Delhi Noir (34 page)

R
ADHIKA
J
HA
, born in Delhi in 1970, is the author of
Smell
and
The Elephant and the Maruti.
She has received the Prix Guerlain and writes and performs Odissi dancing. She has also worked for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, where she started up the Interact Project to educate children of the victims of terrorism in different parts of India. She now lives in Tokyo with her husband and two children.

R
UCHIR
J
OSHI
,
a writer and filmmaker, lived in Delhi from 1997 to 2007. Joshi’s first novel,
The Last Jet-Engine Laugh,
was published in Britain, India, Australia, and France to critical acclaim. His films include the award-winning documentaries
Eleven Miles, Memories of Milk City,
and
Tales from Planet Kolkata
. Joshi is now taking a break from Delhi and spending his time between Calcutta and London.

T
ABISH
K
HAIR
was born and educated in Bihar, the Indian state that provides Delhi with much of its “migrant labor.” He has worked as a staff reporter for the
Times of India
in Delhi, and he continues to visit the city regularly. A poet, novelist, and critic, Khair’s latest book is the novel
Filming: A Love Story
.

P
ALASH
K
RISHNA
M
EHROTRA
was educated at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and Balliol College, Oxford. He has two forthcoming books—
Eunuch Park,
a story collection, and
The Penguin Book of Schooldays,
an anthology—and is currently working on a nonfiction book on India called
Th e Butterfly Generation
. He writes a column for the Delhi tabloid
Mail Today
.

M
EERA
N
AIR
grew up in five different states in India before coming to America in 1997. She is the author of
Video: Stories,
which won the Asian American Literary Award in 2003. Her work has been featured in the
New York Times
and NPR. She is currently finishing a new novel. Her earliest memory of Delhi is of a predawn bus ride. A fellow traveler, shaken awake, let loose a string of Punjabi profanities. He was about five.

M
ANJULA
P
ADMANABHAN
, born in 1953, is a writer and artist who lives part-time in Delhi. Her books include
Hot Death, Cold Soup, Kleptomania, Getting Th ere, This Is Suki!
and
Hidden Fires
.
Harvest,
her fifth play, won first prize in the 1997 Onassis Award for Theatre in Greece. She has illustrated twenty-four books for children including two of her own works, the novels
Mouse Attack
and
Mouse Invaders
.

U
DAY
P
RAKASH
writes poetry, fiction, and journalism and is also a filmmaker and translator. He has published four collections of poetry, eight collections of short stories, and three books of essays. His latest work to be translated into English is a novella entitled
The Girl with the Golden Parasol
. He began living in Delhi in 1975 and stayed there until 2005, when he moved to nearby Ghaziabad.

H
IRSH
S
AWHNEY
has written for the
Times Literary Supplement,
the
Guardian, Time Out New York,
and
Outlook Traveller
. His parents migrated from Delhi to New York in the 1960s, and he moved to the Indian capital’s Green Park area in 2005. He splits his time between Delhi and Brooklyn and is working on his first novel.

I
RWIN
A
LLAN
S
EALY
is the author of the novels
TheTrotter-Nama, Hero, The Everest Hotel, The Brainfever Bird,
and
Red,
and a travel book,
From Yukon to Yucatan
. He is at work on a narrative poem set in Fatehpur Sikri, a conversation with the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Sealy is a graduate of Delhi University and lives in the foothills of the Himalayas.

M
OHAN
S
IKKA
currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. His story “Uncle Musto Take a Mistress” was published in
One Story
and won an O. Henry Award. He spent part of his childhood and teenage years in Delhi, where he lived in various railway colonies, including the one adjoining Paharganj depicted in his story “Railway Aunty.” Sikka is completing a story collection and planning a novel.