A Srivathsan is an architect and urban designer. He is the Academic Director of CEPT University, Ahmedabad, which focuses on designing and managing human habitats. Srivathsan was a Senior Deputy Editor with The Hindu for eight years before shifting to CEPT University. He holds a doctoral degree from IIT Madras and is a recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship. His areas of research and writing include urban planning and policies, and architectural criticism.
A.R. VENKATACHALAPATHY, Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, has taught at universities in Tirunelveli, Chennai, Singapore and Chicago. Apart from the V.K.R.V. Rao Prize (History, 2007), he has received the Vilakku Pudumaippithan Award (2018) and Iyal Virudhu (2021), both for lifetime contribution to Tamil. He has published widely on the social, cultural and intellectual history of colonial Tamil Nadu. Apart from his scholarly writings in English, he has written/edited over 30 books in Tamil. His publications in English include The Brief History of a Very Big Book: The Making of the Tamil Encyclopaedia, Tamil Characters: Personalities, Politics, Culture; Who Owns That Song?: The Battle for Subramania Bharati’s Copyright; The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu; In Those Days There Was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History. Presently he is working on biographies of Periyar and V.O. Chidambaram Pillai.
VERGHESE, ABRAHAM is Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and an advocate for bedside medicine and physical diagnosis in an era of increasingly sophisticated medical technology. His first novel, Cutting for Stone, was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. His first book, My Own Country, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and The Tennis Partner, was a national bestseller. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He studied medicine at the University of Madras, completed his Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2011.
Amandeep Sandhu hails from Odisha and is the author of two novels: Sepia Leaves (2008 Rupa) and Roll of Honour (2012, Rupa). His non-fiction work, Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines (Westland/Amazon, 2019) is part-reportage, part-memoir, part-contextual history. The book was long-listed for the NIF-Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Award 2020 and short-listed for the Atta Galatta-BLF Non-Fiction Prize 2020. His essays and short stories have appeared in various anthologies, magazines and websites. Amandeep was a Fellow, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (2013 to 2015) and is currently a Homi Bhabha Fellow (2022-24) working on a book tentatively titled The Outliers: Sikhs Who Live Outside Panjab, In India. He lives in Bengaluru and writes for Caravan, Scroll, The Hindu and The Hindu BussinessLine.
Chaudhuri Amit is a writer and musician. His first novel, A Strange and Sublime Address, is included in Toibin and Callil’s Two Hundred Best Novels of the Last Fifty Years. His last, The Immortals, was a New Yorker, Boston Globe, and San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. He is the winner of several awards, including the Commonwealth Literature Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award. He was the first recipient of the Infosys Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the Humanities in Literary Studies. He is currently Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia, and is editor of the Picador/ Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. As a musician, he has performed on most flagship cultural programmes on UK radio and television. His latest books include Calcutta: Two Years in the City (non-fiction) and Telling Tales (a collection of essays).
ANAR (ISSATH REHANA AZEEM) has been writing poetry in Tamil since the 1990s. Her works include Oviem Varaiyathe Thurikai, Enakkuk Kavithai Mukam, Perunkadal Podukiren, Utal Paccai Vaanam and Potupotuththa Mazhaiththooththal (a collection of Tamil folk songs from Sri Lanka). Several of her poems have been translated into English and have appeared in journals that include Beyond borders – the SAARC journal (2008), Talisman - a journal of contemporary poetry and poetics (2010) and Tamil woman’s poetry: A current of contemporary voices (2009, Sahitya Akademi). Her books have won several awards, most notably the Government of Sri Lanka’s National Literature Award , the Tamil Literary Garden’s (Canada) Poetry Award and the Vijay TV Excellence in the Field of Literature (Sigaram Thotta Pengal) Award. Anar writes regularly on her blog, anarsrilanka.blogspot.com. She lives with her husband and son in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka at Sainthamaruthu.
Salim, Anees Born in southern Kerala, Anees Salim works and leads a reclusive life in Kochi. He left his studies at 16 to become an author and spent his adolescent days travelling across India, seeing places and meeting people. After chasing publishers in vain for decades, his life changed when three of his manuscripts were picked up by major publishers in the same month. He has written four novels and he is currently writing his fifth. His published works include The Vicks Mango Tree (HarperCollins), Vanity Bagh (Picador) and Tales from a Vending Machine (HarperCollins). His fourth novel, The Blind Lady’s Descendants (Tranquebar) will be published in 2014. Advertising is the only profession Anees would choose and he currently heads the creative department of DRAFT FCB ULKA, Kochi where he started his career as a trainee copywriter.
NAIR, ANITA is a novelist, though in the past she has been a journalist and an advertising executive. Her works include The Better Man and Lessons in Forgetting. The movie adaptation of Lessons… was a part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2012 and won the National Award in 2013. She has a collection of poems (Malabar Mind), and essays (Goodnight & God Bless) to her credit. In 2006, she one of India Today’s 30 Power Women in India, and has won many awards for her contribution to the field of literature, including the JFW Award for Literary Excellence (2010), the Kerala Sahitya Akademi (2012) and the Arch of Excellence Award (2012) by the All India Achievers’ Conference, New Delhi, for Literature. For her contribution to Children’s Literature, she was presented the Central Sahitya Akademi award. Her most recent novel is Idris – Keeper of the Light.
ANITA RATNAM is a celebrated performer of dance and theatre. As choreographer, writer, speaker and mentor her impact on the Indian performing arts has been recognised with awards and honours. As a culture catalyst, Anita’s work traverses a wide range — academia, youth outreach, motivational speaking and digital creation.
KAPUR, ANURADHA recently completed her term as Director at the National School of Drama, New Delhi. She is the author of Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: the Ramlila at Ramnagar. Most of her directorial work has been in collaboration with visual and video artists and filmmakers, including Arpita Singh, Bhupen Khakhar, Ein Lall, Madhusree Dutta, Nalini Malani, Nilima Sheikh, Sumant Jayakrishnan, and Vivan Sundaram. She is one of the founder members of Vivadi, a working group of painters, musicians, writers and theatre practitioners, formed in 1989. Her theatre work has traveled among other countries, to Germany, Japan, Brazil, UK, and Korea. In 2003 she was invited to curate the performance window actors at work at body.city, an event siting contemporary Indian culture at the House of World Cultures, Berlin. In 2004 she was awarded the Sangeet Natak Award for Direction in the Theatre.
