* Program subject to change without prior notice due to current covid situations.
* Strict covid guidelines will be in place.
* Proof of vaccination required for attendance.
IAAC Literary Festival
IAAC Literary Festival DEC 4-12 2021
Invitation to submit
Where there is passion, there is drive! The Indo-American Arts Council is delighted to announce that the renowned IAAC Literary Festival will be a hybrid one in 2021. December 4th through the 12th, an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors will participate as part of our Annual Literary Festival which promotes works emanating from and inspired by India. The week-long festival will be held live in New York City for local authors and on an on-line platform for global authors that will host book readings, keynote speakers, thought leaders and podcasts followed by virtual interactive sessions. The shows will be taped in advance at the convenience of the talent to ensure the highest production value while the interactive sessions will be live at the scheduled time. IAAC has an experienced team and a strong track record of managing global on-line events with viewers exceeding 50,000 as can be viewed on our website, FB page and YouTube channel.
IAAC recognizes the impact that COVID-19 has had on the literary community. It has therefore expanded its support for artists generally and authors specifically. IAAC will:
Pay an author honorarium
Pay a moderator honorarium
Purchase 10 copies of the book
Allocate a social media budget for each author on top of the IAAC marketing
Include the Publisher logo with approval in all IAAC media marketing
Include links to author and moderator social media handles
Include a link to book purchase
In the past, the IAAC Literary Festival has had the honor of hosting prominent authors such as Salman Rushdie, Suketu Mehta, Deepak Chopra, Anupam Kher, Rakesh Kaul, Newbery Honor recipient Veera Hiranandani, Booker Nominee Avni Doshi, Megha Majumdar, Anupam Kher, Ambassador Haksar and Member of Parliament Dr. Shashi Tharoor. We have organized book launches for eminent authors such as Ramchandra Guha, Madhur Jaffrey and in 2021 launched Acrobat by Nandana Sen, Vishakha Desai and the official biography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Interest in the IAAC Lit Fest has continued to garner international attention with its spotlight on topics such as Women’s Empowerment, Health & Wellness, Diversity and Equity. This year the focus is on Personal Journeys. We also intend to showcase great regional authors who have English translations with one retrospective.
Here is information on some of our past festivals:
The Indo-American Arts Council's Annual Literary Festival brings together writings from around the world that celebrate the Indian experience. It especially promotes Indo American writers, literary works which will end up as classics, support lesser-known regional authors, poetry and young adult. The Literary Festival Director spearheads this grand literary festival from the earliest planning stages to the final script of the Literary festival schedule. The Director liaises with the authors, publishers, moderators, curation panel, publicists, media and sponsors as well as IAAC staff on production/logistics of the festival.
Through recommendations from the Literary Curators panel and open submissions, identify possible contenders for the festival
Work with the recommendations of the board to incorporate the mission of the organization when identifying themes to underscore during the festival
Build relationships with authors and their agent so we that can create a final product that benefits the exposure of the book as well as bringing exemplary content for our community
Create program flow and do run throughs of author-moderator interviews
Work with production team on recording of individual book sessions
Identify the physical location for the physical festival and coordinate the ticketing and onsite logistics
Work intimately with the creative team for media posters & coverage for festival panelists
Build relationships with companies within the community that have special interest in the area of Literature
Build relationships with sponsors and patrons that have a keen interest in the area of Literature.
The Literary Director will also work on very high-profile solo, book launch programs during the year. The tasks for the solo program are the same as above.
The ideal candidate would be based in the Tri State area with easy access to New York City, be intimately connected with the literary scene and have a passionate interest in promoting it.
There is an honorarium for the free-lance position. It is expected that the Literary Director will spend ten hours a week in the quarter from September to November. The rest of the year time requirement is a light one with one or two digital events.
The Literary Director will be supported by the IAAC team and will work closely with the Executive Director who has overall responsibility for IAAC and will oversee the marketing and social media. There is an eminent Literary Curators Council with five members who will select and choose the final authors list. The Literary Director will interface and coordinate their work. In addition, the Vice Chairman will closely support the Literary Director’s activities.
Email admin@iaac.us to submit your resume and schedule an interview.
THE INDO-AMERICAN ARTS COUNCIL KICKS OFF ITS 2021 LITERARY FESTIVAL FEATURING
LIVE CONVERSATIONS WITH ENTREPRENEUR KUSHAL CHOKSI, COMEDIAN KAL PENN AND VIRTUAL TALKS WITH EXECUTIVE LEADER INDRA NOOYI, NOBEL LAUREATE AMARTYA SEN AND OTHER LITERARY EXTRAORDINAIRES
- In its 7th Year, the IAAC Literary Festival Showcases Deeply Experienced Worldviews from a Culturally Trailblazing Collection of Authors and Poets -
NEW YORK, NY – November 25, 2021 – The Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC), the organization dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the arts in North America, announced today the lineup for its seventh annual Literary Festival on December 4-12, 2021, in New York. The inaugural event will feature an exclusive conversation between IAAC chairman, Dr. Nirmal Mattoo, and former Wall Street banker, 9/11 survivor and entrepreneur, Kushal Choksi on December 4 at 2:00 p.m. EST; followed by a chat between comedian, Dan Nainan and board member, Dharti Desai.
The weeklong festival offers exclusive interviews, both in-person and virtual, with twenty leading authors and twelve distinguished poets; in total thirty-two writers, who have been celebrated as resounding voices of candor, honesty and determination within the literary world:
Moderator Nitin Nohria will sit down with one of the world's most powerful female executives, Indra Nooyi who will discuss her memoir My Life in Full (Portfolio), fresh off its release in September.
Two of the featured titles: Karthika Nair and Marilyn Hacker’s collection of poetry Different Distance: A Renga (Milkweed Editions, December 2021); and Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen’s highly anticipated Home in the World: A Memoir (Liveright, January 2022); will be making their public debut prior to launch in December and January, respectively.
Film director, Suman Ghosh, will discuss his new book Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-Maker Remembers (Om Books International, December 2021), which is an intimate look at the life and works of the late cinematic legend, Soumitra Chatterjee He will be discussing the Bengali actor’s impact on the film world with Aseem Chhabra on December 7.
Indian parliament member, Jairam Ramesh will sit down with Vishakha Desai to discuss his new book The Light of Asia: The Poem that Defined the Buddha (India Viking, November 2021).
“Following a tumultuous twenty months, readers across the globe are genuinely looking to reconnect on a deeper level,” said Dr. Nirmal Mattoo, IAAC Chairman. “The 2021 IAAC Literary Festival features writers who provide a raw glimpse into lives and personal points of view – both in their own experiences through memoirs and poetry as well as by introducing readers to vivid, relatable characters through which we can explore our shared humanity.”
The IAAC will also host a live, in-person Poetry Panel curated by Dr. Ravi Shankar featuring internationally-renowned poets: Arundhati Subramaniam, Purvi Shah and Ralph Nazareth as well as Srinivas Mandavilli, Nandana Dev Sen and Yuyutsu Sharma. Also, acclaimed feminist poet, Usha Akella, the author of six books of poetry, one chapbook and two musical dramas, will join the prestigious panel. She will offer remarks on her newest book, I Will Not Bear You Sons (Spinifex Press, March 2021).
Later in the week, actor, director, comedian and author, Kal Penn, will discuss his critically acclaimed memoir You Can’t Be Serious (Gallery Books, November 2021) on December 12th at 6:00 p.m. EST. All in-person events will be held at DAG, Fuller Building, 41 E 57th St Suite 708, New York, NY 10022.
Sudha Murty, Kate McGovern and Veera Hiranandani, will join moderators Namrata Tripathi and Rajani LaRocca for Children’s Literary Day, a unique look at stories that feature Indo-American experiences from the perspective of children and young adults, on Saturday, December 11, 2021.
Online events will be available on Facebook and YouTube; including Children’s Literary Day. There will also be an interactive Q&A portion during each event.
