Priya Alika Elias is a lawyer and a writer. Elias has written for New Republic, VICE, Gawker, Buzzfeed, Teen Vogue, Outline, Toast, McSweeney’s, Vox, Ask Men, Firstpost and Outlook. Her writings cover a range of subjects, from feminism, race and mental illness to dating and music videos, while her essays explore universal questions through the lens of pop culture.
A popular Twitter celebrity, Elias was named one of the ‘Amazing Women to Follow on the Internet’ by Paper magazine in 2016.
Besharam is directly inspired by Elias’ stint as an advice columnist for Burnt Roti, her experience navigating two different cultures, and from the fact that she has never heard a man being described as ‘shameless’.
Giles Tillotson is well known as a writer and lecturer on Indian history and architecture. He taught at the University of London from 1990 to 2004, since when he has been living in Gurgaon, near Delhi. His earlier books include Mughal India, Jaipur Nama and Taj Mahal, all published by Penguin. This is his first work of fiction.
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s debut novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the Betty Trask Award in the UK, the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy, and was nominated for the IMPAC Prize. Translated into 12 languages, The Last Song of Dusk was an international bestseller. Shanghvi has been voted: India Today’s 50 Most Powerful Young Indians; Times of India’s 10 Global Indians; Hindustan Times: 10 Most Creative Men; Sunday Times UK: The Next Big Thing; New Statesmen UK: India’s Ten Bright Lights; Elle Magazine’s 50 Most Stylish People. Shanghvi’s new novel, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008.
Kuber Kaushik was raised on a steady diet of Asimov, Tolkien and Pratchett, and his love for the written word has only grown stronger over time. In the last decade and a half, he has been a blogger, copywriter, content writer, script writer, screenwriter and novelist.
The first feature film written by him, Shadows Fall, was produced in 2016, and was both screened and has won awards at film festivals in Los Angeles, Panama and Europe. His other works include a number of short films, short stories and even a comic strip chronicling the history of healthcare from 6500 bce onwards and the insanity therein.
Nowadays, his time is spent tinkering with three other novels, exploring and building new worlds with each story. He currently lives in Delhi and can be found on Twitter @thegingap.
Krishna Sobti is one of the most respected writers in the Hindi canon. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for her novel Zindaginama, and in 1996 was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest award of the Akademi. In 2017, she received the Jnanpith Award for her contribution to Indian literature.
Myshkin Ingawale is the CEO and co – founder of Biosense Technologies, an award- winning health – care start – up focusing on point -of – care non- invasive diagonstics. His work has been featured on TED, BBC, CNN and other notable international media. In the past, he has worked at Mckinsey & company and been a researcher at MIT’s Senseable City Lab. He holds an FPM ( the Fellow Programme in Management,equivalent to PhD) in Management Information Systems from IIM Calcutta and a BTech in electrical engineering from NIT Bhopal. He remains a passionate but somewhat deluded Liverpool Football Club fan. He is also easily tempted anything by wheels.