ADIGA, ARAVIND was born in Madras in 1974. At the age of six, he moved with his family to Mangalore. He was educated at Columbia and Oxford Universities. His first novel, The White Tiger, won the Man Booker Prize for literature in 2008. His second novel, Last Man in Tower, was published in 2011. He has also written a collection of short stories, Between the Assassinations.
Subramaniam, Arundhathi is a poet and writer who has worked as curator, critic and poetry editor. As poet, she is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Where I Live: New and Selected Poems. As editor, her books include Another Country: An Anthology of Post-Independence Indian Poetry in English; an anthology on sacred journeys, Pilgrim’s India; and a co-edited anthology on contemporary love poems, Confronting Love. As prose writer, her books include the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than A Life and The Book of Buddha. She is the recipient of the Raza Award for Poetry, the Homi Bhabha fellowship, the Charles Wallace Fellowship and the Visiting Arts Fellowship. She has been Editor of the India domain of the Poetry international Web for several years, as well as Head of Chauraha (an interactive arts forum) and Indian Dance at the NCPA, Bombay.
SANGHI, ASHWIN is the author of historical thrillers, The Rozabal Line, The Krishna Key and Chanakya’s Chant (for which he won the Crossword Popular Choice award, and for which UTV-Disney bought the movie rights). The Krishna Key shot to #1 on the A.C. Nielsen all-India fiction rankings within the first week of its release. In 2013, Ashwin was among Forbes India’s Celebrity India 100 Rankings. Recently, he signed on to co-author an India-based thriller with James Patterson, out later this year. Aside from being a bestselling writer, Ashwin also works at the MK Sanghi Group. He was educated in Cathedral & John Connon School and St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai and Yale University. He blogs regularly at http://www.sanghi.in, and enjoys interacting with readers on Twitter (@ashwinsanghi) and Facebook ( www.facebook.com/shawnhaigins).
DUTT, BARKHA is Group Editor with NDTV, India’s premiere news and current affairs network. She first emerged as a household name with her frontline war reporting on the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999, and has since reported from several conflict zones across the world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq . She has won over forty national and international awards, including the Global Leader for Tomorrow award from the World Economic Forum, the Commonwealth Broadcasters’ award for ‘Journalist of the Year’, the Asian Television Award for ‘Best Talk Show’ and the NT Award for ‘Best TV News Anchor’. She is the youngest journalist to receive the Padma Shri. She is also the first Meera and Vikram Gandhi Fellow at Brown University. Barkha hosts the weekly award-winning talk-show, We the People and the daily prime time show, The Buck Stops Here. She is active on Twitter (@bdutt), with over a million followers.
THUBRON, COLIN is a well-known travel writer and novelist. His first books were about the Middle East — Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey recorded in Among the Russians. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books into the landmass that makes up Russia and Asia: Behind the Wall: a journey through China, The Lost Heart of Asia, in Siberia, Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet. He has won many prizes and awards. He is also a distinguished novelist, whose A Cruel Madness won the 1985 Silver Pen Award. In 2010 he became President of the Royal Society of Literature.
DAVID DAVIDAR is a writer, anthologist, and publisher. Aleph Book Company, the literary publishing firm he co-founded with Rupa Publications India, won the Publisher of the Year in 2020 and 2022. His latest book, A Case of Indian Marvels, published in 2022, is an anthology that features the best Indian writers belonging to two cohorts: the millennial generation and Gen Z.
GODWIN, DAVID was a publisher for many years, working at Heinemann, Seckers and then Cape and then created his success by personally securing writers such as Graham Swift and Ben Okri. In 1995, he decided he didn’t fit in the new cooperate feel of publishing and became a literary agent instead, beginning David Godwin Associates alongside his wife Heather. Seventeen years later the agency is based in Covent Garden, and despite only having five members of staff, it is one of London’s leading agencies with a diverse and impressive set of writers. From Booker Prize Winners Aravind Adiga, Arundhati Roy, to well-known biographers Richard Holmes and Claire Tomalin and poets such as Simon Armitage and Michael Symmons Roberts. Additionally, David’s career progressed in an unexpected direction in 2011, when tried his hand at writing and had his own book Breaking Eighty published. It’s a short memoir about his life and golf.
KIRE, EASTERINE is a poet, novelist, and writer of children’s books. She also writes short stories and some of her short stories are translated to German. Her first novel, A Naga Village Remembered (Ura Academy 2003) was also the first Naga novel in English to be published. She has a Ph.D in English literature from the University of Pune. In 2011 she was awarded the governor’s medal for excellence in Naga literature. Her poetry and books have been translated to German, Croatian, Uzbek, Norwegian and Nepali. She is currently based in Northern Norway where she concentrates on her writing, and performs jazz poetry with her band, Jazzpoesi.
After gazing at the Himalaya for 21 years from his village near the Shivalik foothills, Gaurav Punj figured what to do in the mountains once he started hiking in the Yosemite national park while studying at University of California, Berkeley. He completed his Masters in Engineering (Operations Research), worked for about 4 years in the big bad corporate world and after his leave count dipped to negative 50, quit and started his venture, Connect with Himalaya, in 2008. It’s as good an excuse he could find for traveling to new and unexplored places in the Indian Himalaya, meet and work with genuine local organizations and do his bit to spread the word.
DOCTOR, GEETA is a journalist and writer. She is also a noted reviewer of literature. She has written extensively on art and architecture; on food and travel; as well as children’s stories. She describes herself as a journalist whose commentaries on life, literature and society have always sought to be incisive and insightful. She received the Angarag lifetime achievement award 2008 for her contribution to journalism. She published a volume of poems in 2013 entitled “What We Leave Behind.” Geeta lives in Chennai.
GOPALKRISHNA GANDHI is Distinguished Professor of History at Ashoka University, Sonepat, Haryana. His working career has been in public administration, diplomacy, and the exercise of constitutional responsibility. His published works include Refuge, a novel; Dara Shukoh, a play in English verse; The Oxford India Gandhi (ed.); The Tirukkural, a rendering in contemporary English verse of G.U. Pope’s translation of the Tamil classic; Abolishing the Death Penalty; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Restless as Mercury (ed.); I am an Ordinary Man: Gandhi (1914-1948) (ed.). He has also translated Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy into Hindustani.
