New Delhi, June 14 -- In the pre-election world of memes, a journalist and a publisher meeting at Delhi's Khan Market might have sounded like the beginning of a tired joke. Nonetheless, this market, with its collection of independent book stores, is also an entirely apt venue to meet Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO, HarperCollins India-for it is on the shop floor of a book store that his story began. The year was 1992 and 17-year-old Padmanabhan had failed to clear his class XII exams because he hadn't finished his math paper on time. There were a few months to go before he could repeat the paper, and since he had grown up in a family that loved books, an interim job at a book store seemed a perfectly logical choice. Landmark, which had opened five...