ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE DOON, page 18
Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha was born in Dehra Dun in 1958, and educated in Delhi and Kolkata. He has taught at the universities of Oslo, Stanford and Yale, and the Indian Institute of Science. He has been a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and also served as the Indo-American Community Chair, Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
Guha's books and essays have been translated into more than twenty languages. The prizes they have won include the UK Cricket Society's Literary Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History.
Presently, he has settled down in Bangalore as a full-time writer.
Ganesh Saili
Professor Ganesh Saili was born in the foothills of the magical Himalayan ranges and has had the good fortune of living in the hill station of Mussoorie. From his perch, a mile high in the sky, for over thirty years he has written numerous books and contributed extensively on a range of subjects to prestigious journals in India and abroad. Ganesh teaches English and American literature at the local post-graduate college and is a professional photographer.
Himmat S. Dhillon
Himmat S. Dhillon teaches English and Literature to senior classes at The Doon School, Dehra Dun. He also functions as Housemaster of Oberoi 'A' House. Earlier, he had passed out from The Lawrence School, Sanawar in 1989. He completed his graduation and post-graduation in English Literature from the University of Delhi.
He has worked as Editor with Harper Collins Publishers India. To his credit, he has a number of published articles, book reviews, travelogues and photo features in the Times of India, Hindu, Economic Times, Statesman, Pioneer, Hindustan Times, Tribune and Asian Age, as well as in Down to Earth, on a regular basis.
He has a varied interest as in Photography, painting, travel, reading, swimming, kayaking, trekking, bird watching, research on heritage sites and remote regions, coin and stamp collecting.
Sumanta Banerjee
Born and educated in Kolkata, Sumanta Banerjee, was a journalist with the Statesman in Kolkata and New Delhi from 1962 to 1973. He is at present based in Dehra Dun, and is engaged in researching into the social history and popular culture of 19th-century Bengal. He is the author of several books, including India's Simmering Revolution; The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth-century Calcutta; Under the Raj: Prostitution in Colonial Bengal; and Crime and Urbanization: Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century.
Kunal Verma
Kunal Verma is one of the country's most experienced aerial photographers, having logged hundreds of flying hours with the Army, Navy and Air Force in particular. Educated at The Doon School and Madras Christian College, he had a hand in opening up some of the trans-Himalayan routes from the Kashmir Valley into Zanskar and Ladakh while working with Tiger Tops, before switching to journalism and filmmaking. In the mid-1980s, he shot the bulk of the Project Tiger serial and has subsequently travelled extensively throughout the subcontinent, shooting both on the ground and from the air.
Apart from producing several highly acclaimed films that include Salt of the Earth (History of the IAF), The Standard Bearers (National Defence Academy), Making of a Warrior (Indian Military Academy ), The Kargil War, and Aakash Yodha, he is also the author of Ocean to Sky: India from the Air and was the chief photographer for the Indian Navy: A Photo-Essay. He has also shot the films on the Light Combat Aircraft, the Saras and most recently, the film on the Army War College in Mhow. He lives in DLF, Gurgaon with his wife Dipti, and their two daughters.
Florence Pandhi
Florence Pandhi was born in 1945. She did her B.Sc., from Manchester University; SRN, Royal College of Nurses; SCM, Royal College of Midwives; and ONC, Royal College of Nurses, U.K. At present, she is involved in social and environmental issues. She is Member of the 'Supreme Court Monitoring Committee' which supervises reclamation of the limestone mines in the Doon Valley, and to oversee the restoration of natural normalcy to the Doon Valley. She was also the founder-member, present Secretary and erstwhile President of 'The Friends of The Doon Society', the first environment society formed in the Doon Valley, actively working towards preserving its environment through education and social activism. She is Editor of its bi-annual publication. She is the founder-member of the 'Citizens Action Group' dealing with urban issues. She is also the Trustee of the John Martyn Memorial Trust.
Karan Thapar
Karan Thapar, born on 22 November 1955 in Srinagar, India, is one of India's noted television commentators and interviewers. Currently, the President of Infotainment Television, Thapar is noted for his aggressive interviews with leading politicians and celebrities. In December 2003, he became the first person to win both awards in the current affairs category of the Asian Television Awards. His interview with Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri, on Court Martial won 'The Best Current Affairs Programme'. He received his second award for 'The Best Current Affairs Presenter' for his popular long-running BBC series Face to Face. In 2005, he won the 'Best Current Affairs Presenter' for the third time since 1999 for his interview with former Indian Law Minister and BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley on HARDtalk India. His other popular shows include Eyewitness (Doordarshan), Tonight at 10 (CNBC) now India tonight—, In Focus with Karan and Line of Fire.
Thapar is also a prolific newspaper columnist. For instance, his weekly column, 'Sunday Sentiments' in the Hindustan Times is widely read. A collection of his columns has been published by the same name, Sunday Sentiments.
An alumnus of The Doon School and Stowe School, he graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. In the same year, he was President of the Cambridge Union. He subsequently attained a doctorate in International Relations from St Anthony's College, Oxford.
Dev Lahiri
Dev Lahiri is an alumnus of St Stephen's, Delhi and Oxford University, and has been a Rhodes Scholar. He has headed several front-rank schools countrywide with distinction, leaving his special stamp and impress upon them.
Lahiri's major contribution to Indian education is the introduction of best corporate administration practices into school management. After returning from Oxford where he read social sciences between 1975-78, Lahiri worked as an editor-manager with Oxford University Press for five years, Hindustan Lever for six months, before switching streams to join The Doon School as a junior teacher. In 1991, he was invited to head the highly rated Lawrence School, Lovedale (estb.1858), near Ooty in Tamil Nadu.