A man of many facets – Poet, Filmmaker, Lyricist, Writer - Gulzar was born in Deena, Jhelum, now in Pakistan. When he arrived in Bombay, The Poet and Filmmaker in him flourished simultaneously. He was closely associated with the Progressive Writers Movement. His creative repertoire now includes Plays, Ballets, Music Albums and Serials. Along with the respect and adulation of his audience and readers, he has also been the recipient of prestigious National Award seven times and of the Filmfare Awards 21 times. He is also well–known for his books for children. His works have been translated in to many languages. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for the best Urdu Writer in 2002 and was conferred Padma Bhushan in 2004. He has also won an Oscar (Academy Award) for Best Original Song, ‘Jai Ho’ (Slumdog Millionaire). He is presently the chancellor of Assam University. His creative endeavour still goes on!
TRIVEDI, IRA is the best-selling author of What Would You Do To Save the World?, The Great Indian Love Story, and There is No Love on Wall Street. Her books have been translated into several languages including Hindi, Marathi, and Greek. Her writing is based on real-life experiences, ranging from the Miss India beauty pageant to investment banking. Ira received a B.A from Wellesley College and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She writes extensively in both English and Hindi, and contributes regularly to various national and international publications. Her latest book, India in Love: Sex, Marriage and Intimacy in Our Cities, is a ground-breaking book on the sexual revolution that is brewing in urban India in the 21st century and is based on extensive research and on the ground reportage, involving travel to 15 cities and over 400 interviews.
CRACE, JIM has written eleven novels. They have been twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and have won two Whitbread Awards. Among his other honours are the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. His novels have been translated into 28 languages. His latest published book is Harvest (Picador). Jim Crace lives near Birmingham in the English Mildands.
Joseph, Manu is a journalist, novelist and editor of OPEN magazine. He is also a columnist for The International New York Times. His second novel, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, has been shortlisted for The Hindu Prize for Best Fiction 2013. The book is about a man named Ousep Chacko who investigates the unexplained actions of his teenage son Unni, a talented cartoonist. Joseph brings to this premise his trademark gift for humorous observation, creating a multi-layered story about how the mind works, the difference between “madness” and “normalcy”, and the aspirations of young people in 1980s Madras. His debut novel, Serious Men, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and won the 2010 The Hindu Literary Prize.
K. Hariharan is a Director at LV Prasad Film & TV Academy and also heads the department of Direction at the institute. The National Award-winning Tamil film Ezhavathu Manidhan, earned him international acclaim featuring in Moscow and other film festivals. Hariharan has also made many documentaries on subjects like travel, education and social movements. He is a visiting faculty at the University of Pennsylvania since 1995, and a guest faculty at the Miami University in Oxford, Film & TV Institute, Pune, and the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
SATCHIDANANDAN K. is perhaps the most translated of contemporary Indian poets , having 23 collections of translation in 19 languages. He writes poetry in Malayalam and prose in Malayalam and English. His book While I Write: New and Selected Poems (Harper Collins) came out in 2011. He has lectured and read his poetry across the world. He was a professor of English, and later the chief executive of the Indian National Academy of Literature (Sahitya Akademi) and the Director of the School of Translation Studies, IGNOU, Delhi. He has won 27 literary awards including the Sahitya Akademi, Kerala Sahitya Akademi award (five times), Kusumagraj National Award, NTR National award, Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award, Knighthood of the Order of Merit from the Government of Italy and India-Poland Friendship Medal from the Government of Poland.
Arumugam, K.R is a writer and a Visiting Professor in the Sacred Heart Seminary, where he teaches Saiva Siddhanta and Tamil Siddha Literature. Previously, he was teaching at the University of Madras and the Government College of Architecture and Sculpture, where he taught Indian Philosophy, Saiva Siddhanta and Indian Aesthetics. He has authored three books in Tamil namely, Thirumoolar-Kaalaththin Kural, Naamaarkkum Kudiyalloam and Natta Kallai-th Theivamenru, and co-authored a book in English, The Yoga of Siddha Tirumular: Essays on the Tirumandiram. In the past, he contributed editorials to the Tamil literary magazine Tamizhini. Arumugam holds Post-graduate degrees in Philosophy and Tamil Literature, a Doctorate in Philosophy and a Bachelor’s degree in Law. He is currently the Head of the Research Department in the New Generation Media Corporation Private Limited, Chennai.
Haasan, Kamal is one of the foremost film personalities in the country today. An actor, director, screenwriter, lyricist, singer and choreographer, he is a Padma Shri awardee and has four National Awards to his credit. He is also the recipient of the Kalaimamani Award by the Government of Tamil Nadu as well as numerous Vijay, Filmfare and Tamil Nadu State Film awards. He began his career as a child actor in 1959, and has since acted in over 200 movies in major languages across India, in a celebrated career spanning over five decades. His most notable films include Apoorva Ragangal, 16 Vayadhinile, Moondram Pirai, Nayagan, Chachi 420, Indian, Thevar Magan, Panchathanthiram, Dasavadhaaram (where he played ten different roles) and Vishwaroopam. Kamal Haasan was presented an honorary doctorate by Sathyabhama University. He is currently flming Vishwaroopam 2 under his production banner, Raaj Kamal Films International.
Kavery Nambisan is a surgeon and a novelist. Her career in medicine has been a strong influence in her fiction. Currently, she works at a medical centre for construction workers and a learning centre for their children, in Maharashtra. Kavery Nambisan began by writing under her maiden name Kavery Bhatt for children’s magazines. She wrote stories for the now defunct children’s magazine Target. Under the name of Kavery Bhatt she has also published a novel, The Truth about Bharat, Almost. Her other works are The Scent of Pepper, Mango-Coloured Fish, On Wings of Butterflies, The Hills of Angheri. The Story That Must Not Be Told was shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize in 2008.
Her first novel, Witness the Night, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2010. It was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Award and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, amongst many other awards. Her third novel, The Sea of Innocence has just been published in India and UK and will shortly release in Australia. Origins of Love, her second novel, was published to critical acclaim in UK, India and Australia in 2012. Her first book, Darling ji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt, was published in 2007. She is an author and columnist who previously worked in television.
SHAHANI, KUMAR is an award-winning filmmaker. After studying in Mumbai, Pune and finally Paris, Kumar returned to India to make his first film, Maya Darpan, in 1972. Today, it is considered as India’s first formalist film. Since then, he has produced many critically acclaimed feature-length and short films, including Tarang, Khayal Gatha, Kasba, Bhavantarana, Char Adhyaya, Bamboo Flute and As The Crow Flies. He is a three-time winner of the Filmfare Best Film (Critics’ Choice) Award, and received a Homi Baba fellowship that allowed him to research various subjects, including the Mahabharata, Buddhist iconography and the Bhakti movement. His writings can be found in the journal Framework.
