B.R. alias Bha Ra Bhagwat was born in Indore in 1910 and educated in Nasik and Dhule. In 1941 he joined the All India Radio in New Delhi as a newsreader. Following the broadcast of Mahatma Gandhi’s arrest, Bhagwat went underground to join the freedom struggle in Mumbai. He was arrested and jailed for almost two years. After independence, Bha Ra devoted himself to translating the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells into Marathi. From 1950 to 1957 he published a very popular Marathi magazine for children, called Balmitra. Bha Ra also created the character Faster Fenay, who became immensely popular among Marathi children. The work was later serialized on Doordarshan. Bha Ra wrote around 200 books and was also proficient in writing comic strips. He died in 2001. One of the most prolific children’s writers in Marathi, B.R. Bhagwat has won several prestigious literature awards.
About the illustrator
Tejas Modak writes, illustrates, paints, makes comics, buys more books than he has room for, works as part of a graphic design studio called Euphoric Acid, yaks endlessly about art, lives in Pune and goes to sleep with an exhausted but contented smile on his face. His first graphic novel, Private-eye Anonymous: The Art Gallery Case, was published in 2008. Animal Palette, a graphic book he collaborated on as illustrator, was published in 2011.
Chetan Chhatwal materialized in 1978, on a hot and sticky Delhi September evening. A somewhat obese but terribly cute baby, he has since grown into a pessimistic, neurotic, hypochondriac with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Born into a military family, he was raised in India where he spent his first twenty years. He has spent his last ten years in the UK working across consulting and investment banking. His degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and an MBA from London Business School have contributed towards his goal to eventually spend his life as an impoverished author.
He is married to a beautiful but unfortunate woman who endures and encourages his flights of fancy. Chetan currently works as a management consultant in London, watches India’s progress from a distance, and writes a little bit on the side.
Yashodhara Dalmia is an art historian and independent curator
based in New Delhi. Her book The Making of Modern Indian Art:
The Progressivesis regarded as a definitive account of a seminal
phase of Indian art. Among her other publications is Journeys: Four
Generations of Indian Artists (2011). She has also written several
essays, articles and reviews on contemporary Indian art.
When the National Gallery of Modern Art opened in Mumbai in
December 1996, Dalmia curated the inaugural exhibition titled The
Moderns, which featured 200 works by twelve greats of modern
Indian art, including Francis Newton Souza, M.F. Husain and
Tyeb Mehta. In September 2010, Dalmia curated a major show of
contemporary Indian artists titled Indian (Sub)Way at the Grosvenor
Vadehra gallery in London. In January 2011, she curated the show
Tyeb Mehta:Triumph of Vision in Delhi, which consisted of unseen
paintings by the artist, including his magnificent last work. Currently
she is involved in a project on South Asian art.
Anam Shahab is an economist for a public policy consulting firm and
has been writing poetry since the age of ten. A Commonwealth Scholar
at the University of Cambridge, Anam completed her MPhil and
postgraduate diploma in Economics, and then spent a year conducting research and teaching undergraduates. She also holds a first-class degree in economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi.
Her poem, ‘Grey Minds and Dark Times’, written after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, has previously appeared in the Times of India. She was the founder-editor of the Cambridge Economist, a student magazine in its fourth year now and running successfully. She lives in London.
Harsh Snehanshu is the bestselling author of the Kanav-Tanya trilogy, comprising the novels Oops! ‘I’ Fell in Love, Ouch! That ‘Hearts’, and She’s Single, I’m Taken. He is a graduate of IIT Delhi and a former internet entrepreneur.
Based in Delhi, Harsh is currently travelling across India writing his fifth book. He is fond of music, photography, and public speaking. You could reach him at:
www.facebook.com/harshsnehanshu1
www.twitter.com/harshsnehanshu
harshsnehanshu@gmail.com
Bapsi Sidhwa is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of four novels. She is also the editor of the anthology City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore.
Her work has been published in ten countries and has been translated into several languages. Born in Karachi, and brought up in Lahore, Sidhwa now lives in Houston, Texas.
