USHA THAKKAR is President, Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai. She retired as Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. She has done her postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago on a Fulbright Fellowship; at Cornell University on a Senior Fulbright Fellowship; and at York University on a WID Fellowship from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. She was also a visiting fellow at Sheffield City Polytechnic, UK. The Asiatic Society of Mumbai has conferred an honorary fellowship on her. She has been vice-president, Asiatic Society of Mumbai, and also of Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan.
Her research areas include Gandhian Studies, Women’s Studies, and Indian Politics. Her publications (authored/co-authored/co-edited) include Gandhi in Bombay: Towards Swaraj; Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred J. Blum; William Erskine; Women in Indian Society; Zero Point Bombay: In and Around Horniman Circle; Culture and the Making of Identity in Contemporary India;
Pushpanjali: Essays on Gandhian themes in honour of Dr. Usha Mehta; and Ghunghat Ka Pat Khol (a collection of short stories by women writers in Gujarati). She has contributed to many prestigious journals and has also presented papers at many national and international conferences.
Anuradha Jagalur has a master’s degree in physics and is a teacher. She has taught kids of every age from toddlers to teenagers. She has published articles in Kannada, translated between Kannada and English, and has edited several English manuscripts. She wanted to write this book because it was a book she wanted to read. Her other interests include science, music, hiking and gardening.
Harish Damodaran is National Rural Affairs & Agriculture Editor of The Indian Express and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. A journalist with thirty years of experience as a field reporter and editorial analyst, he is also the author of India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation (Permanent Black/Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 and Hachette India, 2018).
An electronics and telecommunication engineer
turned award-winning author, Vaishali Shroff
loves writing about untold histories and unsung
people. Her rich non-fiction repertoire has
been widely recognized. Breaking Moulds made
it to the White Ravens list and was runner-up
at the Publishing Next Awards. Batata, Pao,
and All Things Portuguese won the SCBWI
(USA) Scholarship, AutHer Award and received
an honourable mention at the BK Awards.
Critically acclaimed Taatung Tatung and Other
Amazing Stories of India’s Diverse Languages
was recognized by the National Translation Mission. She was also invited to speak at The
British Society for the History of Science. She
prefers children over adults and chocolate over
everything else.
Acharya Shri Nana Lalji Maharaj sa‘ also known as ‘nana’ was a yogi who practiced the most primitive form of sainthood, wandering in jungles, villages and cities barefoot without using any form of electricity which meant no cell phones, lights or fans- a lifestyle beyond imaginable spectrum of the common man. The simplicity in his being coupled with the depth of his knowledge touched numerous hearts and transformed countless lives.
Yogeswar, earlier known as T.R. Shankar, was a journalist who worked with The Hindu for nearly thirty-five years. In his early forties, because of a persistent cold, he tried yoga and naturopathy and was amazed at the results. He started studying the theory of yoga and in about fifteen years became an authority on it. He established the Yoga Centre in Chennai and some of his pupils later became yoga teachers.
Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson and Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is author of more than fifty books, including the globally popular Marketing Management, now in its fifteenth edition.
Living between Manhattan and Kashi, Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya is
a licensed, board-certified physician, integrating ‘Good Medicine’
with Ayurveda for the past fifteen years. She is clinical assistant
professor of Family Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and
a PhD researcher in Ayurveda at Banaras Hindu University. She is a
2014 senior Fullbright-Nehru scholar, recipient of American Medical
Association’s Leadership Award and the first Indian to speak at
Commencement Exercises at Harvard University. Her work is featured
in the documentary Healers: Journey into Ayurveda, on the Discovery
channel. Her website is www.drbhaswati.com.
Shad Naved teaches Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at Ambedkar University, Delhi. He recently translated The Hindi Canon: Intellectuals, Processes, Criticism for Tulika Books (2019). He runs a poetry blog, Poetry in the Indo-Islamic Millenium (indoislamicpoetry.com) and is completing a book on literary queerness in the ghazal.