BANERJEE, MADHURI is a bestselling author of three books in three years - Losing My Virginity And Other Dumb Ideas, Mistakes Like Love And Sex and My Yummy Mummy Guide with Karisma Kapoor. She is also a blogger with CNN-IBN, a Bollywood Screenplay Writer, an Ad film Director, a Columnist with Asian Age and a Mother. She has her own production house-Gray Matter Solution that makes ad films. She has won a National Award for her documentary on women’s issues called “Between Dualities.” She Tweets with the handle @Madhuribanerjee and has over 12,000 followers who love her relationship advice. Her personal blog, www.madhuribanerjee.blogspot.in, has over 3 lakh views already. She is a world traveler, an avid reader, a coffee addict, and a chocoholic. Her next book Advantage Love, a sweet Mills and Boons romance will be released during Valentine’s Day.
DAI, MAMANG is a poet and novelist writing in English. She was correspondent The Hindustan Times, The Telegraph and The Sentinel newspapers and President, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists. She also worked with World Wide Fund for nature in the Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspots programme. In 2003, Mamang received the state Verrier Elwin Award for her book Arunachal Pradesh- the Hidden Land, featuring the culture, folklore and customs of Arunachal’s different communities. She has featured in several national and international forums, and her poems, fiction and articles have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. In 2011, she was awarded the Padma Shri, in recognition of her contribution to the field of literature and education. Currently she is a Member of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission. Mamang lives in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.
BAJAJ, MANJUL grew up in Lucknow. She graduated in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and did a Masters in Rural Management from IRMA at Anand and another in Environmental Science from the University of London. For much of her adult life she has worked in the field of rural development and the environment. She currently lives in Gurgaon with her husband and two sons. She is the author of Come, Before Evening Falls, a novel; Another Man’s Wife, a collection of short fiction; and Elbie’s Quest, the first book in a series for children.
N. RAM, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu and other Group publications, is a political journalist with literary interests. A former Chairman and a former Publisher of The Hindu Publishing Group, he is currently a Director in the Group. Ram has written on a range of socio-political subjects, including media freedom and responsibility, and specialised in investigative journalism. His areas of special journalistic interest include Indian politics; aspects of India’s foreign policy and nuclear policy; external pressures on India’s economic and political sovereignty; issues of corruption and abuse of power; the challenge of communalism and fundamentalism in India; the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis, the Tamil question, and India’s interaction with it; India-China relations; freedom of expression issues; and the role of media in society. He is a co-biographer, with Susan Ram, of the writer, R.K. Narayan. He was elected president of the Contemporary India Section of the 72nd session of the Indian History Congress (2011). Honours and awards include the Padma Bhushan (for journalism), 1990; the Sri Lanka Ratna (2005); the Asian Investigative Journalist of the Year Award from the Press Foundation of Asia (1990); the B.D. Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism (1989); XLRI’s first JRD Tata Award for Business Ethics (2002); the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism’s Alumni Award (2003); and the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Award for contributions to journalism from the Press Council of India (2018).
NANDINI KRISHNAN is the author of Hitched: The Modern Indian Woman and Arranged Marriage and Invisible Men: Inside India’s Transmasculine Networks. She is also the award-winning translator of Perumal Murugan’s Estuary and Four Strokes of Luck and Other Stories. Her translation of Kalki’s magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan is being released in 10 parts. She has translated Charu Nivedita’s Conversations with Aurangzeb: A Novel. Nandini’s novel-in-manuscript won the Writers of the World Festival prize, 2014. Her translation of Sajjad Haider Yaldram’s Save Me from My Friends was shortlisted for the Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation 2022. Nandini lives with dozens of animals, thousands of books, and a varying number of humans in Madras.
WOLF, NAOMI is an author, social critic, and political activist. Her landmark international bestseller, The Beauty Myth, challenged the cosmetics industry and the marketing of unrealistic standards of beauty, launching a new wave of feminism in the early 1990s. Her latest book, Vagina: A New Biography, was an iTunes bestseller as an audiobook. Naomi is a regular columnist for The Guardian US and Project Syndicate, and a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post , The Washington Post and Harper’s Bazaar. A graduate of Yale and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Naomi is a co-founder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, which teaches leadership to young women, and The American Freedom Campaign, a grassroots democracy movement in the United States. With a team of collaborators, she launched the website, Daily Cloudt, designed to help people build political clout and increase their activism.
FERNANDES, NARESH lives in Bombay and works with Scroll.in, a digital publisher. City Adrift is his second book. He writes about urban policy, music, migration and anything else that catches his fancy.
MANSINGH, NEELAM directs and performs theatre. Her most recent directorial work was License – The Untitled Saga. A Padma Shri and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee, she has participated in numerous international theatre festivals in the UK, USA, Australia, Japan, Pakistan and Singapore. She has also directed Ariel Dorfman’s Nachiketa Liberetto with the Opera Circus in London. Neelam has been teaching in the Department of Indian Theatre in Panjab University since 1990 and has also been the Department’s Chairperson. She has completed teaching residencies at the University of California in Los Angeles and the University of North Carolina. She was a member of the Academic Council at the National School of Drama, Delhi, and has previously served as the Chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademi in Chandigarh. She writes regularly about theatre and does book reviews for various publications.
Nikhila Kesavan has been working as an actor and director in English theatre for over two decades. As a director, she is known for her original stage adaptations of Jhumpa Lahiri’s A Temporary Matter, Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, Shandana Minhas’s Tunnel Vision, and two novels of Manu Joseph — Serious Men and Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous (the play was called Laila and Jamal). She adapted seven stories of R. Chudamani into a play titled Chudamani. Most recently, she adapted and directed Dear Omana: Notes on how to be a Literary Sensation, a play by Krishna Shastri Devulapalli. Two of her plays — Five Point Someone and Laila and Jamal — have been featured at The Hindu Theatre Fest.
Lakshman, Nirmala is a journalist and Director of The Hindu group of publications. She was Joint Editor of The Hindu and has held senior editorial positions at the newspaper for more than three decades. Nirmala founded and edited The Hindu Literary Review, and conceptualized and created Young World, India’s only children’s newspaper supplement. She launched and curated The Hindu’s literary festival, Lit for Life, and initiated the annual Prize for Best Fiction from The Hindu. Nirmala has a PhD in postmodern fiction from Madras University and a master’s degree in English from the United States. She is the author of Degree Coffee By The Yard and editor of an anthology of contemporary Indian journalism, Writing a Nation.
