Airtel

Teaming up with the Indian Memory Project, Leela collaborated to come up with a coffee table book about the people and the stories that saw Airtel ushering in the Indian telecom boom. Leela conducted interviews to bring out profiles and anecdotes that made the telecom revolution in an accessible and entertaining format for the regular reader.

How Do You Make Anyone Open Up To A Conversation? What Leela Learned At Airtel

The Airtel Stories saw the Leela team going to the Airtel headquarters in Bangalore and taking extensive interviews with employees about their experiences at Airtel. 

The challenge presented to us was the matter of narrativising incidents that might only be significant to a subject expert to a wider audience. There was also the matter of making reticent speakers open up about their experiences, and to address this we used a variety of techniques; we started our interviews right from the respondent's childhood, hoping to find an entry into their hidden raconteurs.

At some point, everyone emerged a raconteur, whether it was talking about their personal lives or their professional achievements. Ultimately, the stories were meant to be about the lives of these people, their narratives, and Leela’s primary mission was to bring justice to this hidden voice.