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Calcutta girl who fled home & marriage at 17 returns as millionaire US innovator
- chris_wot 14y agoPopup ads to be had here. Perhaps an inspiring story, but marred by some unethical practices by the paper itself.
- gnosis 14y agoTry using an ad blocker. I use the AdBlock Plus, NoScript, and RequestPolicy plugins for Firefox, along with Privoxy, and virtually never see ads.
- chris_wot 14y agoMy point is really more that I question the veracity of the site, and thus the story. Incidentally, I can't get those on my iPad.
- Indyan 14y agoDon't go by it's website, which hasn't been given a facelift in at least 6 or 7 years. However, having been a subscriber of Telegraph (India) for over a decade, I can say that it is not often inaccurate. It's the leading English daily (combined sales of #2 and #3 are less than Telegraph's) in Eastern part of India.
- khitchdee 14y agoCalcutta is famous for its musketeering personalities.
- arjn 14y agoWhat ? Are you sure "musketeering" is the word you wanted to use here ?
- khitchdee 14y agoI was searching for a better word. I thought of pioneering but it was too tame, swashbuckling but it was too far out. Can you suggest something better? I mean they are go-getters and bending the boundaries of the system.
- MichaelGG 14y agoIs this actually statistically true? Wikipedia says it's the third largest metro region in India. Apart from outliers providing anecdotes, what's the reason to say people from this particular city are exceptional pioneers and "bend the boundaries"?
- khitchdee 14y agoWest Bengal in general is characterized by such people and Calcutta is like the center of West Bengal like Paris and France. They tend to be much more into the arts and culture. Bengali, the local language is very sweet. If you hear it it sounds like they are singing. e.g. Rabindranath Tagore.
- suyash 14y agoThat is why they call America the Land of Opportunity. If you work hard enough, you dreams will come true here.
- da02 14y agoExcept for most musicians, actors, actors turned prostitutes, lawyers who are waiters, near-homeless programmers who read HN, startup employees who got screwed by finance people, etc. ;) I'm just saying there might be other factors: like the industry you work in, your interests, govt subsidization of your industry, saturation/supply/demand, etc. Someone interested in makeup is going to have a different life than someone interested in nuclear physics. There are some poor physics graduates who worked for 10 years in research VS. upper-middle class make-up artists.
- jordanb 14y ago> near-homeless programmers who read HN You have to screw up pretty hard to be near-homeless as a programmer in this environment.
- kidgorgeous 14y agoWell I guess I screwed up royally
- mikecane 14y agoHang in there. I hope you will have better days.
- mahmud 14y agoIt's very easy to become homeless when you get the 1-2 punches of illness and divorce. A friend of mine went from riches to rags within a year that way.
- jacquesm 14y agoIt is surprisingly easy to end up like that, no matter what your qualifications. Go to a homeless person and ask them to tell you their story for some food and coffee, prepare to have your worldview shattered.
- billpaetzke 14y agoShe was lonesome, without a child and I became her daughter who she started raising instead of me helping her. She gave me $30,000 one day and said: “I want you to go to Harvard.” Wow, that is some luck!
- flyinRyan 14y agoAll business success stories have some element of luck (most of them a great deal). It's just a question of how much and what you did with it.
- sksk 14y agoThis story is very sketchy. Couple of Google searches do not turn up anything useful about her beyond the standard PRish articles. https://www.google.com/search?q=chanda+zaveri+linus+pauling https://www.google.com/search?q=chanda+zaveri+linus+pauling https://www.google.com/search?q=chanda+zaveri+uc+santa+barbara https://www.google.com/search?q=chanda+zaveri+uc+santa+barba... I tried looking list of people who have received honorary doctorate degrees from Harvard but couldn't find the entire list. But it is not in the summary list they have. (All this additional info from here: http://www.chandallc.com/index.php?p=1_4_About http://www.chandallc.com/index.php?p=1_4_About)
- twentysix 14y agoShe does have some patents in her name https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:Chanda+Bhuwalka+Zaveri https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl... https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&tbm=pts&tbm=pts&q=ininventor:Chanda+Zaveri https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&tbm=...
- piyush_ranjan 14y agohttps://encrypted.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:Chanda+Zaveri#hl=en&safe=off&tbo=d&tbm=pts&tbm=pts&q=ininventor:%22Chanda+Zaveri%22&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=9be4fca84c8de424&biw=1366&bih=658 https://encrypted.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl...
- namank 14y agoWhat's your point? I don't expect her to be on the internet except in the corporate sense. Her formative years were before the internet era.
- piyush_ranjan 14y agoA few more links http://www.fairandhandsome.ae/faq http://www.fairandhandsome.ae/faq check the #3 item on FAQ. Imami does credit her for the formula of fair and handsome (which is a fairly big company in India and a famous product). Some more details of her company http://www.walkersresearch.com/Profilepages/A/Activor_Corp.asp http://www.walkersresearch.com/Profilepages/A/Activor_Corp.a... no website though http://www.activorcorporation.net/ http://www.activorcorporation.net/ Not sure if she's fake or true
- bosky101 14y agoI was more surprised when I found out that Freddie Mercury (vocalist for Queen) spent much of his childhood between Africa & India [1], moving to the UK only after the age of 17 under trying circumstances. ~B [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mercury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mercury
- zaph0d 14y agoOf course. His real name is Farokh Balsara.