A full list of writers and featured works include:
Nonfiction and Memoirs:
Accidentally Funny (Hyperink, 2021) – Dan Nainan
Akhtari: The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar (HarperCollins India, April 2021) – Yatindra Mishra, translated to English from Hindi by Maneesha Taneja
Correctional: A Memoir (University of Wisconsin Press, October 2021) – Dr. Ravi Shankar
Home in the World: A Memoir (Liveright, January 2022) – Amartya Sen
My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future (Portfolio, September 2021) – Indra Nooyi
Nehru: The Debates that Defined India (Fourth Estate, November 2021) – Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain
On a Wing and a Prayer (Penguin Random House, October 2021) – Kushal Choksi*
You Can’t Be Serious (Gallery Books, November 2021) – Kal Penn*
Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-Maker Remembers (Om Books International, December 2021) – Suman Ghosh
The Light of Asia: The Poem that Defined the Buddha (India Viking, November 2021) – Jairam Ramesh with foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Fiction:
Hijab (S&S India, February 2020) – Guruprasad Kaginele, translated to English from Kannada by Pavan N. Rao
Seven (Dundurn Press, September 2020) – Farzana Doctor
Avasthe: A Novel (HarperCollins Publishers India, November 2020) – U.R. Anantmurthy, translated to English from Kannada by Tr. Narayan Hegde (recently translated from 1978 novel)
The City of Good Death (Restless Books, February 2021) – Priyanka Champaneri
Gold Diggers: A Novel (Penguin Press, April 2021) – Sanjena Sathian
How to Find What You're Not Looking For (Kokila, September 2021) – Veera Hiranandani (young adult)
Welcome Back, Maple Mehta-Cohen (Candlewick, October 2021) – Kate McGovern (young adult)
Books of Poetry:
Different Distance: A Renga (Milkweed Editions, December 2021) – Karthika Nair and Marilyn Hacker
Shreela Ray: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Unsung Masters Series, May 2021) – edited by Kazim Ali and Rohan Chhetri
Notable International Poets:
Arundhati Subramaniam*
Purvi Shah*
Ralph Nazareth*
Srinivas Mandavilli*
Nandana Dev Sen*
Usha Akella*
Yuyutsu Sharma*
Dr. Ravi Shankar*
*Denotes LIVE, in-person appearances on December 4 and December 12.
“Continuing the time-honored tradition of celebrating voices that have been shaped through Indian ethos and experience, this extraordinary collection of works spans the globe and offers true insight into what it means to dream without limits, embody compassion, overcome grief or rise above adversity,” said Rakesh Kaul, IAAC Vice Chairman. “We were honored to welcome Preethi Urs as our new Literary Festival Director to lead a team of curators to select the most noteworthy works from the past 24 months. Each of the 21 planned events promise to capture the curiosity and empathy of literary lovers, young and old.”
About Dr. Nirmal K. Mattoo:
Dr. Mattoo is the Chairman of the Indo American Arts Council. He is also the co-founder and owner of Atlantic Dialysis Management services, the largest private dialysis provider in New York State. Previously, he was the CEO of Wyckoff-Heights Medical Center and co-chairman of the Chief Medical Officer’s Council of the Columbia Presbyterian system. He is the President of the Mattoo Center of India Studies at State University of New York. He is also the co-editor of the book Ananya. A Portrait of India (Assn of Indians in America, 1998).
About Preethi Urs:
Originally from Bengaluru, Preethi Urs has lived in New York for over 30 years. She started her career in public relations, where she helped international companies connect with their American counterparts with a view to creating joint ventures and partnerships. After completing a masters degree in education from Bank Street College of Education, she taught kindergarten and first grade. She and her husband live in Manhattan, where their two children were born and raised. Preethi also holds a BA in English from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore University.
About Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC):
The IAAC supports all the artistic disciplines in classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. We work cooperatively with colleagues around the U.S. to broaden our collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. Our focus is to help artists and art organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists from India to exhibit, perform and produce their work here. The IAAC is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. For information, please visit www.iaac.us.
For IAAC
Suman Gollamudi
Executive Director and President
Indo-American Arts Council
suman.gn@iaac.us
*. *. *
Lit Fest Opening Day Poetry Reading
Dec 4, 2021, Saturday
Aicon Gallery, 35 Great Jones Street, NY, NY 10012.
Lit Fest Closing Day
Dec. 12, 2021, Sunday
at DAG, Fuller Building, 41 E 57th St Suite 708, New York, NY 10022.
Indo-American Arts Council Hosts Literary Festival 2021 - New York City
Indo-American Arts Council Hosts Literary Festival 2021 - New York City - Part 2
IAAC Literary Festival 2021
Internationally-renowned poets: Arundhati Subramaniam, Purvi Shah, Ralph Nazareth, Srinivas Mandavilli, Nandana Dev Sen, Yuyutsu Sharma and Usha Akella curated by Dr. Ravi Shankar at the inaugural day of IAAC Literary Festival 2021
Author Dan Nainan in conversation with moderator Dharti Desai about his book Accidentally Funny
Author Amartya Sen in conversation with moderator John Makinson about his book Home in the World: A Memoir
Author Indra Nooyi in conversation with moderator Nitin Nohria about her book My Life in Full
Author Jairam Ramesh in conversation with moderator Vishakha Desai about his book The Light of Asia: The Poem that Defined The Buddha
Author Dr.Ravi Shankar in conversation with moderator Caleb Smith about his book Correctional A Memoir
Authors Karthika Nair and Marilyn Hacker in conversation with moderator Arundhathi Subramaniam about their book Different Distance: A Renga
Author Suman Ghosh in conversation with moderator Aseem Chhabra about his book Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-maker Remembers
Author Guruprasad Kaginele in conversation with moderator Professor S.N. Sridhar about his book Hijab
Author Farzana Doctor in conversation with moderator Veena Rao about her book Seven
Trisha Gupta in conversation with Professor Narayan Hegde about his recent translation of U.R. Ananthamurthy’s book - Avasthe: A Novel
Author Priyanka Champaneri in conversation with moderator Ranjani Murali about her book The City of Good Death
Author Sanjena Sathian in conversation with moderator Jafreen Uddin about her book Gold Diggers
Editors Rohan Chhetri and Kazim Ali in conversation with moderator Dr.Ravi Shankar about their book Shreela Ray: On the Life and Work of an American Master
Children’s Literature Day
Author Sudha Murty in conversation with IAAC Executive Director Suman Gollamudi about her book The Sage with Two Horns
Author Kate McGovern in conversation with moderator Rajani LaRocca about her book Welcome back Maple Mehta-Cohen
Author Veera Hiranandani in conversation with moderator Namrata Tripathi about her book How to Find What You're Not Looking For
Authors Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain in conversation with moderator IAAC Vice Chairman Rakesh Kaul about their book Nehru: The Debates that defined India
Author Yatindra Mishra in conversation with Anurag Harsh and special guests Amjad Ali Khan and Radhika Chopra, about his book Akhtari
Kal Penn is in conversation with producers and actresses Surina Jindal and Melanie Chandra at the closing of IAAC Literary Festival 2021
LIVE IN PERSON December 4 at 2:30 PM
Aicon Gallery, 35 Great Jones Street, NY, NY 10012.
W1 646 205 2710, M1 646 228 7056
Author Kushal Choksi in conversation with moderator Dr. Nirmal Mattoo about his book On a Wing and a Prayer
LIVE IN PERSON December 4 at 3.45 PM
Aicon Gallery, 35 Great Jones Street, NY, NY 10012.
W1 646 205 2710, M1 646 228 7056
Author Dan Nainan in conversation with moderator Dharti Desai about his book Accidentally Funny
LIVE IN PERSON December 4 at 5.00 pm
Aicon Gallery, 35 Great Jones Street, NY, NY 10012.
W1 646 205 2710, M1 646 228 7056
Poetry Panel
Purvi Shah
Ralph Nazareth
Arundhati Subramaniam
Dec 5, 2021, Sunday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Amartya Sen in conversation with moderator John Makinson about his book Home in the World: A Memoir
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Indra Nooyi in conversation with moderator Nitin Nohria about her book My Life in Full
Dec 6, 2021, Monday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Jairam Ramesh in conversation with moderator Vishakha Desai about his book The Light of Asia
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Dr.Ravi Shankar in conversation with moderator Caleb Smith about his book Correctional A Memoir
Dec 7, 2021, Tuesday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Authors Karthika Nair and Marilyn Hacker in conversation with moderator Arundhathi Subramaniam about their book Different Distance: A Renga
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Suman Ghosh in conversation with moderator Aseem Chhabra about his book Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-maker Remembers
Dec 8, 2021, Wednesday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Guruprasad Kaginele/Pavan Rao in conversation with moderator Professor S.N. Sridhar about his book Hijab
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Farzana Doctor in conversation with moderator Veena Rao about her book Seven
Dec 9, 2021, Thursday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Ananthamurthy/Narayan Hegde in conversation with moderator Trisha Gupta about his book Avasthe: A Novel
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Priyanka Champaneri in conversation with moderator Ranjani Murali about her book The City of Good Death
Dec 10, 2021, Friday
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Sanjena Sathian in conversation with moderator Jafreen Uddin about her book Gold Diggers
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Editors Rohan Chhetri and Kazim Ali in conversation with moderator Dr.Ravi Shankar about their book Shreela Ray: On the Life and Work of an American Master
Dec 11, 2021, Saturday
'Children’s Literature Day' for Dec 11
11:00 AM EST/9:30 PM IST
Author Sudha Murty in conversation about her book The Sage with Two Horns
7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Author Kate McGovern in conversation with moderator Rajani LaRocca about her book Welcome back Maple Mehta-Cohen
9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Author Veera Hiranandani in conversation with moderator Namrata Tripathi about her book How to Find What You're Not Looking For
Dec 12, 2021, Sunday
11:00 AM EST/9:30 PM IST
Author Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain in conversation with moderator Rakesh Kaul about their book Nehru: The Debates that defined India
12:30 PM EST/11:00 PM IST
Author Yatindra Mishra in conversation with Anurag Harsh and special guests Amjad Ali Khan and Radhika Chopra,about his book Akhtari
LIVE IN PERSON December 12 at 6:00 PM DAG, Fuller Building, 41 E 57th St Suite 708, New York, NY 10022.