After a nine-year stint at Lawrence, Lovedale, he set up the Selaqui School in Dehra Dun. Two years later, he was called to Kolkata to put the city of joy's Heritage School on the rails before returning to Dehra Dun as principal of Welham Boys School (estb. 1937).
Irwin Allan Sealy
One of India's post-Independence writers, I Allan Sealy was born in 1951 Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. After schooling in Lucknow, he attended Delhi University, then studied and worked in the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Now, he spends much of his time in Dehra Dun. His eye for places, and his evocative descriptions are apparent in all his novels and in his travelogue, From Yukon to Yukatan. Sealy's first novel, The Trotter-Nama: A Chronicle, is a tale of seven generations of an Anglo-Indian family. The Everest Hotel: A Calendar, gained him an international following after being short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1998. His other novels are Hero: A fable, The Brainfever Bird, and his most recent novel is called Red.
Allan Sealy has won a number of awards for his writing, including the Commonwealth Best Book Award in 1989, Sahitya Akademi Award in 1991 and the Crossword Book Award in 1998.
Victor Banerjee
Victor Banerjee was born on 15 October 1946, and is a British educated, Kolkata-based Indian film actor. He was born in a distinguished Bengali family. He is the descendant of W.C. Banerjee, a leading intellectual, a prominent man of his time and the first president of the Indian National Congress (1885). He had his schooling in St Edmunds', Shillong and graduated in English Literature from St Xaviers' College, Kolkata.
His most visible role has been in David Lean's A Passage to India (1984). He has also acted in Merchant Ivory Productions' Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures and Satyajit Ray's Ghare Baire. Though in recent years, he has largely been involved with Bollywood, he is also affiliated with the Bengali film industry. He also plays 'character actor' roles from time to time in the British cinema. He was also cast in the role of Jesus by director Stephen Pimlott in the 1988 production of the York Mystery Plays.
When not in Kolkata, he is to be found in the hill station of Landour in the Lower Western Himalayas in northern India.
Bill Aitken
William McKay (Bill) Aitken was born in Scotland in 1934, studied comparative religion at Leeds University and hitch-hiked overland to India in 1959. He worked as a teacher in Kolkata, a gardener in a Gandhian ashram in Kausani and as pakshastri in a nearby Vaishnav temple. After twelve years spent in the Kumaun hills, he became a naturalised Indian citizen and moved to Garhwal as secretary to a maharani. As a travel writer, he has been to all the four corners of India by the erstwhile metre-gauge railway. He is an honorary member of the Himalayan Club and president of Friends of the National Rail Museum. His books include: Seven Sacred Rivers, Nanda Devi Affair, Riding the Ranges, Footloose in the Himalaya, Touching Upon the Himalaya, Mountain Delight, Zanskar, WOO Himalayan Quiz, Exploring Indian Railways, Branch Line to Eternity, Literary Trails, Divining the Deccan, Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
Palash Krishna Mehrotra
Palash Krishna Mehrotra was born in Bombay in 1975 and educated at St Stephen's College, Delhi, the Delhi School of Economics and Balliol College, Oxford. He is represented in First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India, and is currently writing a book on contemporary India to be published by Rupa and Portobello Books, London. He lives in Dehra Dun with his grandmother.
Raj Kanwar
Raj Kanwar has been a journalist, public relations/advertising professional and a businessman at different stages in his eventful career-span of fifty-five years.
He voluntarily retired in 2000 as the chairman of SK Oilfield Equipment Co. Pvt. Ltd., a family-owned business, to return to his first love of reading and writing. His columns in Garhwal Post and the Himachal Times were hugely popular. He has also done freelance writing for some national English dailies.
In September 2004, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. had commissioned Kanwar to write its history of fifty years. The book published by ONGC under the title Upstream India was formally released by Petroleum minister, Murli Deora on 14 August 2006 at a special golden jubilee function at Dehra Dun.
Kanwar, and Amber, his wife of forty-two years, live in Dehra Dun. Of their three children, two live in the USA, and the third, a son, is based at Mumbai, running the family business.
Upendra Arora
Upendra Arora has found himself surrounded by books for as long as he can remember. Having had the good fortune of being born into a family that founded the book trade in India, he has been able to successfully breathe new life into his father's business and create a niche market for the books he specialises in. His family-run bookstore is today, a mecca for book-lovers across the world. One of India's most popular writers, Ruskin Bond has dedicated a book to him saying, he is one of the few people in the book trade who truly cares about the books he sells.
The Doon Valley has been home for Upendra, since the days he would run across the road from home to the school nearby. There were times that he remembers jumping the walls of the neighbours' houses to get to his maths lessons in the nearby locality. His parent's home was then surrounded by orchards. Today, the road between his house and the school he went to, is the main road connecting the city, blocked by traffic at all hours, the lanes behind his house have huge bungalows, and the area around his house is today, the biggest shopping mall in the state. His bookstore, however, remains just as it was when his father sat behind the counter. Some things thankfully never change.
In 2005, Upendra was awarded the Venu Menon National Award for Animal Welfare.
Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond, well-known as one of India's best-loved and most prolific writers, has been writing novels, poetry, essays and short stories for over half a century. Apart from this, over the years, he has expertly compiled and edited a number of anthologies. For his outstanding literary contribution's he was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957, the Sahitya Akademi award in 1992 (for English writing in India) and the Padma Shri in 1999. His story The Blue Umbrella (Rupa) was recently filmed by Vishal Bhardwaj.
My Notes on the Green Valley
you can send your comments about
the book to the e-mail address:
info@rupabooks.com
or
rupa@ndb.vsnl. net. in
or to the postal address:
7/16, Ansari Road
Daryagani
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Any comments will be greatly appreciated.
Ruskin Bond, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE DOON
