Archives: Authors

Mahmud Ga¯mi stands out among the Kashmiri poets as a pioneer in introducing the Persian genres of the ghazal, nazm, masnavi and na¯t into Kashmiri. Not only is he the first truly prolific poet of the language, but much of his poetry is also remarkable for its beauty of expression and depth of thought. His vatsuns (lyrical poems) and masnavis (narrative poems) such as ‘Yusuf Zulaykha’, ‘Khusrau Shi¯ri¯n’, ‘Layla Majnun’ and ‘Sheikh San’a¯n’ have rightly been acclaimed as significant contributions to Kashmiri poetry.

VINOY THOMAS hails from Nellikkampoyil, Iritty, in north Kerala. A schoolteacher by profession, he is one of the most promising young writers in Malayalam. His short-story collections include Ramachi, Mullaranjanam and Adiyormisiha Enna Novel. His debut novel, Karikkottakkary (English translation soon to be published by Penguin Random House India) was selected as one of the five best novels in the DC Books competition. His second novel, Puttu (Anthill), won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the best Malayalam novel of 2021. In 2019, Ramachi had won the same award for short stories. Vinoy has also authored a children’s book, Anatham Piriyatham. His short stories have been made into movies. He is also a gifted scriptwriter and has to his credit a few acclaimed movies.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Anirudha Bhattacharjee is an SAP consultant by profession, a musician by passion and a chronicler of music and cinema by avocation. R.D. Burman: The Man, The Music, his first book (co-written with Balaji Vittal), won the National Award for best book on cinema in 2012. Gaata Rahe Mera Dil (also co-written with Balaji Vittal) won the MAMI Award in its inaugural year, 2015. His other books include the critically acclaimed S.D. Burman: The Prince-Musician (2018, co-written with Balaji Vittal) and the bestseller Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography (2022, co-written with Parthiv Dhar).

Anirudha lives with his family in Calcutta, India, where he spends time watching films with his wife when not pretending to work or watching football matches. Basu Chatterji: And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema is his first book on a film-maker.

Amandeep Sandhu was born in Rourkela, Odisha. He completed his Master’s in English Literature from the University of Hyderabad. He worked as a journalist and later as a technical writer. His first two books were autobiographical fiction: Sepia Leaves (2008) and Roll of Honour (2012).
For the past few years, he has written for the media and contributed to anthologies. He now lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Panjab: Journeys through Fault Lines, his first non-fiction book, was originally published in 2019 to great critical acclaim and reception.

Aniruddhan Vasudevan writes and translates between Tamil and English. He is currently a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-2023) at the Princeton Society of Fellows and a lecturer in the Humanities Council and Anthropology at Princeton University.

After being in academics for nearly three decades, C. RANGARAJAN joined RBI as deputy governor in 1982 and then proceeded to become member, Planning Commission, governor, Reserve Bank of India, governor, Andhra Pradesh, chairman, Twelfth Finance Commission, member, Rajya Sabha and, finally,
chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (Dr Manmohan Singh). A Padma Vibhushan awardee, he was part of the team that initiated far-reaching reforms in India’s economy in the early 1990s.

Subhadra Sen Gupta has written over forty books for children because she thinks they are the best readers in the world. She writes about history, loves cooking up mystery, ghost and adventure stories and dreams up comic books. She was awarded the Bal Sahitya Puraskar by the Sahitya Akademi in 2014.

Anand Teltumbde is a leading public intellectual and civil rights activist. He writes a monthly column, ‘Margin Speak’, for Economic and Political Weekly and regularly contributes to Mainstream, Frontier, Seminar and many leading English and Marathi newspapers. Among his significant books are The Republic of Caste (2018), Dalits: Past, Present and Future (2016) Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt (2016) and The Persistence of Caste (2010). An engineer with a management qualification, Teltumbde has been the CEO of a holding company. He currently teaches in a business school of IIT, Kharagpur.