Author Kal Penn in conversation with Surina Jindal and Melanie Chandra about his new book You Can't Be Serious
Curators
Jennifer Acker
Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World. Her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in Amazon Original Stories,... Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, The Yale Review, and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and organizes LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband.jenniferacker.com
Pushcart prize winning poet, translator and professor Ravi Shankar has published, edited or has forthcoming over fifteen books, including the Muse India award-winning translations of 9th century Tamil poet/saint, Andal, 'The Autobiography of a Goddess' (Zubaan/University of Chicago), 'The Golden Shovel: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks" (University of Arkansas) and 'The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017' (Recent Works Press).... Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he co-edited W.W. Norton's "Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond" and he founded one of the world's oldest electronic journals of the arts, Drunken Boat. He has taught and performed around the world and currently holds a research fellowship from the University of Sydney. His collaborative chapbook, 'A Field Guide to Southern China' written with T.S. Eliot Prize winner George Szirtes was just published in the UK August 2019 by Eyewear Publishing.
Narayan Hegde is Emeritus Professor of English at SUNY College at Old Westbury, where he taught English, Indian, and World Literatures. As a Senior Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies, he has translated several works of Kannada literature, ...including Stallion of the Sun and Other Stories by U. R. Ananthamurthy, Annayya's Anthropology by A. K. Ramanujan, and a 19th-century drama, The Marriage Farce of Iggappa Hegade. He is a recipient of the Katha Translation Award. Translation of Avasthe, a Kannada novel by the eminent Indian author, U.R.Ananthamurthy, was recently published by HarperCollins India. He is currently part of a team translating the 15th century Kannada epic Kumaravyasa Bharatha for publication by Harvard University Press in its Murty Classical Library of India series.
Professor S.N. Sridhar is SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Professor of Linguistics and India Studies, and Director of the Mattoo Center for India Studies at Stony Brook University, where he has been teaching since 1980.He graduated from Central College, Bangalore University, with a B.A. (Honors) and M.A. in English literature and linguistics with a first class and the first rank for the University. ...He did a Ph.D. in Linguistics with distinction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Professor S.N. Sridhar is an internationally recognized expert on multilingualism, Indian linguistics, World Englishes, and Kannada. His research concerns many areas, including: bilingualism (language contact and convergence); sociolinguistics of code-switching and code-mixing, language modernization, language spread; second language acquisition in non-native settings; Indian English and other World Englishes; reference grammar of Kannada (syntax, morphology, social dimensions); psycholinguistics (sentence production, code-mixing), applied linguistics (scope and relation to linguistic theory), historical linguistics (acquisition of subjecthood, contact-induced language change), and history of linguistics (Indian grammatical tradition). Currently, he is working on a monograph on multilingualism in India and another on the classic Kannada poet Kumara Vyasa and another on multilingualism in India. He heads an international consortium of scholars translating the Kannada classic Mahabharata by Kumaravyasa into English, to be published in three volumes in the Murthy Classical Library by Harvard University.
Professor S.N. Sridhar is author of three books: Kannada: Descriptive Grammar (Routledge, 1990 and Manohar 2001), Cognition and Sentence Production: A Cross-Linguistic Study (Springer Verlag, 1986), and India Kannada (Contemporary Kannada, Kannada University, 1995 and Abhinava, 2009); co-editor of two reference volumes ( Ananya: A Portrait of India (AIA, 1997), and Language in South Asia (Cambridge, 2008) and seven special issues of journals, and author of numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries.
Professor S.N. Sridhar’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. He was designated Senior/Superior Scholar in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a plenary or keynote speaker at many international conferences, including the Linguistic Society of India in 2013, and member of editorial board of journals, evaluator of publication projects and academic programs. He was conferred the select faculty rank of Distinguished Service Professor by the State University of New York in 2011. He is Vice-President and President Elect of the International Association of World Englishes.
Professor S.N. Sridhar is a co-founder of South Asian Languages Analysis (SALA) and organized its international conferences at Stony Brook in 1983 and 2004. He has also organized or co-organized conferences on Dravidian Linguistics, India Studies, the Teaching of Linguistics, and Teaching of Asian Languages.
Professor S.N. Sridhar is the founding Director of the Center for India Studies at Stony Brook, which has evolved over two decades into a national model of Indian American community-public university partnership in developing India Studies. He also served as the Founding Chair of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies from 2002-2008.Professor S.N. Sridhar is also active in the community. He founded the India Society of Stony Brook in 1989 and served as its first President until 1994. He has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Indians in America and of the American Institute of Indian Studies and the Board of Governors of the Indo-American Arts Council, New York.He lives in Stony Brook with his wife and collaborator, Professor Kamal (Meena) Sridhar.
SESSION – 04 DECEMBER 2021 LIVE IN PERSON- at 2:30 PM
Kushal Choksi
Book Talk: On a Wing and a Prayer
Kushal Choksi is an entrepreneur, a first-time author and a former Wall Street trader. ... After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, he started his career at Goldman Sachs in New York City. Narrowly escaping death during the 9/11 attacks, he realized that life was too short to be playing safe. This got him started down the path of an eventful entrepreneurial journey, comprising of one failed venture and two successful acquisitions of an investment fund as well as a tech start-up. He currently runs Elements Truffles, an artisanal chocolate company that he co-founded with his wife.
Dr. Mattoo is the Chairman of the Indo American Arts Council. He is also the co-founder and owner of Atlantic Dialysis ... Management services, the largest private dialysis provider in New York State. Previously, he was the CEO of Wyckoff-Heights Medical Center and co-chairman of the Chief Medical Officer’s Council of the Columbia Presbyterian system. He is the President of the Mattoo Center of India Studies at State University of New York. He is also the Co Editor of the book Ananya. A Portrait of India.
I was a senior engineer with Intel Corporation. My job was to travel the world with the company's senior executives,
... doing technical demonstrations on stage at events, and I was incredibly nervous about speaking on stage. I took a comedy class to get over the fear, and the comedy kind of took off. Since leaving Intel to pursue comedy full-time, I have performed at two Democratic National Conventions, at a TED Conference, at several presidential inaugural galas, for President Obama, Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton, Steve Wozniak, Arianna Huffington and for many similar luminaries. Also, I appeared in an Apple 'Get a Mac' commercial and recently did voiceover work for the animated series 'Family Guy'. I have performed in almost every state as well as in 27 foreign countries. My life is like that of George Clooney in 'Up in the Air', just without the sex LOL.
As the founder and CEO of FineWinesnMore (FWM), a Mumbai-based wholesaler and direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing company ... with over 25,000 customers, Desai played an integral role in the development and implementation of the interactive platform. Earning her recognition as both a pioneer of DTC channel sales and marketing and as an industry leader in innovation and education for wine consumers, Desai is also the founder and CEO of MOS India Pvt. Ltd., a state-of-the-art print production company with clients in over 10 countries.
In addition, Desai provides go-to-market and scale-up consultation to growth stage companies in the USA and India. She is an annual jury member of the International Echo Awards of The Association of National Advertisers. She is also an early-stage investor with Bodhi Capital and Plum Alley Investments.
Through her versatile leadership and advisory roles with The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global not-for-profit organization “for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs”, she champions young and women entrepreneurs globally. As a single mom and a passionate advocate for education, she co-founded her family’s nonprofit Animedh Charitable Trust (ACT) in 2012. ACT provides basic and higher education for women and girls from impoverished and under-represented communities and empowers them to be economically independent.
