Book Box | Meet storytelling guru Sid Jain

Sid Jain's journey from stock market whiz to the man who adapts books to screen is full of quirky life lessons, like how you can land a job without a resume

Dear Reader,

Sid Jain(Sonya Dutta Choudhury )

It’s Saturday and I am in comic heaven. All around me are bookshelves full of superheroes and giant books with binders full of comics. Taking me through this treasure trove is Sid Jain, founder of Story Ink, the book-to-screen adaptation company.

It feels exciting. I grew up in a home where comics were frowned upon, seen as frivolous, and not worthy of a serious reader. I read (and loved) the Amar Chitra Katha stories I borrowed, Phantom comics and some Archies, which by the way were seen by my mother, as the lowest of the low — at least Amar Chitra Katha taught you mythology.

And now the comic strip and the graphic novel is a thrilling art form — everything from Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis, Joe Sacco in Palestine and our very own Amrita Patil and Sarnath Banerjee.

There are also books like No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, The Ride of Lifetime by Disney CEO Bob Iger, HBO Effect by Dean DeFino, and The Directors: Take One by Robert J. Emery. There’s a bookshelf full of ancient typewriters, and there is even a banana tree.

"I thought I should design an office where I could sit under a tree," said Jain. I look around at the bric-a-brac, at the posters and the memorabilia and yes, this is the perfect old curiosity shop.

Later the same day, we are on another fifth floor, this one grey and formal in contrast. But as we settle for a fireside chat with my MBA class, the surroundings fade away.

“I thought I would be an investor. I was 16 and reading about the lives of famous investors like Warren Buffet and Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch. I put money into the stock market and did very well, said Sid, who went on to do an MBA. The only catch was that by the time he finished his MBA, he realised he didn’t want to be investing money all his life.

“I was always interested in collecting things, and I was interested in films. Where did the film shoot objects go, I wondered. Like Salman Khan’s shirt, Aishwarya Rai’s lehenga — turns out they were stashed in godowns.” This finding led to Sid’s first start-up Bollywoodmemorabilia.com which took off very well and got him customers who later turned into friends in both Bollywood and Hollywood.

By now the class is absorbed. He talks about pivoting from an industry job to setting up a start-up that made money and achieved the holy grail of being acquired. And Sid is a great storyteller.

“I’ve never made a formal CV,” he tells the students. But I’ve got every job I interviewed for.”

I see polite disbelief on the faces ahead, but everyone is riveted.

"Tell us how you did this, how did you get your job with Hotstar?" I ask Sid.

“You need to learn to tell your story. To connect this story with the company you are interviewing with. Research them, find out their pain points and tell them what you can help them with.” he explains.

Sid spent months studying the film and the streaming industries. The process began years ago when he discovered a mystery customer who bought large volumes of Bollywood memorabilia from his website.

Turns out the buyer was a Hollywood film producer. Sid reached out to him, and the producer said he was happy to meet. The meeting was in LA on Day 1 and went well. With six more days to go, Sid sat in a hotel lobby flipping the pages of the Variety film magazine which happened to feature Amir Khan. This led to a whole chain of interesting events, which involved sending a fax to Amir Khan’s hotel, and hosting Indian food nights for members of the Oscars Academy — Lagaan had been nominated that year.

Sid bought every book on filmmaking and Hollywood that he could find in the bookstores in LA. Flying back, his books alone weighed 40 kg.

Reading obsessively about the film industry helped him talk his way into starting a script writing venture backed by Manmohan Shetty, and then into the Hotstar job. Now his company Story Ink sells content to channels and production houses. This includes about 200 books including authors like Chitra Banerjee. He’s also won a Filmfare award for his series Trial By Fire, based on a real-life story, the tragedy in Uphaar cinema hall in Delhi. He is also bringing his podcast Bingestan back to life, only this time it will have a video too.

"How do you do it?" ask the students.

“I work all the time, he said. “I do the kind of things you do when you are on holiday, watch TV, read books, and I do it seven days a week. It feels like a holiday.”

In other book news of the week, everyone is talking about Hillbilly Elegy, written by JD Vance, the man Donald Trump has appointed as his running mate. It’s a book that is totally worth a read for the insight it gives us all into Middle America and the Rust Belt.

That’s all for now. Until next week, happy reading!

Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com

The views expressed are personal