- jacquesm 14y agoFarrokh Bulsara
- guard-of-terra 14y agoPharōkh Balsārā
- btilly 14y agoIf the story is true, then I question her ethics. As http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/cosmetics/cosmetics_personal_care.htm http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/cosmetics/cosmetics_p... (among many other sources) points out, we do not have good regulation of the cosmetics industry. Which is kind of scary, because the cosmetics industry is deliberately seeking biologically active stuff, and smearing it all over people. Stuff that, in her case, does things like change your natural skin color. What else does it do? We don't really know. We do know that a lot of these substances can cause cancer. We know that cosmetics mimic biologically active stuff in our body that could do other things. We know it has not been studied. The last point is important. As http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/cosmetics http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a... makes clear, the situation right now is, "The jury is out, we don't have data." But I'd be firmly on the side of, "When you're deliberately trying to get the body to interact with biologically active stuff, it is just a question of time until you succeed..disastrously."
- guard-of-terra 14y agoSo now you vote for stopping progress forever for the fears of safety? I assume you understand this makes you undeserving of that safety.
- Tuna-Fish 14y agoThere's a difference between stopping progress forever and expecting companies to perform some kind of human safety tests before bringing products to market.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoDo you have proof (or reasonable doubts) that the person described in an article doesn't?
- campusman 14y agoI do....I know this person personally. She is duplicitous and ethically bankrupt. I have seen studies done years ago supposedly on some of the things she has developed and their efficacy but nothing in the last decade pretty much. The people commenting with skepticism on her credentials earlier in this thread are getting close to the mark with their assumptions. If you dig deeper on her a lot of claims fall apart. It sickens me she is getting all this exposure and publicity.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- solutionhn 14y agoA shiny example of a country filled with incompetent people, including the ones who frequent HN. How can a journalist be such a fool to publish something as ridiculous as this? A simple Google search can confirm that she is fake. With this article behind her back, don't be surprised if she ends up on a '50 under 50' list within a year.
- shiven 14y agoWow! By this metric if you can't find my life's story on Google, I must be fake. And, pari passu, anything you find about me on Google must be not fake. Unless, of course, your post was an attempt at trolling... In which case, I must admit, you've succeeded. ;-)
- hermaj 14y agoShe is on the board of advisors for RUMi OM™ YOUR SOUL VACATION™ HOME: http://www.rumiom.com/index.php/board-of-advoisors.html http://www.rumiom.com/index.php/board-of-advoisors.html The other members are: A mystery man who's biography is a copy and paste of the next mans bio. The head of the International Schizophrenia Foundation, the ISF plays a vital role in improving health by 'Orthomolecular medicine' Jerry Garcia's third wife Deborah Koons Garcia (A Filmmaker) A Former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor. A medical anthropologist and ethnobotanist who has researched shamanism. A family physician practicing 'Integral Theory'. I don't know any scientist who would be associated with this much nonsense and be expected to be taken seriously.
- solutionhn 14y ago> By this metric if you can't find my life's story on Google, I must be fake Thank you. By writing this comment you just proved the statement I made above. Did I say I couldn't find details about her on Google? On the contrary, I found enough evidence while doing a simple Google search to come to a reasonable conclusion. If I can't find your story I would reserve my judgement. > Companies with single shareholders > Cal Poly and Caltech > Shitty websites for companies supplying important formulations to the likes of Estee Lauder and many more.. Please avoid using the word 'Troll' casually without concrete evidence.
- jgenius07 14y agoWhat we should look for in the article is simply "the virtue of will power." At least thats what i will. Does anyone really have the time to doubt and investigate the bullshit doubts. She may be a schemer, i don't care, but her determination and conviction is what attracts me and that's what i or anybody else should take away from this article. And i gotta say hailing from Calcutta (now Kolkata) and becoming what she is now, really Really take balls of titanium.
- ycuser 14y agoA true Slumdog millionaire. A shining example of Luck, opportunity and will playing their part. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
- ananthrk 14y agoA true Slumdog millionaire. Not quiet the same, as she comes from a wealthy family. She was running away from the social pressure of getting married and ended up with what followed. [NB: Nothing to take away from what she achieved, I am just responding to the term Slumdog Millionaire used in this context]
- spitx 14y agoI wonder what happens to HN on weekends and extended holidays. The quality of comments plummets remarkably, approaching pedestrian at times.
- jacquesm 14y agoFor an encore, verified real and a lot more impressive imo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anousheh_Ansari http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anousheh_Ansari
- prakashk 14y agoFrom http://www.chandallc.com/index.php?p=1_4_About http://www.chandallc.com/index.php?p=1_4_About: Ms. Zaveri received a Masters degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Subsequent graduate studies were undertaken at California Polytechnic University (“Cal Tech”) Since when California Polytechnic University is called Cal Tech? Isn't that abbreviation used for "California Institute of Technology (http://caltech.edu http://caltech.edu)? Searching for California Polytechnic University shows "Cal Poly" or "California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA (www.calpoly.edu). Update: Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling), Linus Pauling was at Caltech in the 1927–1963 period and does not indicate he was there in the later stage of his life (nineties). Nor does it say that he was ever associated with CalPoly. At least this part of the Ms. Zaveri's story seems suspicious to me.