RAMAKRISHNA, P.C is a Theatre Actor and Communications Professional. He has been associated with The Madras Players, the oldest English Theatre Group in India, as an actor and administrator. He served as its president for two decades, and has acted in more than 100 of its theatrical productions since 1969. He has been instrumental in shifting the focus of English theatre in the South to Indian writing in original English or in translation/adaptation. He recently directed the much acclaimed production, Water, in translation from Komal Swaminathan’s Thanneer Thanneer. Ramakrishna is a professional voice-over artiste, who has lent his voice to documentaries, corporate films, children’s talking books, heritage films etc. He is one of the most recorded English Language voices in India today.
BARTHOLOMEW, PABLO is a self-taught photographer based in New Delhi. As a photojournalist, he documented societies in conflict and transition for over 20 years. His work has been featured in publications like New York Times, Time, Life, Newsweek, Business Week, National Geographic, Geo, Der Spiegel, Figaro Magazine, Paris Match, Telegraph, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Observer Magazine. His first solo exhibitions at Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi (1979) and Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay (1980) featured work that captured the marginal, fringe worlds in which he lived. Since then, he has exhibited at galleries and photo festivals worldwide, including Delhi, Mumbai, New York, London, Berlin, Shanghai and Paris. He is a three-time World Press Photo Award winner (including the 1984 “Picture of the Year” for his iconic image of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy) and a recipient of the Padma Shri.
Srinivasan, Pankaja has been a journalist for more thsn 25 years. She has been with The Hindu for eight years and is currently Senior assistant editor heading the MetroPlus edition in Coimbatore. She has travelled the length and breadth of the country accompanying her husband who was a helicopter pilot in the Indian Air Force, and lived with him and two infants at Leh for two years. She enjoys travelling and writing about her travels.
Nayar, Parvathi is a contemporary visual artist based in Chennai – who works with hand-drawn graphite on wood, paint, video and sculpture. Parvathi received her Masters in Fine Art from Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London, on a Chevening scholarship. She has exhibited widely in India and abroad, and her works collected by institutions such as the Singapore Art Museum. Parvathi is also a writer, poet and commentator on aspects of creative disciplines that include film, literature and modern dance. Her upcoming solo in Chennai (Feb2014) is titled The Ambiguity of Landscapes.
ZACHARIA, PAUL is a Malayalam fiction writer and columnist.He is known for taking a non-conformist stance in political commentary and for his humour and the use of unconventional themes in his works of fiction. The author of over forty books, he has received the central and state Sahitya Akademi awards, among others. His works have been translated into several Indian and international languages. He lives in Thiruvananthapuram.
VARMA, PAVAN K. Writer-diplomat, has served the Indian Government in various roles, including as Press Secretary to the President of India, Joint Secretary for Africa, Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi and Indian Ambassador to Bhutan. He has now joined as Advisor (Culture) to Shri Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar, with the rank of Cabinet Minister. A writer of depth and insight, he has written over a dozen books including the highly successful Krishna: The Playful Divine Ghalib: The Man, The Times, Being Indian: The Truth About Why the 21st Century Will Be India’s, When Loss is Gain (a work of fiction) and Neglected Poems (a translation of Gulzar’s poems). His latest book is Chanakya’s New Manifesto: To Resolve the Crisis within India, releasing this month. Currently, he is working on a third volume of translation of Gulzar’s poems entitled Green Poems.
TIWARI, PAYAL GIDWANI gave up her interior designer job around nine years ago, when a spiritual calling made her turn to the holistic discipline of yoga. Soon, she became one of the foremost yoga experts in Mumbai. Today, her studio in Mumbai called “Cosmic Fusion the Yoga Wellness Studio”, run by her and husband Manish Tiwari, catering to an elaborate list of A-lister celebrities from all walks of life. Payal was appointed the Fitness Expert for Pond’s Femina Miss India 2013 to train and guide the finalists in achieving the perfect body with the help of yoga and distinguished fitness regimes. Apart from being a renowned yoga expert, Payal has also penned a bestselling book on fitness, From XL to XS, which aims at sharing her knowledge of yoga and motivating people to follow the 5000 year old science.
JHA, PIYUSH is an acclaimed film director, ad filmmaker and the author of the bestselling novels, Mumbaistan and Compass Box Killer. A student political leader at university, he pursued a career in advertising management. Later, he switched tracks, first to make commercials for some of the country’s largest brands, and then to write and direct feature films. While his novels explore the gritty, noir landscape of crime-fiction in Mumbai, Piyush’s films Chalo America, King of Bollywood and Sikandar are noted for the unconventionality of their subject matter and for their relevance to contemporary society. Piyush lives in his beloved Mumbai, where he can often be found walking the streets that inspire his stories.
Rohini R. started her career as a child artist at the age five. Since then, she has acted in over 230 South Indian films. She has worked with eminent directors like Kamal Haasan, K.Bhagya Raj, Balu Mahendra, Bharathan and Singeetham Srinivasa Rao. For her performance in the Telugu film Stree, she received the National Award ‘special mention’ for best actress and the Andhra Pradesh Nandi Award. She received the “Kalimamani” from Tamil Nadu Government in 2010. Rohini has directed seven short films, three commercials and a documentary on child actors, Silent Hues, under her production house, Raadhaswamy Enterprises. She has also hosted live talk shows for Star Vijay and has been writing scripts for TV series since 1996. She adapted the award-winning book Verukku Neer for a telefilm. She is active in Tamil theatre as performer. Currently, she is directing her first feature film in Tamil, Appaavin Meesai, produced by Cheran.
THOMAS, RADHA was born in Tamil Nadu, grew up in Mumbai and Delhi and then left for the USA to pursue her dream of becoming a jazz singer. She returned to India after about twenty years and found work in a publishing company, writing a column called ‘Between the Sexes’, a look at the odd way in which men and women see each other. She used to host a weekly jazz show on Radio Indigo in Bangalore, called, ‘Indigo and Blues.’ Radha is also a trained Dhrupad singer and currently works for Explocity.com as Executive Vice President. Her band UNK: The Radha Thomas Ensemble, has performed all over the country. Her first album as band leader is I Only Have Eyes For You. Men On My Mind (Rupa) is her first novel in a series of three. “Men, now that’s an endless topic, isn’t it?” she asks.
