Never say die: That's the motto Tasneem Zakaria Mehta lives by

Mehta tells Anjuli Bhargava that it is possible to push many boundaries even after coming from a "ritually conservative" background

Ismail Merchant, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Partap Sharma, Pupul Jayakar, Rahul Bajaj, Martand Singh, P. Chidambaram. The daughter of Rafiq Zakaria, wife of former Shell CEO and current chairman of Brookings India Vikram Mehta and sister of Fareed Zakaria — Tasneem Zakaria Mehta — has mentioned so many big names to me in the first 25 minutes of our conversation that I wonder if she knows any regular people.

I can vouch for the fact that she is not dropping names, just recounting the life she has lived. Her life has been peppered with personalities – a by-product of being