible to me.
So for me, Pather Panchali isn’t just about rural India or literary beauty. It’s about how stories can quietly reveal what we don’t say out loud.