PANDITA, RAHUL is the author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots, a memoir on how the Hindu minority in the state of Kashmir became victims of a brutal ethnic cleansing at the hands of Islamist militants in 1990. He has also authored Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India’s Maoist Movement, and co-authored The Absent State. He has extensively reported from war zones, including Iraq and Sri Lanka, though his most recent focus has been on India’s Maoist rebellion, in Central and East India. In 2009, he was given a rare access by the Maoists to interview their supreme commander Ganapathi He received the 2010 International Red Cross award for conflict reporting. Rahul was born in Kashmir valley. At the age of 14, his family was forced into exile, like thousands of others, by Islamic extremists. Rahul currently works as Associate Editor with Open Magazine.
RANVIR SHAH is a businessman, philanthropist, and cultural activist. He is the founder of The Prakriti Foundation. For over a decade, the Foundation has provided a sturdy platform for scholars, researchers, artists, critics, poets and filmmakers to exchange ideas and to promote a serious discussion of their work and of our cultural heritage. Ranvir’s interest in the arts also led him to direct several plays, with his debut being a dramatisation of classical Tamil poems. He has been part of the Chennai Citizens’ Run since its inception, and assists in promoting awareness about small non-governmental organisations that deserve recognition.
SUBRAMANIAN, RAVI is the author of five bestselling fiction including the latest, Bankerupt. An alumnus of IIM Bangalore, he has spent two decades working his way up the ladder of power in the amazingly exciting and adrenaline-pumping world of global banks in India. It is but natural that his stories are set against the backdrop of the financial services industry. He lives in Mumbai with his wife, Dharini, and daughter, Anusha. In 2008, his debut novel, If God Was a Banker, won the Golden Quill Readers’ Choice Award. The Incredible Banker won him the Economist Crossword Book Award in 2012. To know more about Ravi visit www.ravisubramanian.in or email him at info@ravisubramanian.in. To connect with him, log on to Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorravisubramanian or tweet to @subramanianravi.
KUMAR, REVATHY is a Company Secretary by profession, working for Cognizant technology solutions as Senior Legal counsel. Revathy is a trained carnatic vocalist (student of late Sangeetha Kala Acharya Smt. Sulochana Pattabhiraman and presently Sri P. Vasanth Kumar) and a bharathanatyam dancer (student of Padmasri Guru Kum. Shobana), and started performing concerts at the age of 11. Recipient of the “Yuva Kala Bharathi” from the Bharat Kala Char in 2011 for all rounder in Vocal, Bharathanatyam and Nattuvangam, winner of the Spirit of youth “best female vocalist” award from the music academy in 2008, best dancer award from the VDS arts academy in 2003 etc., Revathy was featured in the Score magazine as the “Artiste of the month” during February 2012. She has performed across India and the globe accompanying her guru in dance, music and nattuvangam. She is a B-High artiste with All India Radio.
THAPAR, ROMILA is Professor Emeritus of History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. In the past, she served as General President of the Indian History Congress. Currently, she is an Hon. Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall (Oxford) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), a Fellow of the British Academy and has received Hon. Doctorates from the Universities of Chicago, Oxford, Edinburgh, Peradeniya, Calcutta and Panjab. In 2008, she received the Kluge Prize (the American Nobel), which honours lifetime achievement in fields not covered by the Nobel Prize. Her publications include Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas ; A History of India, Vol.I ; Ancient Indian Social History – Some Interpretations ; From Lineage to State ; Sakuntala : Texts, Readings, Histories ; Cultural Pasts ; Early India ; Somanatha ; The Past Before Us : Historical Traditions of Early North India ; and a children’s book, Indian Tales.
Diwekar, Rujuta works out of Mumbai, practices yoga in Rishikesh, ideates in Uttarkashi and treks in rest of the Indian Himalaya. Winner of the ‘Nutrition Award’ from Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, she is amongst the most qualified and sought after practitioners in India today and the only nutritionist to have associate membershp from Sports Dietitians, Australia. Rujuta helps people from all walks of life, from businessmen to homemakers, students, celebrities and sportsmen. Her most famous clients include Anil Ambani, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. Her two books have sold more than 5 lakh copies and have been translated in more than 5 languages. Her film “Indian food wisdom & the art of eating right” is out on DVD and already on the best‑seller charts. Her 3rd book, ‘Donʹt lose out, work out!’ will be out this month.
ANWAR, S started his career as a freelance Journalist and photographer; working with Aside, a Chennai based fortnightly. He went on to publish in other newspapers and magazines and was also involved in the electronic media, before he found his true calling in documenting History. As an independent researcher he has been focusing on South Indian history, in particular the much misunderstood Muslim history. He is also a contributor to the “Madras Gazetteer Project”, which documents the history of Madras that is Chennai from 1600 to 2000 CE. Combining his interest in History and Visual media, Anwar has been making documentary films on historical subjects. He was commissioned by the Archaeological Survey of India to make a series of short films on the Big Temple at Thanjavur, made in commemoration of the 1000th year celebrations of the famous World Heritage Monument. His latest documentary film Yaadhum explores his Tamil Muslim identity and history.
DHAWAN, SABRINA made her debut as screenwriter with Monsoon Wedding, which won the ‘Leon D’Oro’ at the Venice Film Festival, and received a Golden Globe nomination. Her short film, Saanjh – As Night Falls, won numerous awards and was nominated for a Student Academy Award. Sabrina’s other produced screenplay credits include Kaminey, Ishqiya, 11.9.01. and Cosmopolitan. She served as co-producer on the mini-series Bollywood Hero (IIFC), as story consultant on Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola, and wrote the documentary Greatest Love Story Ever Told (UTV). Sabrina has worked with most major studios in Mumbai and the US. She is an Associate Professor and the Area Head of Screenwriting at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Sabrina is currently working on a Broadway musical adaptation of Monsoon Wedding and on a feature adaptation, The Bengali Detective, for Fox Searchlight. She lives in New York City with her son, Kabir.
MENON, SADANAND is a nationally reputed arts editor, popular teacher of cultural journalism, photographer, stage lights designer and prolific speaker at seminars on politics, ecology and the arts. He is currently Adjunct Faculty, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, and at IIT, Madras. He is member, Apex Advisory Committee, National Museum, Delhi; Advisory Committee, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru; Advisory Council, Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi; Governing Council, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla; and Managing Trustee, SPACES, An Arts Foundation, Chennai. A close associate of legendary choreographer Chandralekha, he is deeply involved with issues concerning contemporary Indian dance. He also curated a major Retrospective Exhibition of Fifty Years of Dashrath Patel’s work in painting, ceramics, photography and design for NGMA, Delhi and Mumbai.
