from Hacker News

Calcutta girl who fled home & marriage at 17 returns as millionaire US innovator

by rjim86 on 1/28/13, 5:35 AM with 70 comments

  • by btilly on 1/28/13, 7:58 AM

    If the story is true, then I question her ethics.

    As 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/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."

  • by sksk on 1/28/13, 6:53 AM

    This 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+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)

  • by prakashk on 1/28/13, 4:49 PM

    From 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)?

    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), 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.

  • by billpaetzke on 1/28/13, 6:53 AM

    She 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!

  • by bosky101 on 1/28/13, 7:16 AM

    I 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

  • by chris_wot on 1/28/13, 6:10 AM

    Popup ads to be had here. Perhaps an inspiring story, but marred by some unethical practices by the paper itself.

  • by jacquesm on 1/28/13, 11:31 AM

    For an encore, verified real and a lot more impressive imo:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anousheh_Ansari

  • by ycuser on 1/28/13, 10:17 AM

    A true Slumdog millionaire. A shining example of Luck, opportunity and will playing their part. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

  • by jgenius07 on 1/28/13, 9:26 AM

    What 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.

  • by khitchdee on 1/28/13, 6:12 AM

    Calcutta is famous for its musketeering personalities.

  • by solutionhn on 1/28/13, 8:19 AM

    A 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.

  • by spitx on 1/28/13, 11:09 AM

    I wonder what happens to HN on weekends and extended holidays.

    The quality of comments plummets remarkably, approaching pedestrian at times.

  • by suyash on 1/28/13, 6:33 AM

    That is why they call America the Land of Opportunity. If you work hard enough, you dreams will come true here.