Arundhathi Subramaniam is a leading Indian poet and author of thirteen books of poetry and prose. ... Her most recent work, Love Without a Story (Bloodaxe Books, 2020) has been described as 'a breathtaking and heartwarming book' (Poetry Book Society Bulletin) and as a book by 'a unique poet of our times... in a league all by herself' (Indian Literature). Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2015, she is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (India’s national academy of letters), the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Il Ceppo Award in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga Award, the Zee Women's Award for Literature, and the Homi Bhabha and Charles Wallace fellowships, among others. She has been widely anthologized and translated into several languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Italian, German, Spanish and French. Other works include Women Who Wear Only Themselves, a recent book of conversations with female spiritual travelers; The Book of Buddha; the acclaimed Penguin anthology of sacred poetry, Eating God, and the bestselling Penguin biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. She has worked over the years as critic and performing arts curator with Bombay’s National Centre for the Performing Arts. She has also been the founder editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web, an online journal grew into a significant archive of contemporary Indian poetry. She divides her time between Bombay, Madras and New York. read more >
Ralph Nazareth
Ralph Nazareth is a poet, teacher, and publisher. Author of four books of poems—Ferrying Secrets (2005); ...Cristal: Poemas Selectos (2015); Between Us the Long Road (2017); & Dropping Death with Duane Esposito (2018)—his poetry and prose have appeared in books, magazines, and journals here and abroad, including Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry and Multilingual Anthology: The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2014. His poetry has been heard and read at venues in El Salvador, Ecuador, Colombia, Palestine, India, and other countries. He has taught for over four decades in schools, colleges, universities and maximum-security prisons in the U.S. For the last sixteen years, he has led a weekly group of poets at Curley’s Diner in Stamford. The Managing Editor of Yuganta Press, he currently serves as chair of the advisory committee of GraceWorks, Inc., an international nonprofit (www.graceworksforall.org). He lives in Stamford, CT. read more >
Purvi Shah
Purvi Shah’s favorite art practices are her sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice. ... She won the inaugural SONY South Asian Social Service Excellence Award for her leadership fighting violence against women. Her new book, Miracle Marks, explores women, the sacred, and gender & racial equity.
Purvi Shah’s debut prize-winning book, Terrain Tracks, plumbs migration and belonging. Her work has been taught in universities and featured on TV, radio, and websites.
She has led creative expression workshops with survivors (including the 2014 SAWCC Movement to Power program) and enabled survivor self-expression, connection to resources, and charting surviving to thriving (such as Sakhi’s 2004 storytelling film What Creates Change?). During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, with Kundiman, she directed Together We Are New York, a community-based poetry project highlighting Asian American voices.
With artist Anjali Deshmukh, she creates interactive art at https://circlefor.com/. Their participatory project, Missed Fortunes, documented experiences, celebrations, and pandemic rituals to create poetry and visual art, connection, and a community archive for healing. You can see and purchase the art prints at https://tiny.one/circlefor. Find more @PurviPoets. read more >
Srinivas (Srini) Mandavilli
Srinivas (Srini) Mandavilli, who was born in India, is a Senior Attending Pathologist at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, CT. ... He trained in oncologic pathology and cytopathology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and has a subspecialty expertise in gynecologic pathology and neuropathology. He is also keenly interested and active in teaching residents and fellows, and more recently as coordinator of an international pathology conference in India. In addition to his research publications in pathology, he has contributed to chapters in books on pathology, and recently published an immunohistochemistry app, SoS IHC, for pathologists. He has had poems published in in Rattle, The Raven’s Perch, Indolent Books, Verse Virtual, CT River Review, Caduceus, Long River Run, Theodate, JAMA, Freshwater, Drunken Boat, and SN Review. He has published a chapbook, Gods in the Foyer (Antrim Books) and lives in West Hartford. read more >
Nandana Dev Sen
A writer, child-rights activist, and an award-winning actor, Nandana Dev Sen is the author of six children’s books, ... translated into more than 15 languages globally. She grew up in India, England and America, and has starred in 20 feature films from four continents, and in multiple languages. Nandana‘s interactive workshops have been loved by more than 30,000 young people across the world.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University (where she won the John Harvard Scholarship and Elizabeth Agassiz Prize each year) and studying filmmaking at the USC School of Cinema-Television, Nandana worked as a book editor, a screenwriter, an advocate for child protection, and as Princess Jasmine in Disneyland. The winner of the Last Girl Champion Award as well as several Best Actress awards, Nandana has served on the jury of multiple child-protection commissions, global film festivals and international literary prizes (including the DSC Prize). As an advocate and ambassador, she has worked with UNICEF, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Operation Smile, RAHI, and Apne Aap International, to fight against child abuse and to end human trafficking.
Nandana Dev Sen is Child Protection Ambassador, Save the Children India.
Usha Akella has authored six books of poetry, one chapbook, and scripted/produced two musical dramas. Her newest book, I will not bear you sons (2021) is published by noted feminist press Spinifex Press, Australia with a blurb by Anne Waldman. ... She earned an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. In March 2021, she was one of four women poets to feature in a poetry event for the Mexican embassy in Delhi. She read with a group of eminent South Asian Diaspora poets at the House of Lords in June 2016. She was selected as a Creative Ambassador for the City of Austin for 2019 & 2015.
The Waiting was published by Sahitya Akademi, Delhi (India’s highest Literary authority) in 2019 followed by the Mantis Editores, Mexico edition in Spanish translated by Elsa Cross. Her work has been included in the Harper Collins, India Anthology of English Poets. She is the founder of Matwaala (www.matwaala.com) and hosts www.the-pov.com, an interview and conversations website. She has taught creative writing workshops for Transformation Language Arts Network (TLAN), International Women’s Writers Guild (IWWG), New York Public Library (NYPL), Writers League of Texas (WLT), Logos collective and privately from her home to adult and youth.
She has been published in numerous Literary journals world over with her poetry translated in many languages. Shas been invited to prestigious international poetry festivals in JLF-Houston, Romania, Canada, Slovakia, Nicaragua, Macedonia, Colombia, Slovenia, IACC- NYC, HLF and Kolkata book fair, India etc. She has won literary prizes such as the Poetry Society of India 2019 Commendation prize, Nazim Hikmet award, Open Road Review Prize and Egan Memorial Prize and earned finalist status in a few US based contests. She has been invited as a keynote speaker to TLAN’s Power of Words conference 2019 and the Turkish Center in Austin. She’s been interviewed widely. She has written a few quixotic nonfiction prose pieces published in The Statesman, Kolkata and India Currents. Matwaala is the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US has that she co-directs with Pramila Venkateswaran. The festival’s mission is to increase the visibility of South Asian poets in the mainstream. The 2021-‘22 festival features readings by poets of color: African American, Native American, Mexican, South/Central American, Asian American and Dalit poets. She was also the founder of the Poetry Caravan in New York and Austin which takes poetry readings to the disadvantaged in women’s shelters, senior homes, hospitals. Several hundreds of readings have reached these venues via this medium. The City of Austin proclaimed January 7th as Poetry Caravan Day.
Her work ranges from feminist/activist to Spiritual and all things in-between. read more >
Yuyutsu RD Sharma
Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, ... Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu Ram Dass Sharma is a world renowned Himalayan poet and translator.
He has published ten poetry collections including, The Second Buddha Walk, A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, Nepal Trilogy, Space Cake, Amsterdam and Annapurna Poems. Three books of his poetry, Poemes de l’ Himalayas (L’Harmattan, Paris), Poemas de Los Himalayas (Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain) and Jezero Fewa & Konj (Sodobnost International) have appeared in French, Spanish and Slovenian respectively. In addition, Eternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma has also appeared.
He has held workshops in creative writing and translation at Queen's University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California, Beijing Open University, New York University, New York and Columbia University, New York.
Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world and conducts Creative Writing workshops at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home.
Currently, Yuyutsu Sharma is a visiting poet at Columbia University, New York and edits Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing. read more >
SESSION – 05 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Amartya Sen
Book Talk: Home in the World: A Memoir
Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and ... was until 2004 the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Earlier on he was Professor of Economics at Jadavpur University Calcutta, the Delhi School of Economics, and the London School of Economics, and Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University.
Amartya Sen has served as President of the Econometric Society, the American Economic Association, the Indian Economic Association, and the International Economic Association. He was formerly Honorary President of OXFAM and is now its Honorary Advisor. His research has ranged over social choice theory, economic theory, ethics and political philosophy, welfare economics, theory of measurement, decision theory, development economics, public health, and gender studies. Amartya Sen’s books have been translated into more than forty languages, and include Choice of Techniques (1960), Growth Economics (1970), Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970), On Economic Inequality (1973, 1997); Poverty and Famines (1981); Utilitarianism and Beyond (jointly with Bernard Williams, 1982); Choice, Welfare and Measurement (1982), Commodities and Capabilities (1985), The Standard of Living (1987), On Ethics and Economics (1987); Hunger and Public Action (jointly with Jean Drèze, 1989); Inequality Re-examined (1992); The Quality of Life (jointly with Martha Nussbaum, 1993); Development as Freedom (1999); Rationality and Freedom (2002); The Argumentative Indian (2005); Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (2006), The Idea of Justice (2009), An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions (jointly with Jean Drèze, 2013), and The Country of First Boys (2015).
Amartya Sen’s awards include Bharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur (France); the National Humanities Medal (USA); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); Honorary Companion of Honour (UK); the Aztec Eagle (Mexico); the Edinburgh Medal (UK); the George Marshall Award (USA); the Eisenhower Medal (USA); and the Nobel Prize in Economics.
John Makinson is currently Chair of the Advisory Board of the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, and ... a member of the board of Harvard University Press. From 2013 until the end of 2016 John was Chairman of Penguin Random House, the world’s largest consumer book publisher. He was Chairman and Chief Executive of Penguin Group between 2002 and 2013.