Salma is a well-known name to readers of contemporary Tamil literature. With two volumes of poetry, “Oru Maalaiyum Innoru Maalaiyum” and “Pacchai Devadai”; a novel, “Irandaam Jaamangalin Kadhai” ,and a short story collection, ‘saapam’, Salma has made her mark as a distinctive literary voice. Lakshmi Holmstrom’s translation of one of Salma’s novels, The Hour Past Midnight, was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Prize and long-listed for The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Man Asian prize. Her works have been translated to many languages including German, Galician, Malayalam and Marathi. Her life story was chronicled in the award-winning documentary, Salma, by Kim Longinotto. Salma is a committed public servant, and has served as President of the Ponnampatti Panchayat and Chairman of the Social Welfare Board (Govt. of Tamil Nadu), during which time she was instrumental in establishing several welfare schemes, including some landmark ones directed towards the transgender community.
SHANNON, SAMANTHA Born in 1991, Samantha Shannon was brought up in west London, where she started writing at the age of fifteen. Last summer she graduated from St Anne’s College, Oxford with a degree in English Language and Literature. In 2012 she was shortlisted for a Women of the Future Award. Her first novel, The Bone Season, was a New York Times best-seller upon publication last year.
ALEKAR, SATISH is the author of Marathi plays, most notably Mahanivran and Begum Barve. Until 2009, he was Professor and Head of the Centre for Performing Arts (Lalit Kala Kendra) at University of Pune. He is one of the founder members of Theatre Academy, Pune. He has received the Padmashree, and the National Award for Playwriting from Sangeet Natak Akademi, Delhi, among others. He has scripted and acted Marathi and Hindi films and TV serials. Many of his plays have been translated, produced and published in several Indian regional languages. He is currently a member of the academic council, NSD, Delhi. For his efforts to promote theatre development and studying the performing arts, Satish has received grants from the Ford Foundation and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, and was also a Fullbright professor. A collection of his plays can be found in Collected Plays of Satish Alekar (OUP). Usually he directs his own plays.
Chaudhuri, Shantanu Ray is managing editor at HarperCollins Publishers India. He has been in publishing for just over a decade and has edited books by some of India’s leading authors, including Manu Joseph, Anita Nair, Gulzar, among others. At Harper, he has also been responsible for building the list on books on cinema. Books commissioned by him have won the National Award Swarna Kamal for Best Book on Cinema for two years running, 2011 and 2012. He is also the author of a book of poems Whims (published by Writers Workshop) and a book of essays on cinema Icons from Bollywood (Penguin). He also founded and edited a film magazine Lights Camera Action for a year in 2000.
SEYYID, SHARMILA is a journalist, poet, writer and activist from Eravur, in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province. Since 2001 she has been working as a journalist and a writer. She has been an activist for women in the Batticaloa district since 2006. In 2009, she founded the Organization for Social Development, a community-based organization in Eravur. She has been working closely with the minority women in the East, for the last three years, following the war. Her interest includes printing, writing and media collaboration about women, child issues, humanitarian issues, youth activism, women rights and gender. She is the author of a poetry collection called “Siragu Mulaitha Pen”. She received two awards for her contributions to literature: the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writer and artists association presented “Master Gorkki Memorial Award” for Poetry Literature and the “Tamiliyal Award” presented by the Writers Motivation Centre. Ummath is her latest book.
CHOWDHURY, SHOVON is an amateur humourist. His blog, India Update (shovonc.wordpress.com) has horrified over 100,000 people. He is also the creator of The Trilokpuri Incident, a research project which investigates something no one can remember. He has completed one novel, The Competent Authority. Shovon’s work as co-author of the Very Rich Whitebook for the National Council of Applied Economic Research has left him deeply prejudiced against the very rich. His grandfather ran away from Dhaka to escape Japanese bombing in 1945, not realizing that the war was about to end, and arrived in Calcutta just in time for the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946. These shared family experiences have left him deeply averse to sudden movement, which is why he has lived in Delhi for the last twenty years. He is too old to immigrate, but too young to give up.
Batabyal, Somnath worked for a decade in journalism, covering crime and criminality, hobnobbing with politicians and policemen, before entering the quieter world of Western academia. His first book, Making News in India: Star News and Star Ananda, was published in 2011 by Routledge India. He has also edited a volume, Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change (2010) with the same publishers. Somnath has recently published his first novel, a crime thriller, The Price You Pay, with Harper Collins. He now lives in London where he teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
JHA, SONORA is the author of the novel ‘Foreign,’ published by Random House India in 2013. Sonora was born in India, where she had a successful career as a journalist in Mumbai and Bangalore. Her last assignment was as Chief of Metro Bureau and Special Correspondent for The Times of India before moving to Singapore and then the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Political Communication. She is now a professor of journalism at Seattle University. Her novel, Foreign, is literary fiction based on the true stories of farmers’ suicides in Vidarbha. It brings together her work as a journalist, an academic, and a creative writer. Sonora lives in Seattle.
ALTER, STEPHEN has published sixteen books of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Mussoorie, India, where he currently lives and writes. For ten years he taught creative writing at MIT and, before that, he was director of the writing program at the American University in Cairo. He has received numerous honours for his writing, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the East-West Centre in Hawaii, the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture and the Fulbright Program.
SUSHILA RAVINDRANATH joined Business India in Mumbai as a staff writer when business was still a bad word and and Business Week famously called the country an elephant on an oil spill. She moved to Chennai in the mid 1980s and has done stories on many South Indian groups, which were publicity-shy and had never been written about. She set up Business India bureaus in all the Southern cities. She helped launch Hansazone website, an entertainment portal for R K Swamy BBDO, before she moved to the New Sunday Express as its editor. She is now a consulting editor for Financial Express and is completing a book on post-liberalisation Tamil Nadu.
T.M. KRISHNA or Thodur Madabusi Krishna is a pre-eminent Karnatik vocalist and public intellectual who speaks and writes about issues affecting the human condition and matters of culture. Krishna has started and is involved with many organisations that work across the spectrum of music and culture. He has co-authored Voices Within: Carnatic Music – Passing on an Inheritance, a book dedicated to the greats of Karnatik music. A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story won the 2014 Tata Literature Award for Best First Book in the non-fiction category. His latest book Sebastian and Sons received the Tata Lit Live Award for the Best Non-Fiction book for 2020. In 2016, Krishna received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of ‘his forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions’. He has collaborated with contemporary Tamil writer Perumal Murugan to bring his poetry onto the ‘classical’ stage and also brought the poetry of social reformer and philosopher, Sree Narayana Guru, into the Karnatik fold. In collaboration with Ashoka University, T.M. Krishna is now involved in The Edict Project, an attempt to reimagine Ashoka’s edicts in musical form.
