Prarthana Gahilote has been a journalist with the national media-spanning print, TV and digital platforms-for over two decades, with a stint in the UK as a Chevening Scholar. She is the festival director of Kathakar: International Storytellers Festival, India’s first and only oral storytelling festival.
Prarthana suffers from wanderlust and loves walking the Himalayan forests whenever she can escape her homes in Delhi or Mumbai. When not occupied with the alphabet, she is found spinning yarns with family and friends, pampering her nephew, Raghav, and her pet, Ginger. She has an ever-growing collection of books, fountain pens and antiques. She directs short films, documentaries and digital concerts. She also writes poetry in Hindustani as well as lyrics for songs. She can’t live without music or gulab jamuns.
Bharat Karnad, a national security expert, is a research professor at the Centre for Policy Research and a national security expert, is the author of Why India Is Not a Great Power (Yet).
Currently a faculty member at the Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Rajeev Sharma has developed and participated in management development programmes related to colleges and other institutions of higher education. He has coordinated and participated in consulting assignments sponsored by the Swedish International Development Organization, the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom government and the National Literacy Mission of the Government of India. Sharma has a PhD in psychology from Allahabad University, and is a visiting scholar at University of Michigan.
Shaguna Gahilote is a performance storyteller. She is a maths wizard with a double master’s degree, having studied in both India and the UK, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar. She came back to India to work on conserving rare and dying folk art forms. She has worked as an education, peace and culture specialist and helms Ghummakkad Narain: The Travelling Literature Festival and Kathakar: International Storytellers Festival, now in its tenth edition.
Shaguna spends her days writing, drawing cartoons, solving maths problems with her nephew and looking after her pet Labrador, Ginger, as well as her neighbourhood strays. She has trotted around the world on a staple diet of potatoes, eggs and hummus.
Bhisham Sahni (1915-2003) was an iconic writer who transformed the landscape of Hindi literature. His oeuvre encompassed novels, plays, short stories and essays. Tamas, his best known novel, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1975 and was subsequently adapted into a National Award-winning film by Govind Nihalani. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1998, and the Shlaka Award, the Delhi government’s highest literary prize, in 1999.
Sanjaya Baru has been editor of The Financial Express and Business Standard, and the editorial-page editor of the Times of India and the Indian Express.
He was media adviser to former prime minister Manmohan Singh and the director for geo-economics and strategy, International Institute of Strategic Studies, London.
He has taught at the University of Hyderabad; the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore; and the Indian School of Public Policy, New Delhi.
His books include The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, Strategic Consequences of India’s Economic Performance, 1991: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Made History and India’s Power Elite: Class, Caste and A Cultural Revolution.
Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004) was born in Mysore. She studied history at Madras University and later worked for a small progressive magazine before moving to London in 1948 in pursuit of a career in journalism. There she began writing her novels; Nectar in a Sieve was the first of ten to be published in her lifetime. Nectar in a Sieve and A Handful of Rice continue to be taught in universities in India and abroad.
Sandeep Jauhar is director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He is the New York Times bestselling author of two medical memoirs and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. His first book, Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation, was optioned by NBC for a dramatic television series. He lives on Long Island with his wife and their two children.
Born in north-eastern India in 1970, Siddhartha Deb is the author of two novels. A contributing editor to The New Republic, Deb’s journalism, essays and reviews have appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, n+1, Caravan, the Nation, the Baffler and the Times Literary Supplement. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Society of Authors, the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies at Harvard University and the Howard Foundation at Brown University.
Usha Narayanan had a successful career in advertising, radio and corporate communications before becoming a full-time writer. She is the author of several books including The Madras Mangler, a suspense thriller and Love, Lies and Layoffs, a lighthearted office romance. The Secret of God’s Son is the sequel to her bestselling book Pradyumna: Son of Krishna which was published in 2015. When she’s not juggling writing, editing and interviews, Usha reads everything from thrillers to romances, provided her cat isn’t fast asleep on her Kindle.
