Kalaghoda Art Festival 2016

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. His seven collections of poetry include Vanishing Acts, Central Time and Jonahwhale. He is also the author of I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded and the editor of Dom Moraes: Selected Poems. Hoskote curated Indiaâ s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He has received the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award, the Sahitya Akademi Translation Award and the S.H. Raza Literature Award. His poems have been translated into German, Hindi, Swedish, Spanish and Arabic

Mustansir Dalvi is a poet, translator and editor. He has three books of poems in English, Brouhahas of Cocks (Poetrywala, 2013), Cosmopolitician (Poetrywala, 2018), and Walk (Yavanika Press, 2020/ Poetrywala 2021). His poems have been translated into French, Croatian, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. Mustansir Dalviâ s 2012 English translation of Muhammad Iqbalâ s influential Shikwa and Jawaab-e-Shikwa from the Urdu as Taking Issue and Allahâs Answer (Penguin Classics) has been described as ‘insolent and hereticalâ. He is the editor of Man without a Navel a collection of translations of Hemant Divateâ s poems from the Marathi (2018, Poetrywala). Mustansir Dalvi was born in Bombay. He teaches architecture in Mumbai.

Dilip D'Souza is a writer, journalist and occasional activist. He writes on social and political issues, travel and current affairs, and also writes a well-known mathematics column for Mint. Dilip has written three books ('Branded by Law', 'The Narmada Dammed', 'Roadrunner') and has essays in a number of anthologies. Some of his longer essays include 'House in a Slum? You Can't Afford It' (Washington Post, on housing concerns in Mumbai), 'Major Habib Ahmed's Journey From Pakistan to India' (Forbes India, about a Pakistani major's return to India after 62 years), 'A Few Good Doctors' (Fountain Ink magazine, on rural health in Chhattisgarh) and 'Get to the Top' (Caravan magazine, on the coaching class phenomenon in Kota, Rajasthan). He has won several prestigious awards for his writing, including the Statesman Rural Reporting Award, the Times of India/Red Cross prize, the TimeOut Travel Writing Award, the Sanctuary Magazine prize and the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize for his essay 'Ride Across The River' (about an Army officer killed in action in Kashmir, examining patriotism through his example). His article about two young engineers was one of the inspirations for the movie Swades. He has written for most major publications in India and several abroad.  Dilip has a BE in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (BITS Pilani) and a MS in Computer Science from Brown University in the USA. He studied and worked as a software engineer in United States from 1981 to 1992 when he returned to India to write full time.

Raghu Karnad is a journalist and author. His book Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War was shortlisted for the UK PEN Prize for historical non-fiction and won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2016. An essay preceding the book, Everybody's Friend, won second prize in the inaugural Financial Times essay competition in 2012, and was described by historian Simon Schema as 'nothing short of brilliant'. His journalism and essays have won multiple awards, and have been published in the Guardian, the International New York Times, the Financial Times, Caravan and n+1. In 2015, he was part of the founding team of the Wire.in.

Ravi Agarwal has an inter-disciplinary practice as an artist, environmental campaigner, writer and curator. His work has been shown widely, including at dOCUMENTA XI, the Biennials of Havana (2019) Yinchuan (2018), Kochi (2016), Sharjah (2013) etc. He has curated large public art projects such as the Yamuna-Elbe, twin city project (2011), and Embrace our Rivers, an Indo- European project (2018), and was the photography curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 and 2019. He is the curator for the forthcoming exhibition New Natures to be held in Mumbai by the Goethe Institute, in January 2022. Ravi is also the founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link, and recipient of the UN-IFCS Award for Chemical Safety and the Ashoka Fellowship. Toxics Link has played a pioneering role in issues relating to environment and health at various levels, including helping formulate polices and regulations across waste streams, chemical safety and to establish best practice models on the ground.

Rahul Akerkar is all about mixing his passion for life, food, and science, and has managed to blend these key ingredients into a career as one of Mumbai’s leading restaurant moguls. Regarded as the pioneer of the independent chef- restaurateur-run eatery in Mumbai, shifting the focus in fine dining away from the five-star hotel domain, Akerkar, who is the managing director and director of cuisine at deGustibus Hospitality Pvt. Ltd

Abha Narain Lambah is a conservation architect practicing in Mumbai, India. She is a recipient the Sanskriti Award 2003, Eisenhower Fellowship (U.S.A.) 2002, the Charles Wallace Fellowship (U.K.) 1998 and the Attingham Trust Fellowship 2007. Abha’s architectural practice has won 7 UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards for Heritage Conservation and deals with a range of historic monuments and sites across India. Her projects include the restoration of the 15th century Temple of Maitreya Budha at Basgo in Ladakh, the 15th century Chandramauleshwara and 16th century Krishna temples in the World Heritage Site of Hampi, preparation of Management Plans for Ajanta World Heritage Site and the ancient fortified city of Sisupalgarh as well as Nomination Dossiers for Santiniketan and Hyderabad.

Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning author, journalist and speaker. She has been felicitated with various honours and shortlists for distinguished contribution to literature, gender issues and journalism, including the Laadli Media Award, Bharat Nirman Award, Muse India Young Writer Award, FON South Asia Short Story Award, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Frank O'Connor International Award and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her books – FEMINIST RANI (Penguin Random House, 2018), THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN (Juggernaut, 2016), HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Random House India, 2013) and ONE & A HALF WIFE (Westland, 2012) have been published to commercial and critical acclaim. Her latest book HOW TO GET PUBLISHED IN INDIA (Bloomsbury) is India's first-ever self-help book on publishing and it includes never-before collected essays from experts in their field, including Jeffrey Archer, Shobhaa De, Twinkle Khanna, Ashwin Sanghi, Meena Kandasamy, Durjoy Datta, Preeti Shenoy, Ravi Subramanian and many more. It was #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases and #2 on Amazon's Bestseller List."

Manjeet Kripalani is the co-founder and the executive director of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Prior to the founding of Gateway House, Kripalani was India Bureau chief of Businessweek magazine, 1996 to 2009. During her extensive career in journalism, she has won several awards. She is a member of the Asian advisory board of the International Centre for Journalists and the Overseas Press Club, and sits on the executive board of a number of non-profit organizations.

Dr. Alka Pande is a prolific writer on Indology and art history and is the author of several well-known books. Some key books include  Ardhanarisvara the Androgyne, Probing the Gender Within, Masterpieces of Indian Art, Indian Erotica, The Collector's Handbook, Quest for Love, Kama sutra for Women. Recipient of the Charles Wallace Award in 1999-2000, she was awarded Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in December 2006 and the Australia India Council Award in 2009. Dr Alka Pande is currently a Consultant Arts Advisor and Curator of the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre.

Kiran Manral, An award winning author, TEDx speaker, columnist and mentor, Kiran Manral has been in various avatars, a journalist, India culture lead and trend spotter, qualitative market Researcher and is currently Ideas Editor with a women centric news portal.She was awarded the Women Achievers Award by Young Environmentalists Association in 2014, the WOW Award in 2016, was shortlisted for the Femina Women Awards for Literary Contribution in 2017. The Indian Council of UN Relations (ICUNR) supported by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, awarded her the International Women’s Day Award 2018 for excellence in the field of writing. Her books include The Reluctant Detective, Once Upon A Crush, All Aboard, Karmic Kids-The Story of Parenting Nobody Told You, The Face at the Window, A Boy’s Guide to Growing Up, True Love Stories and Saving Maya.

Quasar Thakore Padamsee is an Indian theatre director. He studied English Literature at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai. As artistic director of QTP since 1999, he has directed and produced over 20 plays. He also works as a stage manager and lighting designer for various theatre productions.

Amrita Verma Chowdhury is the author of ‘Faking It’, an art crime thriller about fake modern and contemporary Indian art, and ‘Breach’ a cyber thriller. She holds engineering degrees from IIT Kanpur and UC Berkeley, where she was a Jane Lewis Fellow, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon- Tepper Business School. Her work as an engineer in Silicon Valley led to seven US patents for semi-conductor fabrication- something to show for those bad-haired days. She has done Strategy Consulting and Board Effectiveness work in the US and Australia and has spent long nights fitting five-syllable words inside two-by-two squares. She has worked in the rarefied bastions of Ivy League education bringing together ideas and people. She currently works in publishing. She lives in Mumbai with her husband Sumit, their two children Shoumik and Aishani, and an assortment of pets including a cocker spaniel, a guinea pig and two turtles. She loves travelling, baking cupcakes with her daughter and hearing from her readers.

Aditya Arya, eminent commercial and travel photographer, began professional photography in 1980 after graduating in history from St Stephens College, Delhi University. In addition to his extensive commercial and travel work, he has been widely published by travel magazines and book publishers, among many includes The Land of the Nagas, published by Mapin. His work can also be seen in the exhibition catalogues of Tejas and The Golden Age of Classical India: The Gupta Empire published respectively in Brussels (Belgium) and Paris (France). A committed documenter of culture and heritage for the past thirty years, he has curated many shows nationally and internationally of archival and contemporary photography. Over the last couple of years, he has also been completely immersed in the subject and practice of photographic conservation. Uncovering the historic photographic works, pouring over thousands of negatives and vintage prints from the famous KULWANT ROY COLLECTION, honing his skills and knowledge on preservation, restoration and archiving, he has played a pivotal role in the formation of India Photo Archive Foundation. While actively pursuing his professional advertising and commercial assignments, he divides his time in his photography archive and the only Photography and Camera Museum in India with more than 300 rare and iconic cameras and other equipments tracing the history of photography from 1870’s to the Digital Era. He is also a Directorat Apex – Academy for Photographic Excellence, besides being a guest faculty at JAMIA, Institute of Mass Communication.

Arshiya Lokhandwala is an art historian, curator and founder of Lakeeren Art Gallery (1995–2003) in Mumbai India. She completed her BA and MA in Sociology in 1986 and 1991 respectively. She is the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust award in 2001 for an MA in Creative Curating at Goldsmiths College, London. She is also a curatorial committee member of the Arts Pension Trust [1].Lokhandwala curated Rites/Rights/Rewrites: Women's Video Art, which traveled to Cornell University, Duke University, and Rutgers University from 2003–06. Having returned to Mumbai, India in 2009 Lokhandwala has reopened Lakeeren Art Gallery in a new South Mumbai location Colaba. Her opening exhibition All that's Solid Melts into Air: Indian Contemporary Art in Global Times, includes the work of Atul Dodiya, Sheela Gowda, Subodh Gupta, N. S. Harsha, Jitish Kallat, Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Justin Ponmany, Sharmila Samant, T V Santosh.