Our Friends

Frankly, what helped us take this project forward from being a germ of an idea to a full blown project was the support from our friends across the spectrum. Friends of the Collective are accomplished writers, thinkers, poets or just evolved readers. Often, we approached them to become a mentor, but they felt they were pressed for time and joined as friends instead! We hope that conversations about Indian novels will continue to grow and be enriched.

Sampurna Chatterji

Poet

Sampurna Chatterji is a poet, novelist, and translator. She has written two books of poetry: Sight May Strike You Blind (2009), and Absent Muses (2010). Her poems have been published in several leading journals and anthologies, including Sixty Indian Poets, Fulcrum, The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, among others

Sanjeev Khandekar

Writer & Visual Artist

Sanjeev Khandekar is a reputed Marathi writer and visual artist based in Mumbai. With his solo exhibition of watercolours, Rumour of Truth (2003), Khandekar occasioned the arrival of his pictorial vocabulary. His collections include three volumes of poetry – All I Wanna Do (2005), Mutatis Muntandis (2006), and Two Poems (2006). His two books, ‘1, 2, 3… Happy Galaxy’ and collection of his present poetry ‘Smiles’ was published in 2007.

Sarabjeet Garcha

Literary Translator

Sarabjeet Garcha is a bilingual poet and an editor, translator and publisher. He is the author of three books of poems, including Lullaby of the Ever-Returning and a collection in Hindi, besides two books of translations. He was selected to serve on the Panel of Critical Readers for the third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage and received a fellowship in Hindi literature from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, under which he completed a comparative study of post-1990 Marathi and Hindi poetry. His work has appeared in various online and print journals. Sarabjeet is the chief editor of a publishing company specializing in scientific, technical and medical books. He is also the co-founder and editorial director of Copper Coin, a multilingual publishing company.

Smita Sahay

Writer

Smita Sahay is a writer, poet, and editor based in Mumbai. Her short stories, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in Ripples, Asia Writes, and Muse India among others. A computer engineer by education, she co-edited, with Dr. Charles Fishman, ‘Veils, Halos, and Shackles: International Poetry on the Abuse and Oppression of Women.’

Smruti Divate

Publisher

Smruti Divate, along with Hemant Divate, founded Poetrywala, and the magazine Abhidannatar which is highly regarded in Marathi literary circles. She is also the director of the Mumbai Poetry Festival, and runs Paperwall Private Limited.

Sony Shrivastava

Education Management Professional

Passionate about languages and a literature lover, Sony has been an amateur contributor to several newspaper and magazine columns. An Education Management Professional she proficient in a variety of languages including English, Hindi and Sanskrit while she can also speak Spanish, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Maithili and Marathi and understand Gujarati, Assamese and Punjabi. Her interests include travelling, history, art and music and has recently founded a web-based E-larning Solutions company.