John began his career as a journalist first at Reuters and then at the Financial Times, where he edited the influential Lex Column. Following a spell in the United States with Saatchi & Saatchi, he returned to the UK to establish Makinson Cowell, an independent consultancy. John returned to the FT in 1994 as the newpaper’s Managing Director and two years later was appointed Financial Director of Pearson, the FT’s parent. John has chaired a number of organisations in the not-for-profit sector, including IPPR, the UK’s leading progressive think tank, IRC UK, a humanitarian organisation, Comic Relief, USA, and the National Theatre. He divides his time between New York and London.
SESSION – 05 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Indra Nooyi
Book Talk: My Life in Full
Indra Nooyi was CEO and Chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019. She is a highly sought-after advisor ... to business and governments. At PepsiCo, she was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, the company’s mission to deliver sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting its environmental footprint, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves. She has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour, the U.S. State Department’s award for Outstanding American by Choice, and 15 honorary degrees. Her memoir, My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future, is also a call-to-action on how society can blend work and family.
Nitin Nohria served as the tenth dean of Harvard Business School from 2010-2020. ... He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit. His intellectual interests center on human motivation, leadership, corporate transformation and accountability, and sustainable economic and human performance. He is co-author or co-editor of 16 books. Nohria is also the author of over 50 journal articles, book chapters, cases, working papers, and notes. He sits on the Board of Directors of Bridgespan and Rakuten Medical, as well as on the Board of Trustees of Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, he serves as a senior advisor to BDT Capital Partners, Piramal Enterprises, and Tata Sons (where he served on the Board of Directors for 6 years). He is also on the Advisory Board of Akshaya Patra and ShopX, and is a strategic advisor to the Board of Anheuser-Busch InBev and Focusing Capital on the Long Term Global (FCLTGlobal). He has been interviewed by ABC, CNN, and NPR, and cited in Business Week, The Economist, Financial Times, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Prior to joining the Harvard Business School faculty, Nohria received his Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (which honored him as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2007).
SESSION – 06 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Jairam Ramesh
Book Talk: The Light of Asia
Jairam Ramesh is presently a Member of Parliament and Chairman of Parliament's Standing Committee on Science and Technology, ... Environment, Forests and Climate Change. He has been Union Minister between 2006 and 2014 and held several key portfolios. He has played a widely acknowledged key role in global climate change negotiations. He is also a noted author whose works have also been translated into several Indian languages. One of his books was translated into Chinese as well. His 2019 book A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon won the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Award for Non-Fiction from the New India Foundation. His biographies of Indira Gandhi and P.N.Haksar have drawn wide acclaim and his most book is The Light of Asia: The Poem that defined the Buddha.
Dr. Vishakha Desai is Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University, ... Chair of the Committee on Global Thought and Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at the School of International and Public Affairs.
Dr. Desai served as President and CEO of the Asia Society, a global organization dedicated to strengthening partnerships among peoples of Asia and the U.S. from 2004 through 2012. As President, she set the direction for the Society’s diverse sets of programs ranging from policy initiatives and national educational programs to ground breaking exhibitions and performing arts programs throughout its network of eleven offices in the U.S. and Asia. Under her leadership the society expanded the scope and scale of its activities with the opening of new offices in India and Korea, a new center of U.S.–China Relations, and inauguration of two new architecturally distinguished facilities in Hong Kong and Houston. She also developed several signature initiatives with a focus on young people: internationally themed public high schools in the U.S. and a major young leaders program, Asia 21, that brings together leaders under the age of 30 from across Asia and the U.S. Prior to becoming President, Dr. Desai held various senior positions at the Asia Society from 1990 to 2004.
SESSION – 06 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Dr.Ravi Shankar
Book Talk: Correctional A Memoir
DR. RAVI SHANKAR is a Pushcart prize-winning poet, translator and professor who has published 15 books, ...including the Muse India award-winning translations Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess and The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he co-edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He has taught and performed around the world and appeared in print, radio and TV in such venues as The New York Times, NPR, BBC and the PBS Newshour. He has won awards to the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, fellowships from the Rhode Island and Connecticut Counsel on the Arts, founded one of the oldest electronic journals of the arts Drunken Boat, is Chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (APWT) and recently finished his PhD from the University of Sydney. His memoir “Correctional” is forthcoming in 2021 with University of Wisconsin Press.
Caleb Smith is professor of English and American Studies at Yale University. He writes about American ... literature and culture, with special attention to cultural histories of discipline, violence, and conflicts over justice. Smith’s books include The Prison and the American Imagination (Yale University Press, 2009); The Oracle and the Curse (Harvard University Press, 2013); and the first published edition Austin Reed’s 1858 prison memoir, The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict (Random House, 2016).
Smith has written about contemporary media and the arts for Avidly, Bomb Magazine, The Immanent Frame, Paper Monument, Yale Review, and other venues. He is a contributing editor at Los Angeles Review of Books and a co-editor of No Crisis, a special series on the state of criticism in the twenty-first century.
SESSION – 07 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Karthika Nair
Book Talk: Different Distance: A Renga
Karthika Nair is the coauthor of A Different Distance. She is a poet, fabulist and librettist whose
... books include The Honey Hunter, illustrated by Joelle Jolivet. Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata, her reimagining of the foundational South Asian epic in multiple voices, won the 2015 Tate Literature Live Award for Book of the Year (Fiction), was shortlisted for the Atta Galatta Prize and highly commended in the 2016 Forward Prizes. Nair has scripted and coscripted performances for choreographers Akram Khan (DESH, Chotto Desh, and Until the Lions, adapted from her own book), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui & Damien Jalet (Babel 7.16), and Carlos Pons Guerra (Mariposa). She is the co-founder of Cherkaoui's Antwerp-based dance company, Eastman, and executive producer of several of his and Damien Jalet's works.
MARILYN HACKER is the author of fourteen books of poems, including Blazons and A Stranger’s Mirror (longlisted for the 2015 National Book Award), ... a collaborative book, Diaspo/Renga, written with Deema K. Shehabi, and an essay collection, Unauthorized Voices. Her eighteen translations of French and Francophone poets include Samira Negrouche’s The Olive Trees’ Jazz, Jean-Paul de Dadelsen’s That Light, All at Once,and Claire Malroux’s Daybreak. She is a former editor of the Kenyon Review, and of the French literary journal Siecle 21. She received the 2009 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for Marie Etienne's King of a Hundred Horsemen, the 2010 PEN Voelcker Award for her own work, and the international Argana Prize for Poetry from the Beit as-Sh’ir/ House of Poetry in Morocco in 2011. She lives in Paris
Arundhathi Subramaniam is a leading Indian poet and author of thirteen books of poetry and prose. ... Her most recent work, Love Without a Story (Bloodaxe Books, 2020) has been described as 'a breathtaking and heartwarming book' (Poetry Book Society Bulletin) and as a book by 'a unique poet of our times... in a league all by herself' (Indian Literature). Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2015, she is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (India’s national academy of letters), the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Il Ceppo Award in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga Award, the Zee Women's Award for Literature, and the Homi Bhabha and Charles Wallace fellowships, among others. She has been widely anthologized and translated into several languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Italian, German, Spanish and French. Other works include Women Who Wear Only Themselves, a recent book of conversations with female spiritual travelers; The Book of Buddha; the acclaimed Penguin anthology of sacred poetry, Eating God, and the bestselling Penguin biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life. She has worked over the years as critic and performing arts curator with Bombay’s National Centre for the Performing Arts. She has also been the founder editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web, an online journal grew into a significant archive of contemporary Indian poetry. She divides her time between Bombay, Madras and New York.
Book Talk: Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-maker Remembers
Suman Ghosh is a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University. He did his BSc with a major in economics from ... Presidency College, Calcutta. After that he obtained his master’s in economics from the Delhi School of Economics before joining Cornell in 1996, where he did his PhD in economics. He is a National Award-winning film-maker. Films directed by him include Podokkhep, Dwando, Nobel Chor, Shyamal Uncle Turns off the Lights, Kadambari, Peace Haven, Basu Poribar, Searching for Happiness and Aadhaar (forthcoming). He also directed the documentary on Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian. Despite performances that mesmerized the world for close to fifty years, Soumitra Chatterjee won his first National Award for Best Actor only in 2006. The film: Podokkhep. The director: Suman Ghosh. It marked the beginning of a professional relationship that resulted in some of the best films of the legendary actor’s final phase. And a personal bonding whereby the veteran thespian went on to become a friend, philosopher and guide to the young film-maker.
In Soumitra Chatterjee: A Film-maker Remembers, Suman Ghosh goes down memory lane to provide a fascinating insight into his interactions with the actor. From the time he first met Soumitra Chatterjee on the sets of Goutam Ghose’s Dekha, where Suman was an observer, to creating remarkable cinematic moments in their five films together, to engaging with the actor on numerous addas on myriad subjects, the author paints a remarkable portrait of a relationship.