Selasi, Taiye was born in London to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She holds a BA from Yale and an MPhil from Oxford. Selasi made her fiction debut in Granta in 2011 with ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’, which was selected for Best American Short Stories in 2012. Her first novel, Ghana Must Go, was published in March 2013. An avid traveller and documentary photographer, Selasi lives in Rome.
AO, TEMSULA is a writer and poet. Until 2010, she was a lecturer in the Department of English at the North-Eastern Hill University, where she had previously served as Dean for the School of Humanities and Education, and Head of the Department of English. Her books include These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone (a collection of short stories), The Ao-Naga Oral Tradition (now in its second edition, and part of syllabi across colleges in Nagaland), Laburnum for my Head (a collection of short stories) and most recently, Book of Songs (a collected volume of five books of poems written by her). Temsula is the recipient of the Padma Shri, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Nagaland Governor’s Award for Distinction in Literature and is a Fulbright Fellow. She is currently the Chairperson, Nagaland State Commission for Women, Kohima.
TIMERI N. MURARI was for many years a journalist writing for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and Observer in London before he moved to New York, where he made documentary films for British television. He has written 18 books of fiction and non-fiction. His bestselling Taj: A Story of Mughal India (Aleph Book Co.) has been translated into 25 languages. The Taliban Cricket Club (HarperCollins) was published in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and translated into French, Norwegian, Dutch, Spanish, Romanian. He is also the writer and producer of the award-winning film, “The Square Circle”, which was voted as one of the “ten best films of the year” by TIME Magazine in 1997. He adapted it for the stage and directed it as the Leicester Harmarket theatre with Parminder Nagra in the lead role. In 2002, he was presented with the R.K. Narayan Award for his contributions to writing, cinema and theatre.
THAPAR, VALMIK has spent nearly 38 years serving the wild tigers of India. In the process he has written more than 20 books, presented nearly a dozen films, for both the BBC and several other international television networks, created one of the first truly wildlife non-governmental organisations, Ranthambhore Foundation, and served nearly 200 policy making committees of both federal and state governments, including one constituted by The Supreme Court of India. He is today a severe critic of government policy regarding tigers, wildlife and the habitat they live in. He continues to campaign and fight for a new way of thinking and action in the governance of the natural world in India.
CHAWLA, VEENAPANI is an actor, director, choreographer, writer and composer. She founded the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research in Pondicherry to promote research into the creation of new performance methodologies. Since then, she has presented many papers on the subject, and has scripted and directed several of Adishakti’s performances. She is an exponent in Mayurbhanj Chhau, Kalaripayattu, Koodiyattam and Dhrupad singing. Among the awards she has received are the Zee Astiva Award in 2006 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puruskar in 2010. Veenapani holds a B.Ed., an M.A. in History and an M.A. in Political Philosophy. She has trained under Patsy Rodenburg, the Voice Coach of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was once at Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret in Holstebro, Denmark. A book focusing on her work, The Theatre of Veenapani Chawla: Theory, Practice and Performance (OUP), was edited by Shanta Gokhale.
Vidya Gajapathi Raju Singh, Princess of Vijayanagaram, is a Rotarian, and was the President of the International Women’s Association, and also the President of Soroptomist International. She runs Sumyog, a wedding planning company based in Chennai, and Senhati Eventz, an event management company that handles product launches, book launches, and fashion shows. She is a patron of the Karunnaii School for destitute mentally disabled children, and has organised several fund-raising events. Vidya captained the Madras University Tennis team and has won several medals in Masters Swimming Championships at the State and National Levels. She is an avid trekker and bicyclist. She has been a fitness columnist for the Economic Times, The Madras Plus, Eve’s Touch, Chennai Frappe, Apollo Life, B_ Positive and At a Glance. She has also contributed guest columns to newspapers like The New Indian Express. Vidya has been Brand Ambassador for ACE, Apollo Hospitals Centre for Excellence. She was featured in Vogue’s June 2013 issue, in the list of India’s 50 Best Dressed.
SHAH, VIDYA is a composer, musician, and writer from New Delhi, India. She was initially trained in Carnatic music, and later received guidance in the North Indian genres of Khayal (from Shubha Mudgal and Mujahid Hussain Khan) and Thumri Dadra, and Ghazal (from Shanti Hiranand). She has performed at national and international forums, including the Tansen Samaroh in Gwalior, The Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C, The Asia Society in New York and the Bode Museum in Berlin.A popular performer and a prolific composer, she is a recipient of the Charles Wallace Award and a Senior Fellowship from the Government of India for her project “Women on Record” (www.womenonrecord.com), a performance highlighting the contributions of the forgotten women performers in the Gramophone era.
SRIDHAR, VIKRAM is a storyteller connecting the age old oral tradition in a contemporary form to the new age listeners. He performs regularly across Bangalore and Chennai. He is a theatre practitioner and has been in the English theatre space working with various groups for about 7 years. His theatre group, Tahatto, performs regularly at various spaces and festivals across India. Around the Story Tree is his initiative to reach out to children and adults across various backgrounds through storytelling, using folktales in a contemporary form to connect with listeners to the environment around us. More about his work https://www.facebook.com/AroundTheStoryTree
William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, The Last Mughal, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, the Hemingway and Kapuscinski Prize-winning Return of a King, and The Anarchy, (which was one of Barack Obama’s favourite books of 2019 and was shortlisted for Tata Literature Live Prize). A frequent broadcaster, he has written and presented three television series, one of which won the Grierson Award for Best Documentary Series at BAFTA. He has also won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year Award, the Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the FPA Media Awards, and been awarded five honorary doctorates. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and has held visiting fellowships at Princeton and Brown. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and the Guardian. In 2018 he was presented with the prestigious President’s Medal by the British Academy for his outstanding literary achievement, and for co-founding the Jaipur Literature Festival. William lives with his wife and three children on a farm outside Delhi.
Guo, Xiaolu studied at the Beijing Film Academy and received her MA from the National Film School in London. She has published seven novels in both English and Chinese. A Concise Chinese–English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include UFO in Her Eyes and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. She directed the award-winning films She, a Chinese and Once Upon a Time Proletarian. I Am China is her new novel forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in the UK.
Ziya Us Salam is a veteran journalist and widely published author. His latest book Being Muslim in Hindu India is a bestseller. His upcoming book is The Lion of Naushera. Based in New Delhi, he works with The Hindu as an Associate Editor.
