I CALL MYSELF A LAWYER WITH A SOUL: NAINA PACHNANDA

Naina Pachnanda recently joined NewsX for an insightful conversation as part of NewsX Influencer A-List. In the exclusive conversation, the lawyer and author opened up about her journey from being a full-time lawyer and a motivational influencer at the same time.

We began the interview by asking Naina about her educational background, to which she replied, “I completed my schooling from Delhi Public School, RK Puram. I then went on to pursue BA LLB (Hons) from the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, wherein I graduated in 2014. I then wanted to pursue a carrier in litigation. In 2014, I joined the chambers of Paramjit Singh Patwalia, who is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India. At that time, he was an additional solicitor general in the Supreme Court of India. I had the good fortune of beginning my law career with him. Thereafter, I joined the litigation team at l&l partners law offices wherein I worked for about 3 years. After litigating for about 5 years, I decided to switch from litigation to policy and regulatory work. In 2019, I joined Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency of India, wherein I drive legal regulatory policy and strategy side of affairs for innovation and technology commercialisation.” She went to say that, “I call myself a lawyer with a soul”.

Speaking about her poetic journey, she exclaimed, “My poetic journey began at the age of 10 when I wrote my first poem on Harry potter. Always been a big fan and still am. Mystically, it got published in the Telegraph kids in Kolkata where I went to school briefly. This gave me a lot of confidence and hence began my journey of poetry. Over the years that I went to law school and practiced litigation lawyer, my creative side took a backseat for some time because of time constraints. In December 2019, there was a calling within me to start an Instagram page to share my poetry based on hope, motivation and very relatable content for our generation because I feel poetry is a very powerful form of expression. I also believe that my words would resonate with many. Apart from sharing my poetry on Instagram, I also have a blog called ‘Lawyer with a poetic soul’ wherein I often share my poetry”.

We expressed our curiosity to hear about the two books that she had written. Naina shared, “In December 2019, when I started my Instagram handle for the sole purpose of sharing my poetry. It was during the lockdown. There were so many challenges so I decided to write about all those challenges very unapologetically in the form of poetry and post them on social media. The reason behind this was that I wanted everyone to feel the spirit of being united. This was the time when the response was very positive and my following started to grow. That is what encouraged me to write both my books. I wrote both my books during the pandemic.”

“I chose a very unique topic for my first book. I work for ‘Make in India’, so I decided to write about the schemes of the government of India such as Make in India, Startup India, Aatmnirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India Mission, etc. in poetic form because again I believe that poetry is something that touches the heart and it is the most impactful medium of self-expression,” she added.

Sharing insights on her second book, Naina revealed, ” ‘Miracles do happen’ was curated and conceived during the pandemic. It is a book of over 200 poems based on life, love, lost, failure, rejection, hope, motivation and so on. The idea behind this book is that life in general is a blur of uncertainty. The last 1.5 years have been particularly uncertain and full of challenges for all of us. The reason behind writing this book is to spread positivity and hope during these unprecedented times.”