How did Soumitra Chatterjee prepare for his role of an old man who becomes childlike in Podokkhep? What were his inputs that elevated the climaxes of Peace Haven and Basu Poribar? How did Soumitra Chatterjee and Mithun Chakraborty collaborate in Nobel Chor to overcome the problem the director faced with impending rain threatening to upset the day’s schedule? What was a typical adda session with the legend like? What triggered the bizarre idea around a film on death that both wanted to work on but which never materialized?
Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer in New York City who writes on a variety of topics, including arts, entertainment, ... social and political issues stories. Aseem has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Courier-Journal, Time Out, New York. He writes a weekly column for Mumbai Mirror a Mumbai based daily newspaper and also contributes regularly to two Indian-American outlets — India Abroad and Rediff.com, the leading news portal that originates from Mumbai. His by-lines have also appeared in India in Outlook, and the Indian editions of People and Cosmopolitan magazines.
Aseem has been interviewed on film and popular culture by several media outlets, including ABC’s Good Morning America and Nightline, National Public Radio, CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News.
Aseem has been also involved in programming South Asian films for a number of film festivals in the US including the MIAAC Film Festival in New York City.
SESSION – 08 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Guruprasad Kaginele
Book Talk: Hijab
A doctor by profession, Guruprasad Kaginele has been a prominent voice in contemporary Kannada literature. ... He has published three short story collections, three novels, and two essay collections. He has also been the editor for two books published by the US based ‘Kannada Saahithya Ranga’. His short stories have been translated into Telugu, Konkani, Malayalam and English. Hijab (first published in 2017) received both popular and critical acclaim, including the 2017 Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award. Kaginele lives in Rochester, Minnesota with his family.
Pavan N. Rao is an engineer based in Wisconsin, US, with broad interests in Kannada and English Literature. ... He has translated many Kannada stories to English, His translation of Kannada short stories from Jayanth Kaikini’s award-winning book, Amritha Balli Kashaya, was published in the collection, Dots and Lines. He has also translated Poornachandra Tejaswi’s Tabarana Kathe (unpublished) and Guruprasad Kaginele’s Nobody’s Business (published in the anthology, A Little Taste of Kannada, published by Kannada Sahithya Ranga, USA). Pavan is a leader in the literary and arts activities of the Kannada community in the city of Milwaukee, where he lives with his family.
Professor S.N. Sridhar is SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, Professor of Linguistics and India Studies, ... and Director of the Mattoo Center for India Studies at Stony Brook University, where he has been teaching since 1980.He graduated from Central College, Bangalore University, with a B.A. (Honors) and M.A. in English literature and linguistics with a first class and the first rank for the University. He did a Ph.D. in Linguistics with distinction from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.Professor S.N. Sridhar is an internationally recognized expert on multilingualism, Indian linguistics, World Englishes, and Kannada. His research concerns many areas, including: bilingualism (language contact and convergence); sociolinguistics of code-switching and code-mixing, language modernization, language spread; second language acquisition in non-native settings; Indian English and other World Englishes; reference grammar of Kannada (syntax, morphology, social dimensions); psycholinguistics (sentence production, code-mixing), applied linguistics (scope and relation to linguistic theory), historical linguistics (acquisition of subjecthood, contact-induced language change), and history of linguistics (Indian grammatical tradition). Currently, he is working on a monograph on multilingualism in India and another on the classic Kannada poet Kumara Vyasa and another on multilingualism in India. He heads an international consortium of scholars translating the Kannada classic Mahabharata by Kumaravyasa into English, to be published in three volumes in the Murthy Classical Library by Harvard University.
SESSION – 08 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Farzana Doctor
Book Talk: Seven
Farzana Doctor is the Tkaronto-based author of four novels: Stealing Nasreen, Six Metres of Pavement, All Inclusive, and Seven. ... Seven was chosen for many 2020 Best Book lists and shortlisted for the Trillium and Evergreen Awards. Her poetry collection, You Still Look The Same, will be released in May 2022.
Farzana is also the Maasi behind Dear Maasi, a new sex and relationships column for FGM/C survivors. She is also an activist and part-time psychotherapist.
Veena Rao is an award-winning journalist and author. Purple Lotus, her recently released debut novel, is a 2021 Georgia Author of the Year finalist, ... a 2021 American Fiction Award winner, and an award-winning finalist in the multicultural and women’s fiction categories of the 2021 International Book Awards. She is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of NRI Pulse, an Atlanta-based news publication. She has been recognized by The Limca Book of Records (the Indian version of the Guinness Book of Records) as the first Indian woman to edit and publish a newspaper outside India. When she is not writing or meeting press deadlines, you will find her meditating or photographing the flora and fauna on her wooded walk route.
SESSION – 09 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Ananthamurthy
Book Talk: Avasthe: A Novel
UR Ananthamurthy (1932-2014) is one of India's greatest literary figures and public intellectuals.
... His publications include novels, short stories, poetry, translations and essays in literary and cultural criticism. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan and the Jnanpith Award. Narayan Hegde is a translator and Emeritus Professor of English at SUNY College, Old Westbury. He is a recipient of the Katha Translation Award and an NEA Literature Fellowship.
Narayan Hegde is Emeritus Professor of English at SUNY College at Old Westbury, where he taught English, Indian, and World Literatures. As a Senior Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies, he has translated several works of Kannada literature, ... including Stallion of the Sun and Other Stories by U. R. Ananthamurthy, Annayya's Anthropology by A. K. Ramanujan, and a 19th-century drama, The Marriage Farce of Iggappa Hegade. He is a recipient of the Katha Translation Award. Translation of Avasthe, a Kannada novel by the eminent Indian author, U.R.Ananthamurthy, was recently published by HarperCollins India. He is currently part of a team translating the 15th century Kannada epic Kumaravyasa Bharatha for publication by Harvard University Press in its Murty Classical Library of India series.
Prof. Trisha Gupta is an independent writer and critic with over fourteen years of experience in the media. ... After full-time stints at Time Out Delhi, Tehelka and the literary journal Biblio, she turned freelance in 2010. She has helped launch a city magazine, copy-edited senior academics and first-time fiction-writers, and been Associate Editor of the bilingual literary journal Pratilipi.in. She has been a columnist for the Sunday Guardian, the Hindu Business Line and The Voice of Fashion. For the last seven years, she has written a weekly column on cinema for the Mumbai Mirror (now called TOI Plus in its digital avatar). She writes for a wide range of publications, including Scroll, The Caravan, Mint Lounge, India Today and Nat Geo Traveller, among many others. Her body of work includes reviews, features, op-eds, interviews, profiles and critical essays, and ranges from longform writing to short pieces. While closely following developments in cinema and literature, she also writes about theatre, photography, art, architecture, heritage and habitat conservation, and the class-, caste- and gender-based politics of urban life in India. Her academic grounding is in history and socio-cultural anthropology. After a B.A. (Hons.) in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, she received an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Cambridge, followed by an M.Phil in anthropology from Columbia University in 2008. Her first book (non-fiction) will be published by Amazon Westland in 2022. As an Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Journalism and Communication, she teaches writing courses, as well as courses drawing on her varied interests in culture and society.
SESSION – 09 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Priyanka Champaneri
Book Talk: City of Good Death
Priyanka Champaneri received her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and has been a fellow at ... the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts numerous times. Her debut novel, The City of Good Death, received the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and was shortlisted for the 2021 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Ranjani Murali is the author of two books of poetry, Blind Screens (Almost Island, 2017) ... and Clearly You Are ESL (The "Great" Indian Poetry Collective, 2020). The first book won the Prabha Khaitan Woman's Voice Award in 2019. Murali is the recipient of the 2014 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Fine Arts Works Center.
SESSION – 10 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Sanjena Sathian
Book Talk: Gold Diggers
A Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, Sanjena Sathian is a 2019 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has worked as a reporter ... in Mumbai and San Francisco, with nonfiction bylines for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Washington Post, Vox, TIME, and more. Her award-winning short fiction has been published in The Atlantic, Conjunctions, Boulevard, Joyland, Salt Hill, and The Masters Review. Gold Diggers is her first novel.
