Dehradun: Sushil Tyagi, an Indian entrepreneur based in the US, is an IIT-Delhi graduate involved in ocean exploration and conservation who has dabbled in movie production and brewing beer.
But Tyagi’s most notable role these days is that of cheerleader for his mother-in-law, US senator Elizabeth Warren, 70, who is in the running to become the Democrat presidential nominee in the 2020 American election.
Tyagi, the son of a former Uttar Pradesh Police constable, is married to Warren’s daughter Amelia, whom he met while the two were students at the prestigious Wharton School.
Tyagi has expressed support for his mother-in-law on several occasions, and is a contributor to the Warren India Network (WIN), a volunteer-based platform that seeks to promote Warren as the next candidate for the American presidency.
But Tyagi’s role in the high-stakes campaign for one of the most talked-about presidential aspirants is a distant reality for his family back home in Clement Town, Dehradun, where no one discusses politics
Here, Tyagi’s mother Sharmila and his brother Satish, a fashion designer with his own boutique, live quiet lives, away from the noise and bustle of politics.
Satish spends his day catering to clients from all over the world, while Sharmila, whose husband N.K. Tyagi died in 2010, looks after their large, two-storied home on the town’s outskirts.
“We don’t really discuss politics at home, because it’s of no use,” Satish said in an interview with ThePrint.
“We prefer to catch up on each other’s lives when we speak and meet, since all of us live in different places now,” Satish added, referring to Tyagi and their third brother Mukesh, a lawyer practising in the Kerala High Court.
Satish describes Tyagi as a self-made person who worked his way to the US from a small patch of farmland his family inherited in a remote Meerut village.
“He really is a self-made person. He’s very dedicated to anything he puts his mind to — we weren’t as academically-inclined as him growing up,” said Satish, adding, “It’s made him into a good manager, too. He knows how to balance both families and our cultures. He never lets anyone feel abandoned.”
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Humble beginnings
Tyagi was born in a village called Khatoli that falls on the road between Saharanpur and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, which was bifurcated to carve out Uttarakhand in 2000.
“Like most children of smallholder farmers, I grew up taking the cattle to the ponds and sugarcane carts to the crushers,” he told The Week in an interview last month. “Since there was very little farmland, my father joined the UP Police as a constable.”
As a constable, their father N.K. Tyagi was shifted frequently, before the family first settled down in Bareilly in the early 1990s, and later Dehradun.
Because of the transfers, Tyagi frequently moved schools — in all, he studied in 12. Often, to keep his studies from getting disrupted when the transfers took his father to remote places without schools, he was sent to extended family members.
Through the upheaval, however, Tyagi’s dedication to education remained consistent, said Sharmila.
“In those days, the villages were terrible — we had nothing. No electricity, no proper infrastructure,” she added. “He studied and studied through it.”
N.K. Tyagi, according to the family, was a dedicated father and a liberal husband. He never restricted Sharmila’s movements, nor forced his decisions upon his sons. He only lent an encouraging prod, but knew when to retract, they said.
When Tyagi decided to go for engineering, the family was delighted even though they weren’t familiar with his chosen institute, IIT. Tyagi was the first in the family to attend college and a UP Police scholarship eased his way through the course.
“He got a scholarship through UP Police and went on to finish his bachelor’s in engineering. My father always wanted me to be a doctor, but I was interested in design and fashion,” said Satish.
“I confided in Sushil, and he didn’t hesitate to tell me that he would support my decision. He’s the one who told the family on my behalf.”
Satish described his support as a sign of his “progressive” outlook despite coming from “a conservative village”. “A young man’s decision to be a fashion designer was anything but conventional,” he added.
The American dream
Tyagi had never set his eyes on an ocean, but found himself drawn to it.
“I was fascinated by its stochastic nature, and applied to the postgraduate programme in ocean engineering at the University of California (UC) Berkeley,” he told The Week.
“There, I published research and developed software for simulation of large-scale floating offshore structures, which, back then, seemed like a futuristic concept.”
After UC Berkeley, Tyagi got another Master’s, in applied marine physics, from Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, before applying for an MBA at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Getting an MBA in finance and strategy opened up the world to Tyagi — after a stint at the audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, he ventured into cinema and craft beer.
In the early 2000s, Tyagi set up Tricolor Films, an independent film production company. As a producer, Satish said, his brother wanted to make films that showed India beyond its typical western depiction as a poor “third world” country.
One of his earliest works, with director Bharat Bala, was called Taj Mahal and starred Aishwarya Rai. It was filmed through 2001 and 2002, but never released.
The two subsequently collaborated to make Journey Across India, a short musical where Rai played Mumtaz Mahal, in whose honour the Taj Mahal was built. The movie came out in 2007 and holds a 6.3 rating on IMDb.
“These films were about India, but meant for a foreign audience. I always wondered why he went from one thing to the next, and he told me that he wanted to try doing everything that interested him,” said Satish.
In 2017, Tyagi became the president of Craftbev, a beer brewery based in Austin, Texas.
His newest venture, however, brings him back full circle to where he began his career: Engineering to explore the seas. Marine Robotics Berkley, where he serves as president, was set up in collaboration with his alma mater UC Berkeley this year for the purposes of ocean exploration and conservation.
“We are developing innovative, low-cost autonomous swarm robotic solutions that will enable remote navigation and communication in deep waters for research and industry,” he told The Week.
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Life in many places
The first time Sharmila set foot in the United States to visit her son, it was Christmas time over 15 years ago. She had grown up among conservative villagers without speaking a word of English and her first instinct, as she walked out of the airport, was to feel fear.
“Before my husband passed away in 2010, I didn’t mind going [to the US]. It’s a nice place, but being alone could be scary,” she said. “Sushil and Amelia took care of me… Elizabeth would sometimes take me shopping with her. Amelia even bought me jeans.”
The two families fly between the countries to see each other occasionally, and language barriers are overcome with smiles and warmth.
“She’s a good person,” Sharmila said of Warren. “I know she’s a good person… She’s very caring and always tries to make sure we are comfortable,” she added.
Warren’s campaign tilts strictly towards the working class, with her campaign pitch including a wealth tax and cancellation of student debt for most borrowers, as The New York Times wrote in a profile of the former law professor.
Sharmila said she didn’t pay “attention to politics” but was an admirer of Warren. “We could do with more politicians like her,” she added.
Tyagi is the only one in the family who settled abroad and doesn’t seem likely to return to India. His and Amelia’s three children — Lavinia, Octavia, and Atticus — attend school in California, where the family is settled.
Since N.K. Tyagi died, the family travels to the US less often. They’re just happy to watch Tyagi check all the boxes off the American dream.
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