And so the Verve community continues to grow. This time around, over lunch at India Jones, the Trident Mumbai’s hip restaurant. Executive chef Joy Bhattacharya and restau–rant chef Amit Gugnani have assembled a smorgasbord of pan-Asian flavours including, among others, Vietnamese (satay), Thai (pomelo salad), Malaysian (curry) and Japanse (wasabi-green tea ice cream). Perfectly complemented by flutes of bubbly Moët et Chandon and mugs of Peroni beer. The invitees – thinkers and writers working on different aspects of contemporary India – were cemented by their ability to discuss several schools of thought. The discussions started, encircled and ended with the question of Indian identity – a question that was thrown open to the table by Verve’s editorial director, Parmesh Shahani, centre of thought gravity and author of Gay Bombay: Globalisation, Love and Be(longing) in Contemporary India.

Shahani begins the discussion by reading a passage from a recent column, The Great Indian Armpit Dance, by invitee Santosh Desai, CEO of Future Brands. ‘The truth is that there is a joyous exuberance, a giddy over-the-top spirit of exhilaration in all our armpit waving….the need to hold tight and not rock today’s boat seems to have lifted and we are able to flow with the rhythms of today with a stillness that is inspired.’ And so, inspiration and aspiration become the theme of the conversation with BusinessWeek’s Manjeet Kripalani exclaiming, “Have we decided who we are? Watching the recent drama in Parliament, no one can answer this for us.”

Kripalani’s award-winning reportage whether on out–sourcing, the new knowledge economy, media or politics, often talks about the aspirations of Indians. As does Sakshi Juneja, the Australia-returned ace blogger who discusses aspiration, whether she is ruminating about Rakhi Sawant and her brazen ambition (she admires it) or a variety of other topics, including how the local NRIs (Non Resident Indians) or US ABCDs (American Born Confused Desis) often feel threatened by and discriminated against by the new arrivals, or FOBs (Fresh Off the Boat). Avanti Maluste, who edited the Penguin anthology, A Poem For Cry when she was 17, and Radharani Ray, programme officer of Harvard’s South Asia Initiative’s Mumbai office are in agreement.

Author Namita Devidayal, deconstructs her hybrid identity with the others – that of singer, writer, mother and partygoer and reveals that some of her closest friends had no idea of her long involvement with Indian classical music until the release of The Music Room. Devidayal is passionate about the need for including music and creative arts as part of school curricula.

Devdutt Pattanaik arrives bearing us a gift in the form of his books on mythology, the latest being the novel The Pregnant King. Pattanaik is a medical doctor by training, a marketing consultant by profession and a mythologist by passion. What we loved was his description of heaven. “Heaven is like a mall. Pick what you want,” he announced. “Are you seeking fun or contentment?” Heaven is where we can dress to the hilt, we decide. And while we discuss that, we also question Rahul da Cunha, playwright and theatre director, about why he has displayed so much angst in his recent play, Me Kash and Cruise. In response, Pattanaik presents an argument for the virtue of forgiveness and anger management. Mukti Khaire, Harvard Business School professor, counters, “Doesn’t this make one complacent? Would we affect change if we were complacent?” Khaire, only the second Indian woman to serve on the HBS faculty, relates how her business students in the west find it difficult to reconcile the fact that India as a developing nation, wore custom made clothes for a long time (fashioned by the neighbourhood darzee). Couture in a poor country like ours? Food for thought!