JAFREEN UDDIN was appointed EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the AAWW in January 2020. She is the first woman to lead the organization since its founding in 1991. ... With over a decade of experience working in the public sector, she specializes in communications, education, and fundraising. She most recently served as Deputy Director of Development for Special Events with PEN America, managing a high-level portfolio of events and cultivation activities. Prior to joining PEN America, she helped oversee Executive Education as an Assistant Director with NYU’s Stern School of Business, developing and coordinating both degree and non-degree programming for cohorts of senior-level executives. She began her career with a nearly-eight-year stint at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she helped create the infrastructure for the public programming calendar of events, and spent nearly three years managing an online Book Salon for Aslan Media, spotlighting writers and artists from the greater Middle East/South Asia region. She regularly volunteers her time with a number of literary and social change organizations. She previously served as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for Laal NYC, an organization supporting Bangladeshi women in the Bronx, and currently serves as Chair of the Adult Internship Committee for We Need Diverse Books and as a Literary Council Member for the Brooklyn Book Festival. She received her B.A. in political economics from Barnard College, Columbia University, and her M.A. in global history from NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
SESSION – 10 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Rohan Chhetri
Book Talk: Shreela Ray: On the Life and Work of an American Master ; Lost, Hurt or in Transit Beautiful
Rohan Chhetri is a writer and translator. ...He is the author of SLOW STARTLE (Winner of the Emerging Poets Prize 2015), and the Kundiman prize-winning LOST, HURT, OR IN TRANSIT BEAUTIFUL (Tupelo Press/ HarperCollinsIN, 2021). He has also co-edited SHREELA RAY: ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF AN AMERICAN MASTER (Unsung Masters Series, 2021) along with Kazim Ali. A recipient of a 2021 PEN/Heim Grant for translation, his poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Revue Europe, AGNI, and have been translated into Greek and French.
Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. ... His books encompass multiple genres, including the volumes of poetry The Voice of Sheila Chandra (Alice James Books, 2020), Inquisition (Wesleyan University Press, 2018) All One’s Blue (HarperCollins India, 2016) Sky Ward (Wesleyan University Press, 2012) winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Fortieth Day (BOA Editions, 2008); The Far Mosque (Alice James Books, 2005) winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; and the cross-genre texts Bright Felon (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) and Wind Instrument (Spork Press, 2014). His most recent book is Northern Light: Power, Land and the Memory of Water (Milkweed Editions, 2021), which Literary Hub called “A balm for the soul." His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet (Kaya Press, 2017) and among his books of essays are the hybrid memoir Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies (Tupelo Press, 2018) and Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice (Tupelo Press, 2011). He is also an accomplished translator of Marguerite Duras, Sohrab Sepehri, Ananda Devi, Mahmoud Chokrollahi and others, and an editor of several anthologies and books of criticism.
DR. RAVI SHANKAR is a Pushcart prize-winning poet, translator and professor who has published 15 books, ... including the Muse India award-winning translations Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess and The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he co-edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He has taught and performed around the world and appeared in print, radio and TV in such venues as The New York Times, NPR, BBC and the PBS Newshour. He has won awards to the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, fellowships from the Rhode Island and Connecticut Counsel on the Arts, founded one of the oldest electronic journals of the arts Drunken Boat, is Chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (APWT) and recently finished his PhD from the University of Sydney. His memoir “Correctional” is forthcoming in 2021 with University of Wisconsin Press.
SESSION – 11 DECEMBER 2021 11:00 AM EST/9:30 PM IST
Sudha Murty
Book Talk: The Sage with Two Horns
Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon, Haveri District in North Karnataka. She completed her engineering from BVB College of Engineering, ... obtained 1st rank across all branches and received a gold medal from the Institute of Engineers. She did her ME from Indian Institute of Science with distinction and started her career as an engineer with TELCO (now Tata Motors). Today, she is the chairperson of Infosys Foundation and has handled 16 national disasters in the last 24 years. She studied in a Kannada-medium school till the 10th standard and fell in love with the language. Her strong ties to the language and its people led her to establish more than 60,000 libraries in Karnataka. She also strongly believes in creating awareness for social causes and has passionately traveled the world for this purpose including universities and gatherings in USA, Columbia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, England, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Tibet, and Singapore. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, her books have been translated into all major Indian languages and have sold over 30 lakh copies around the country. She is a columnist for English and Kannada dailies with 30 books and more than 200 titles to her credit – including novels, non-fiction, children’s books, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs. She has also received nine honorary doctorates. Some of her awards include the R.K. Narayan Award for Literature, the Padma Shri in 2006, the Attimabbe Award from the government of Karnataka for excellence in Kannada literature in 2011, the Lifetime Achievement by Crossword Book Awards in 2018 and more recently, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in 2020. She lives by the belief that “Generosity of a few is hope for millions”.
SESSION – 11 DECEMBER 2021 7:30 PM EST/6:00 AM IST
Kate McGovern
Book Talk: Welcome back Maple Mehta-Cohen
Kate McGovern is the author of the young adult novels Rules for 50/50 Chances and Fear of Missing Out, which received starred reviews. ... She has worked in schools and education nonprofits in Boston, London, and New York City, including at the Harlem Children’s Zone, where she served as a reading specialist and directed Shakespeare productions with middle-schoolers. Her daughter, Priya, is the original "Hin-Jew" kid that Maple is written for. Kate McGovern lives in an Indian-Jewish household in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rajani LaRocca was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area, where ... she practices medicine and writes award-winning books for young readers. She’s always been an omnivorous reader, and now she is an omnivorous writer of fiction and nonfiction, novels and picture books, prose and poetry. She finds inspiration in her family, her childhood, the natural world, math, science, and just about everywhere she looks. Learn more about Rajani and her books at www.RajaniLaRocca.com and Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She also cohosts the STEM Women in KidLit Podcast.
SESSION – 11 DECEMBER 2021 9:00 PM EST/7:30 AM IST
Veera Hiranandani
Book Talk: How to Find What You're Not Looking For
Veera Hiranandani is the author of several novels for young people and the chapter book series, ... Phoebe G. Green. Her most recent middle-grade novel, How to Find What You're Not Looking For, has received starred reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, is a Junior Library Guild selection, and was named a 2021 Best Children's Book of the year by Amazon, Brightly, and Imagination Soup. The Newbery Honor winning, The Night Diary, also received the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award, the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children's Literature, and several other honors and state reading list awards. Her first novel for young readers, The Whole Story of Half a Girl, was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and a South Asia Book Award Finalist. She earned her MFA in fiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she now teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College's Writing Institute and is working on her next novel.
Namrata Tripathi is Vice President and Publisher of Kokila, a new imprint at Penguin Young Readers ... dedicated to centering stories from the margins. She was born in the USSR, and lived in Afghanistan, India, Canada, Pakistan, Germany, and Poland before moving to New York in 1997. Prior to launching Kokila, Tripathi edited many critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling books, including Islandborn, for which illustrator Leo Espinosa received a Pura Belpré Honor; John Corey Whaley’s Printz Award-winning debut, Where Things Come Back; and Veera Hiranandani’s The Night Diary, a 2019 Newbery Honor winner.
SESSION – 12 DECEMBER 2021 11:00 AM EST/9:30 PM IST
Tripurdaman Singh
Book Talk: Nehru: The Debates that defined India
Tripurdaman Singh is a historian of South Asia and currently a British ... Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Born in Agra, India, Tripurdaman read politics and international studies at the University of Warwick, and subsequently earned an MPhil in modern South Asian studies and a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies, Universiteit Leiden and an Indian Council of Historical Research Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Agra.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the author of three books: Imperial Sovereignty and Local Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Sixteen Stormy Days (Penguin, 2020) and Nehru (William Collins, 2021). He lives in Cambridge, UK and Agra, India.
Adeel Hussain is an Assistant Professor of Legal and Political Theory at Leiden University ... and a Senior Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.
Author of the bestseller The Last Queen of Kashmir. Notably, after a several years hunt, he recovered the Tengapura Durga, ... the oldest continuously worshipped Durga in the world from the German government for India. He served as Co-Chairman of The Arts of Kashmir Exhibition at Asia Society NY. He is a noted speaker and writer on the arts, culture and history of Kashmir. He lives with his wife, Sushma, in New Jersey but ranges across Time and Space. He and Sushma have just returned from a mystical, out of the world, adbhuta experience of Lake Manasoravar and Mount Kailash, Tibet.
