Gita Gopinath Has Come a Long Way
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SPOTLIGHT a beautiful mind From idolising Amartya Sen to sharing office space with him, economist Gita Gopinath has come a long way. AARTI VIRANI traces her journey from Mysore to Harvard n a brisk Saturday in De- cember, Harvard Univer- sity stirs awake. Scant clusters of students shuffle O through the legendary Quad, while the occasional camera-wield- ing tourist pauses, entranced by the brick and ivy. Such is the view from the office of Professor Gita Gopinath, who is far from sleepy this morning. Perched be- hind her desk, the striking economist finds peace here on the second floor of the Littauer Center, a stately columned onto the global stage. She’s just returned ministrative glitch and I would get building bordering the campus’ north from the World Economic Forum’s India screamed at because I never brought five end. “I’m very good at shutting every- Summit, where she gave several lectures copies of something or the other.” It’s a thing else out,” admits Gopinath, “and on topics including the current govern- refreshing admission from one of the I’m a complete workaholic.” A board ment deficit, in the company of luminar- brightest minds in America, revealing crammed with a sea of serpentine equa- ies like Union Minister Kamal Nath and that Gopinath is free of the intimidating tions only bolsters her claim. “Oh, that’s Sunil Mittal, chairman and CEO of exterior one might associate with such a just something I was working on yester- Bharti Enterprises. prestigious position. day,” she mentions, when she notices me Some of Gopinath’s more challenging Gopinath defies a plethora of stereo- gawking. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” research, centred on exchange rates, in- types, most apparent when one surveys At 39, this intellectual powerhouse was cluded sifting through an array of confi- the roster of roughly 50 faces that make granted tenure at Harvard’s renowned dential data from the American Bureau up the Harvard economics department. economics department, making her the of Labour Statistics. So imagine my sur- She is one of three tenured women who first Indian woman—and the fourth fe- prise when she admits an unexpected stare back at the viewer and her resolute male in the department’s history—to flaw mere minutes into our conversation. eyes offer a steady gaze. “It’s a very, very claim the coveted position. (Tenure is a “I’m terrible at any kind of organisation small number,” she asserts, referring to highly coveted prize amongst American or paperwork management,” she confess- her female counterparts in the field. “But university academia because it provides es with a self-deprecating chuckle as she I never really had any direct sense of dis- professors the guarantee of lifetime ap- recounts the bureaucratic gauntlet she crimination. I think the academic envi- pointment, and therefore the freedom to faced as an undergraduate, after winning ronment is actually great because every- speak and write about anything without the President’s Gold Medal at the Uni- one is pushing the frontier of knowledge fear of dismissal.) Specialising in interna- versity of Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College and nobody’s trying to keep people out tional macroeconomics and finance, her for Women. “They kept sending me to deliberately,” she insists. “But you know fields of expertise are regularly thrust government offices to fix some sort of ad- what they say. [In my field] when 10 men POWERS DAPHNE HAIR AND MAKE-up: (main); styling, CARA TOwnsend PHOTOGRAPH: 122 VOGUE INDIA MARCH 2011 www.vogue.in where you’re considered very valuable, canny story of the first time she men- you don’t have self-doubt and you feel tioned Iqbal to her father, over a family very worthy as a person.” She’s especially dinner in 1996. Moments later, they grateful to her father, a small-scale entre- flipped on the TV to see that the Indian preneur who always nurtured her pas- Administrative Service exam results were sion for school. “He’s a big believer,” she being announced. “And there was Iqbal’s reveals. “Someone who feels like you can picture, on the evening news.” says Gopi- really do it, makes you want to do it— nath, her voice trembling slightly. “He there’s positive reinforcement right stood first. In the entire country.” there.” She says it with such bold convic- The two met as graduate students at tion that I’m certain it’s a tried and tested the Delhi School of Economics on the no- economic theory. toriously crowded University Special bus. Her mother, whom Gopinath charac- “[Iqbal] still jokes that the only reason I terises as “Gandhian,” runs The Play spoke to him was because he saved me a House, a successful pre-school in Mys- seat on the thing,” Gopinath says. ore. “If my mother were to live her life They’ve come a long way from that first all over again, she’d be a complete social commute, and now reside in Lexington (a worker. Every single kid who walks into town just minutes from the Harvard her school becomes the most important campus) with their seven-year-old son, person in her life,” Gopinath claims. A Rohil. He’s graced with an adorable mass framed black-and-white portrait of the of curls and his mother’s thoughtful two sits on a nearby bookshelf, and their brown eyes, already displaying surefire wide, vibrant grins brighten up the of- signs of an ardent economist-in-waiting. fice. “Growing up, there were people “He asked my husband what a fiscal defi- who were always disappointed cit was the other day,” she shares, some- BRIGHT that I wasn’t the type of person what amused. “He’s certainly being ex- MINDS who helped out in the kitchen,” posed a little too much to this stuff.” Gita Gopinath with her she divulges. “But it was fine Then again, Gopinath is all for being a husband Iqbal for me to be the person I wanted role model—it’s partly the reason she and son Rohil “You know what they say. [In my field] when 10 men are making a decision, they tend to think of 10 other men that they’ve met. There just aren’t enough women” to be. And, you know, agreed to this interview. “To be honest, achieve things.” I get a lot more requests than I say yes It’s this quiet but formida- to,” she admits. “Of course, my father ble confidence that has en- would love for me to be on the news eve- sured Gopinath’s success. ry night. But my main reason for doing When she looks back on the this sort of thing is the hope that there day she was informed of her might be five people out there who pick ground-breaking promotion up the magazine and think maybe [what at Harvard this past spring, I’m doing] is something they could ac- she remembers relaying the complish.” Miraculously, her school-day news to her husband, Iqbal. role models now share a hallway with “I told him, ‘The tenure went her. Just steps away, for example, as in- are making a decision, they tend to think through’ and he said, ‘Whose tenure?’” dicated by the name that’s casually of 10 other men that they’ve met. There she recalls. “I was so worried about things scrawled on a makeshift name plate, sits just aren’t enough women.” going wrong that I didn’t want to jinx Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. “These She wonders aloud whether her Keral- myself. It’s all very secretive, this busi- are the people I read in India,” she ac- ite background—both her parents hail ness.” But it’s Iqbal, currently the global knowledges. “And now they’re my col- from the southern state, though she head of policy at the Massachusetts Insti- leagues.” At moments like these, Gopi- spent formative years in Mysore—is re- tute of Technology’s Poverty Action Lab, nath seems as though she’s only begun sponsible for her inner calm. “In Kerala, that she looks to for unfaltering support. to digest the place she will claim in aca- we have a matriarchal society,” she says. “I’m married to a wonderful person,” she demic history. “It’s remarkable,” she PHOTOGRAPH: CARA TOwnsend (main); styling, HAIR AND MAKE-up: DAPHNE POWERS DAPHNE HAIR AND MAKE-up: (main); styling, CARA TOwnsend PHOTOGRAPH: “When you grow up in an environment declares. She shares the seemingly un- muses. “Just quite remarkable.” n www.vogue.in VOGUE INDIA MARCH 2011 123.