What kind of job does a gold medallist engineering graduate with an MBA, who is also a Carnatic vocalist, co-author and editor of books, popular hostess of TV shows and public events, wildlife enthusiast and writer of articles on wildlife, music and musicians, opt for when she completes college? That of a project editor in Oxford University Press, of course. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?

That was Nivedita Narayanan’s choice of day job when she graduated from business school a couple of years ago, though we at Sruti tried to tempt her to join us as a correspondent. As we were aware of her background as a musician, TV anchor and freelance journalist with a reputation for meeting deadlines without fail, we were quite surprised with her decision to become an editor, though her all round qualifications should have really prepared us.

Nivedita started learning Carnatic music at the age of 14 from prominent Carnatic vocalist KN Shashikiran, to whose mentoring she attributes both her musical proficiency and theoretical knowledge. She says, “When I went to Shashi sir, I had already learnt for seven years, but I could barely identify swarasthanas and disliked Carnatic music to the extent of hating it.” She has also been the popular hostess of such TV shows as Puduppunal and Nam Virundinar on Podhigai TV, Maithreem Bhajatha on Sankara TV and Doordarshan’s National Programme of Music.

Nivedita who has had a brilliant academic record—has received awards for outstanding performance in school board examinations, a gold medal in her BE (Electrical and Electronics Engineering) from Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering and best outgoing student awards for all semesters in both her engineering course and MBA (Finance) from the ICFAI Business School.

Nivedita has been contributing interviews and articles for Sruti magazine for the past few years. Her writing is thoughtful and well structured