Esha Deol Takhtani is an Indian film actor with hits such as Dhoom, Na Tum Jaano Na Hum, Yuva, No Entry and Dus to her credit. She recently portrayed the role of a chef in the short film Cakewalk, which was released globally on a digital platform and has won a cascade of awards worldwide.
Seeing her illustrious mother, Hema Malini, blazing a trail in classical dance, Esha too succumbed to its lure. She decided to hone her skills in Odissi and in this she was enthusiastically supported by her mother. She has mastered many special renditions in the Odissi repertoire, with over a hundred performances-both solo and in partnership with her younger sister, Ahana. Her depiction of the lovable Sita, the wife of Lord Rama, in the ballet Ramayana has charmed audiences the world over.
Married to a businessman, Bharat Takhtani, Esha is now a doting mother to two daughters-Radhya and Miraya. Esha has recently ventured into production with her first film, which is set to go on floors soon
The author, Bindya S Singh, MD, is a physician, researcher and educator living in San Jose, California. She works at SCVMC with appointed Affiliated Clinical Faculty at Stanford University and is also the founder of the Healthy Center Foundation.
A.B. Majmudar was minding her own business: spending time with her family, dancing Bharatanatyam, reading books, and perfecting her methi paratha recipe…when the gods of ancient India benevolently, but persistently, demanded her attention. Before she knew it, she had written her first novel.
A graduate of UC Berkeley in English, she taught the subject to high school students, who quickly learned that she would drop everything for a story-knowledge which they tried to use to their advantage on exam days.
Despite (reluctantly) growing up, Majmudar still loves children’s and young adult books, which she loves to read with her three children. She is most at home in ancient Indian stories, and she looks forward to more visits from the gods, leading to more novels.
Nizrana Farook was born and raised in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the beautiful landscapes of her home country find their way into the stories she writes. She has a master’s degree in writing for young people, and lives in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom with her husband and two daughters.
Akhil Gupta, a chartered accountant by qualification with over thirty years of professional experience, is the vice chairman of Bharti Group and executive chairman of Bharti Infratel Limited. He has played a pivotal role in Bharti’s phenomenal growth right since inception and has been closely involved from the very beginning in its growth in the telecommunication services sector-both organically and by way of various acquisitions. He has led the formation of various partnerships with leading international operators like British Telecom, Telecom Italia, Singapore Telecom and Vodafone, in addition to the induction of leading financial investors like Warburg Pincus, Temasek, KKR, Qatar Foundation Endowment, AIF and Sequoia, among many other private equity funds.
G.K. Sasidharan has held positions in educational institutions as lecturer, postgraduate professor, principal, pro-vice-chancellor and vice-chancellor. He has published many papers on cosmology and astrophysics, and is a regular writer on scientific topics in journals and periodicals. He is the architect of the astronomical observatory on the Calicut University campus and was instrumental in the introduction of compulsory social service (CSS) as part of the curriculum in university and colleges.
Sasidharan visited colleges in various states in the country as chairman of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) peer team. He is the founder president of the All Kerala Astrosciences Society (AKAS). He has also authored widely accepted bestsellers. His books have been translated into many languages by eminent academicians and he is also the recipient of many awards.
Perumal Murugan is the star of contemporary Tamil literature. An award-winning writer, poet and scholar, he has garnered both critical acclaim and commercial success for his vast array of work. His novels have been translated into English to immense acclaim, including Current Show, Pyre, Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, and One Part Woman, his best-known work, which was shortlisted for the Crossword Award, longlisted for the inaugural National Book Award for Translation and won the prestigious ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman. Pyre was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023 and Fire Bird won the JCB Prize for Literature 2023, while A Lonely Harvest and Trial by Silence-his two ingenious parallel sequels to One Part Woman-were shortlisted for the JCB Prize in 2019. A Lonely Harvest was also longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019. Songs of a Coward is a collection of his poetry written in exile. His debut novel was published in English as Rising Heat in 2020, nearly three decades after it was first published in Tamil.
Nidhi Dugar Kundalia is a journalist and her stories and essays have appeared in various national newspapers and magazines. She mostly writes on socio-cultural issues, documenting human lives and their journeys through various settings. Her first book, The Lost Generation: Chronicling India’s Dying Professions, was released in 2016 to a warm reception. Her second book is White as Milk and Rice: Stories of India’s Isolated Tribes. She is a graduate of the School of Arts, City University, London and lives in Kolkata with her husband and children.
Ruth Vanita taught at Delhi University for 20 years and is now Professor at the University of Montana. She was founding co-editor of Manushi 1978-90. She is the author of several books, including Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (1996); Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India (2005); Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture (2005), Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India 1780-1870 (2012); Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema (2017). Her first novel, Memory of Light, appeared in 2020.
She is the author of over 60 articles on British and Indian literature, and has translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English, most notably Chocolate: Stories on Male-Male Desire by Pandey Bechan Sharma ‘Ugra’ (2008). She divides her time between Missoula and Gurgaon.
Saleem Kidwai is a historian and independent scholar, who taught at Ramjas College, Delhi University, for twenty years. He has published several academic essays on medieval and modern India, and translated several works, including Song Sung True: A Memoir by Malka Pukhraj and a collection of Syed Rafiq Hussain’s short stories, The Mirror of Wonders. Apart from the author herself, he is the only person to have translated the novels of Qurratulain Hyder, Chandni Begum and Ship of Sorrow.
