I was in Dehradun for a family wedding. It was time to renew old relationships and see familiar faces. Somewhere between the rituals and conversations, three authors featured in Pahaadi, the short story contest for writers with roots in Uttarakhand, added an unexpected dimension to the visit. Curated for the past seven years, Pahaadi has published seven books featuring 92 stories by 50 authors. What followed was an unexpected lesson in personal branding.
I was introduced as Sanjeev Kotnala, Pustak waale, or Kitab waale. Not the marketing consultant based in Mumbai, not the former corporate marketing professional, and certainly not through the more conventional Uttarakhand introduction that establishes who your parents are, whose son you happen to be, or which family you belong to. Here, I was the man associated with books- Pahaadi.
The first time, I was a bit taken aback. Not unpleasant, just unexpected. After decades in advertising, marketing, and brand consulting, one expects professional credentials to come first. Yet in these encounters, Pahaadi seemed to arrive before my professional identity.
There was no reason to fight it, and certainly no reason to dread it. If anything, the association helps Pahaadi. But the marketer in me could not resist examining what had happened.
Perhaps this was precisely how the target audience was expected to respond.
Personal branding is not simply what you say about yourself, the designations you accumulate, the achievements you list on LinkedIn, or the carefully crafted elevator pitch you rehearse. It is also about what people remember when you are not in the room, and the words they instinctively use when introducing you to someone else.
In Uttarakhand, Pahaadi was more salient, relatable and relevant to the people I encountered. It connected with their geography, memories, relationships and stories. A marketing career spanning several decades might command professional respect, but a literary initiative that gives people an opportunity to tell their stories offers something more immediate to identify with and talk about.
Relevance creates recall; recall creates recognition. And when others repeat that recognition, a personal brand becomes a question of relevance and recall.
The lesson is not to abandon the identity you have built, but to recognise that people will often choose the part that matters most to them. Your intended positioning and your actual positioning need not match, and sometimes they aren’t even similar. The latter is shaped by the experiences people associate with you, the value they receive and the stories they can tell about you.
OSHO often spoke of awareness: the ability to see what is, without the interference of what one expects or wishes to see. Personal branding could benefit from a similar understanding. Instead of obsessing over the identity we want to project, perhaps we should listen more carefully to the identity others have actually created.
Dehradun offered an unexpected brand audit. Seven editions of Pahaadi had created an association that was apparently more immediate to these people than decades of professional experience.
The initiative had become a shorthand for who I was, at least in this context. No carefully designed positioning statement backed it; just sustained work around an idea that people found relevant and worth remembering.
The real test of personal branding is not what you call yourself, but what others call you when you are not there to explain yourself.
You can control your introduction, polish your profile and curate your achievements, but you cannot dictate what stays in another person’s mind. You must earn that space through relevance, consistency, and meaning.
Sometimes, at a family wedding in Dehradun, the most valuable professional feedback came in two simple words: Pustak waale. Perhaps the books have been doing their work rather well.
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If you have roots in Uttarakhand and a short story waiting to be told, or know someone who should be telling one, Pahaadi invites you to turn those memories, experiences, and imagined worlds into stories worth sharing. Register for the eighth edition of the Pahaadi Short Story Contest at sanjeevkotnala.com/Pahaadi-8/.
BLOG/074/2026/681/1236 Connect with Sanjeev Kotnala on Twitter @S_kotnala or LinkedIn @sanjeevkotnala
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