दुष्यंत का जन्म भारत-पाक सीमा पर बसे एक कस्बे में 13 मई 1977 को हुआ। उन्होंने इतिहास में उपलब्ध सब डिग्रियां हासिल कीं, कॉलेज में पढ़ाया। 2005 में प्रकाशित उनकी पहली ही किताब को स्टेट अकादमी अवॉर्ड मिला जबकि दूसरे कविता संग्रह ‘प्रेम का अन्य’ को 2012 का रामकुमार ओझा अवॉर्ड दिया गया। उनकी कविताओं का अंग्रेज़ी सहित कई अन्य भाषाओं में अनुवाद भी हुआ है। उन्होंने कहानियां लिखीं तो उन्हें हिंदी की श्रेष्ठ पत्र-पत्रिकाओं ने प्रकाशित किया। ‘स्त्रियां: पर्दे से प्रजातंत्र तक’ को हिंदी नॉनफिक्शन में 2012 में आई किताबों में बहुत महत्वपूर्ण माना गया है। उन्होंने दर्जन भर यूरोपीय और लेटिन अमेरिकन कवियों का हिंदी तथा रूसी कवि येवेग्नी येव्तुशेंको की कविताओं का राजस्थानी में अनुवाद किया हैं। एफटीआईआई, पुणे में कुछ समय सिनेमा की तमीज़ सीखने की कोशिश करने वाले दुष्यंत पत्रकारिता से जुडे़ हैं और अब तक जयपुर, दिल्ली, मुम्बई जैसे शहरों में रहे हैं।
www.dushyantlive.com
Sudha Mahalingam juggles a full-time career in energy with extensive travel, travel-writing and photography. As an energy economist, she researches, consults and advises on energy security, and lectures at India’s premier institutions. Her work as full-time regulator of petroleum, energy member of the National Security Advisory Board, international trainer of regulators and visiting fellow in reputed international universities has taken her places and, sometimes, inveigled her off the map. Among other organizations, she has worked at the Centre for Policy Research and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, and has been senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.
Sudha has published extensively on energy and travel in leading publications, including The Hindu, Indian Express, National Geographic Traveller, Economic Times, Tribune and Frontline. She speaks frequently on exotic destinations at the India International Centre, Delhi, and has held three photo exhibitions in the national capital. Sudha chronicles her travel impressions on her website at www.footlooseindian.com.
Gautam Chintamani is a film historian and the author of the bestselling Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna (HarperCollins, 2014), Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak: The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema (HarperCollins, 2016) and Pink The Inside Story (HarperCollins, 2017).
Hailing from a literary tradition that runs deep on both sides of his family, late poet laureate Arudra is his maternal grandfather and the liberal thinker Sir C.Y. Chintamani is his paternal great-grandfather. Gautam’s writing has appeared in India Today, Outlook, The Indian Express, The Indian Quarterly, The Pioneer, The Tribune, The Times of India, Deccan Chronicle, Scroll, First Post and Daily O amongst others. He also had a weekly film based column in The Hindustan Times Brunch and Dawn, Pakistan’s most-read English daily. In 2015, Gautam contributed an extensive essay on Majrooh Sultanpuri, the first lyricist to be honoured by the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award for Legends of Indian Silver Screen, a compilation of Phalke Awardees published by the Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. In 2016, Gautam was on the National Film Awards jury for the Best Writing on Film. The British Film Institute included Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak: The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema in their library in 2016.
Gautam’s documentary film S.R.I. – Challenging Traditions, Transforming Lives explored the positive impact of System of Rice Intensification, an alternate method of rice cultivation, on Indian farmers. The film has traveled to over 20 film festivals across the globe and won the Best Documentary Award at the Asia Pacific Rice Film Festival, Malaysia. His trilogy Janam- Aagazh-Parvaaz – on the journey of children with special needs and their parents was screened at the 2011’s International Film Festival of India (IFFI). His notable television credits include Siddhanth, a law series, which garnered an Emmy Nomination in the International Drama category, a first for an Indian TV show, and Rihaee. Gautam is currently working on his new book that traces the life and struggle of Nouf Almarwaai, the first certified Yogacharini of Saudi Arabia, whose efforts over a decade helped in Yoga being recognised as a sport in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A cancer survivor, Nouf Almarwaai overcame insurmountable odds including persecution by the Saudi religious police and was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India in January 2018.
Anuja Chandramouli is a bestselling Indian author and New Age Indian classicist. Her highly acclaimed debut novel, Arjuna: Saga of a Pandava Warrior-Prince, was named by Amazon India as one of the top five books in the Indian-writing category for 2013. Kamadeva: The God of Desire and Shakti: The Divine Feminine are her other highly successful books, and all three are being translated into Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali. She is currently hard at work on an awesome new adventure with Yama’s lieutenant.