SESSION – 12 DECEMBER 2021 12:30 PM EST/11:00 PM IST
Yatindra Mishra
Book Talk: Akhtari
Yatindra Mishra is a celebrated Poet, Author and Music and Cinema Scholar. ... He
has four collections of Hindi poetry to his credit- Yada-Kada, Ayodhya Tatha Anya Kavitayein, Dyorhi Par Aalaap and Vibhas. He has also written about the life and work of Thumri singer Girija Devi, danseuse Sonal Mansingh and Shehnai Maestro Bismillah Khan. Translation of his writings Girija, Ayodhya series of poems, Vibhas, Yaar Julahey, Meelon Se Din & Akhtari: The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar have been well received. He has also translated the 12th century Lingayat mystic poet Akka Mahadevi's poems titledBhairavi. A book about hundred years of Hindi Cinema which deals with the authentic analysis of the musical journey of cinema titled 'Humsafar'. He is the editor of a cultural gazetteer of Faizabad titled 'Shahernama Faizabad'. His latest book is an edited compilation anthology on the Thumri Queen and Ghazal Singer Begum Akhtar titled 'Akhtari:
Soz Aur Saaz Ka Afsana'. Recipient of many awards for his literary contributions, including Bharatiya Janapitha fellowship, Raza Foundation Award, Bharat Bhushan Agarwal Smriti Puraskar, Bharteeya Bhasha Parishad Yuva Puraskar and H.K. Trivedi Smriti Yuva Patrakarita Puraskar among others. His book 'Lata : Sur-Gatha' won 6 awards in a year, including the prestigious 64th National Film Award-2016 for Best Writing on Cinema (Swarna Kamal), MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Award for Best Writing on Cinema, Mumbai, 2016-17, Dwarka Prasad Agarwal Bhaskar Yuva Puraskar, Maharana Mewar Award, Shamsher Samman and Spandan Lalit Kala Samman. The book Lata : Sur-Gatha was also felicitated by the prestigious Award for Excellence in Book Production 2017 given by the Federation of the Indian Publishers to the publisher Vani Prakashan. For his literary and cultural involvements he has visited New York, England, Mauritius and Abu Dhabhi. He is currently working on a book on eminent Film Director, lyricist and poet Gulzar Saheb. He lives in Ayodhya.
Anurag Harsh is a digital pioneer who cofounded and built Ziff Davis, growing it from a $25 million private company into a $4+ billion publicly traded enterprise in 25 languages and 114 countries, ... the world’s largest technology, entertainment, healthcare and lifestyle digital publishing group. He is the author of seven bestselling books and has written over 500 columns for the Huff Post, Forbes and other publications. Anurag is a widely recognized expert on artificial intelligence and works with world governments in using AI for improving public health and reducing poverty. He was voted as Linkedin’s #1 Voice in Technology and featured in a documentary titled Indians in America. Anurag recently delivered YouTube’s most viewed keynote address to Wall Street on the topic of Digital and the Future as well as on how artificial intelligence will improve human life. An Alfred Sloan Fellow with an MBA and MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Wharton School of Business, Anurag is also the national award winner (first prize) of ITC Sangeet Research Academy’s All India classical music competition. He has performed at some of the world’s leading concert halls including two solo concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall. With over 3 million views on Facebook and YouTube his Carnegie performance has become one of the most viewed Indian classical videos online. He is on the Board of Trustees at the Elisabeth Morrow School, a private day school in Englewood, NJ. He has a family of over 300,000 professionals on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and adds a new follower every two minutes.
Amjad Ali Khan is one of the undisputed masters of the music world. Born to sarod maestro Haafiz Ali Khan, ... he gave his first performance at the age of six, and is credited with reinventing the technique of playing the sarod. Over the course of a distinguished career spanning more than six decades, Amjad Ali Khan has won numerous accolades including a Grammy nomination, the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum, Unicef’s National Ambassadorship and the Fukuoka Cultural grand prize. He has performed at venues the world over including Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, as well as at the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2014 in Oslo, Norway. Samaagam, his first Sarod Concerto, has been performed by the Britten Sinfonia, Orchestre National d’lle de France, Orchestre d’Auvergne, London Philharmonia, Gulbenkian Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Amjad Ali Khan has also been a visiting professor at Stanford University, University of New Mexico and Jacob’s School of Music. Amjad Ali Khan recently received coveted Global Music Awards under the Gold Medal category for their outstanding contribution to the global music industry and excellence in the classical music sphere. The UN Day Concert 2018 featured Sarod virtuoso Amjad Ali Khan, accompanied by his sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash, and the Refugee Orchestra Project. The concert dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi was themed on “Traditions of Peace and Non-violence” in the presence of António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations.
Dr. Radhika Chopra Born and brought up in Jammu, Radhika started learning music at a very young age from Pt. J.R.Sharma and started performing on stage and for All India Radio Jammu. ... After graduating from Govt College for women Jammu, she joined the Faculty of music and fine arts, Delhi University for post graduation in Hindustani classical music. She topped the university and also did her M.Phil. And Ph.D. from the faculty itself. She learnt Thumri, Dadra and Ghazal from the most eminent guru, Smt. Shanti Hiranand, renowned disciple of Begum Akhtar. In an era where fusion and new age music dominate the current Indian music scenario, Dr. Radhika Chopra, an extremely talented and a versatile artiste, predominantly features as a rare performer who continues to excel and please the connoisseur with her traditional puritan raga based gayaki. Dr. Radhika Chopra, is a much sought after composer and singer not only across India and Pakistan, but as far away as the United Kingdom, the Near East and East Africa where loyal audiences have been charmed and enthralled by her melodious & soul stirring renditions, and fabulous personality. Blessed with the divine gift of music and years of relentless effort to achieve perfection, Dr. Chopra’s excellence & finesse, her crisp & clear voice coupled with her impeccable diction of both the Hindi and Urdu languages have won her accolades of the discerning listener right across the globe. Dr. Chopra’s accomplishments have been recognized by the highest authorities in the field of Indian music, having been empanelled by the ICCR to perform in foreign countries to promote classical Indian music and commissioned by the Indian Ministry of Culture to commemorate legendary figures such as Ghalib, Kundan Lal Saigal, et al. Radhika Chopra has also performed at the ‘Jahan-E-Khusrau’ Sufi Festival to mark the death anniversary of Hazrat Amir Khusrau.
Kal Penn is an actor, writer, producer, and former Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. He is known for ... his starring roles in Designated Survivor, House, Mira Nair’s The Namesake, the Harold & Kumar franchise, and the patriotic immigration sit-com Sunnyside which he co-created for NBC.
From 2009 to 2011, Kal took a sabbatical from acting to serve in the Obama/Biden administration, where he served as the President’s Liaison to Young Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and the Arts community. In these roles, he worked on a range of issues, including the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Affordable Care Act, Pell Grants, arts and culture programs, the DREAM Act, and rapid response to the BP Oil Spill and earthquake in Haiti. He was a national co-chair for the Obama/Biden re-election campaign in 2012 and served on the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, focusing on arts education and cultural diplomacy. Penn has taught courses at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Los Angeles. Originally from New Jersey, he received his undergraduate degree in sociology, theater, film, and television at the University of California, Los Angeles, and received a graduate certificate in international security from Stanford University. Penn recently wrapped production on the CBS Drama, Clarice (based on Silence of the Lambs), and Freeform’s late night youth election format show Kal Penn Approves This Message. He currently stars in the animated Disney Junior series Mira, Royal Detective, is an Executive Producer on the Viacom/Paramount + comedy, Surina & Mel, and can be heard in Nickelodeon’s It’s Pony. His culinary competition series Money Hungry airs on Food Network this summer. Kal’s first book You Can’t Be Serious releases on November 2nd, 2021 from Simon and Schuster/Gallery Books.
Surina is the co-creator of “Surina & Mel”, a half-hour comedy developed into a feature-length film titled Hot Mess Holiday, inspired by her real-life friendship with bestie Melanie Chandra, ... in which she starred and executive produced alongside Gunpowder & Sky and Kal Penn.
She’s also the Director of Development at Ambassador, a sports media and gaming company. She recently co-produced “The Giants,” a sumo wrestling docuseries currently airing on Rakuten TV. The series has received four nominations in its first 45 days of airing. Jindal is currently directing a documentary about Arjan Singh Bhullar, the first South Asian MMA heavyweight champion of the world.
Her short ‘Lemon,’ starring Jennifer Westfeldt, Noah Bean, and Jenn Lyon, premiered at Tribeca, played in several festivals worldwide and on United Airlines and Amazon Prime, where it won an award for "Most Watched Shorts On Amazon."
Melanie is the co-creator of “Surina & Mel”, a half-hour comedy developed into a feature-length film titled Hot Mess Holiday, inspired by her real-life friendship with comedienne Surina Jindal,... in which she will be starring and executive producing alongside Gunpowder & Sky and Kal Penn. As an actress, Melanie is mostly recognized for her series regular role on CBS’s CODE BLACK opposite Marcia Gay Harden and her work on HBO’s THE BRINK opposite Jack Black. She will next be seen in Paramount’s upcoming CLIFFORD. Other credits include Netflix’s BROWN NATION, NBC’S PARENTHOOD, CBS’S RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, and the recently released indie DISTANCING SOCIALLY opposite SCHITT’S CREEK's Sarah Levy. As a producer, she is the co-creator of several different projects spanning digital, stage, and television. In addition to being the co-creator of SURINA & MEL, she is the co-creator of ATTACHMENT, a comedy series currently in development at Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine. Originally from Chicago, Melanie received a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stanford University. After graduation, she worked as an analyst at a management consulting firm, but quickly realized it wasn’t for her and traded it in to pursue her childhood dream of acting. She has since maintained careers in both entertainment and the nonprofit space. Melanie co-founded the not-for-profit Hospital for Hope India, which provides health care services to under-served villagers in rural India.