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SARATCHANDRA CHATTOPADHYAY (1876-1938) was born in Devanandapur, an obscure village of Bengal. His childhood and youth were spent in dire poverty as his father, Matilal Chattopadhyay, was an idler and dreamer and gave little security to his five children. Saratchandra received very little formal education but inherited something valuable from his father-his imagination and love of literature. He started writing in his early teens and two stories written then have survived-‘Korel’ and ‘Kashinath’.
Saratchandra came to maturity at a time when the national movement was gaining momentum together with an awakening of social consciousness. Much of his writing bears the mark of the resultant turbulence of society. A prolific writer, he found the novel an apt medium for depicting this and, in his hands, it became a powerful weapon of social and political reform. Sensitive and daring, his novels captivated the hearts and minds of thousands of readers not only in Bengal but all over India. Some of his best-known novels are Palli Samaj (1916), Charitraheen (1917), Devdas (1917), Nishkriti (1917), Srikanta in four parts (1917, 1918, 1927 and 1933), Griha Daha (1920) and Sesher Parichay published posthumously (1939).

Manohar Singh Gill (b 1936) is currently the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, and member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha. Gill was the Deputy Commissioner of Lahaul and Spiti in 1962, a time when, for once, his pleasure became his duty. He spent the last six years of his forty-year-long career in the civil services as the Chief Election Commissioner of India.

Gill has had an abiding interest in mountaineering and was the first civilian trainee of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling. He has also been president of the Indian Mountaineering foundation, New Delhi, and the Himalayan Club.

Paritosh Uttam is a Pune-based software engineer. He holds a Bachelors degree from IIT Madras and a Masters from IISc Bangalore. Apart from writing and reading modern literary fiction, he is enthused by internet routing protocols, web search-engine optimization techniques, Nifty and mutual funds, crosswords and anagrams, cricket and table tennis. Several of his short stories have been published in various magazines, newspapers and e-zines. More at www.paritoshuttam.com