GALF 2025

Speakers

Ranjan Das is a Mumbai-based filmmaker and film academician with a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and a diploma in filmmaking from Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, where he specialized in film editing. An avid reader of Indian and world literature and a passionate cinephile, his extensive career encompasses writing, directing, and editing for both films and television. He is a sought-after educator, conducting workshops on Screenplay Writing and Direction at prestigious institutions such as Whistling Woods International (Mumbai), Pandit Lakhmi Chand University of Performing and Visual Arts (Rohtak), MS University (Baroda), MIT University (Pune), Flame University (Pune), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT, Bhubaneswar), Vinsan Academy (Goa), SRFTI (Kolkata), and his alma mater, FTII (Pune). An accomplished writer, he authored a weekly column on cinema for six years for Financial Chronicle. His writings have also appeared in New Indian Express, Dhaka Tribune, and upperstall.com, a website dedicated to Indian cinema. Additionally, he has served on the juries of the Kashish International Queer Film Festival (Mumbai) and the Chambal International Film Festival (Kota).

Ranjan Das

Ranjan Das is a Mumbai-based filmmaker and film academician with a Master's degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata,…

Romulus Whitaker’s Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, co-authored with his wife Janaki Lenin, portrays the early, reptile-obsessed life of Romulus Whitaker in northern New York state, and move to India in 1951 at age eight with his mother Doris Norden and step-father Rama Chattopadhyaya, son of Kamaladevi and Harindranath. He did his schooling in India but much preferred hunting and fishing in the jungles of the Western Ghats. Back in America, he dropped out of college after a year to work for Bill Haast at the Miami Serpentarium, setting him up for his life’s work, returning to India in 1967 to establish India’s first reptile parks with like-minded colleagues, and make award winning movies about king cobras and crocodiles. His accolades include an Emmy Award, Whitley Award for Nature, Rolex Award for Enterprise and India’s Padma Shri.

Romulus Whitaker

Romulus Whitaker’s Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, co-authored with his wife Janaki Lenin, portrays the early, reptile-obsessed life of…

Anand writes poems in English and Kabiri. He translates poetry from many Indian languages and sets them to ragas. He's a student of dhrupad. As publisher at Navayana, he has worked with a range of writers, translators, artists and poets. He has annotated and edited some of Ambedkar's key writings, and this has informed his poetry and music. Anand lives in Kabirstan.

S. Anand

Anand writes poems in English and Kabiri. He translates poetry from many Indian languages and sets them to ragas. He's…

Anjan Sundaram is the author of the award-winning memoirs “Stringer,” “Bad News,” and “Breakup.” Dubbed “one of the great reporters of our age” by BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane, his books have been featured by Christiane Amanpour, Fareed Zakaria, and Jon Stewart. He writes regularly for The New York Review of Books and Granta magazine. He graduated from Yale University with degrees in mathematics and holds a PhD in journalism from the University of East Anglia.

Anjan Sundaram

Anjan Sundaram is the author of the award-winning memoirs “Stringer,” “Bad News,” and “Breakup.” Dubbed “one of the great reporters…

Dr Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian. Her articles have been published in prominent media outlets such as Al Jazeera, Eaten Magazine, Scroll, Bruit, Open Magazine, The Wire, Mint, Goya and in the anthologies Desi Delicacies (Pan Macmillan, India) and Dastarkhwan: Food Writing from South Asia and Diaspora ( Beacon Books, UK). Her research article, ‘Narrating Rampur Cuisine: Cookbooks, Forgotten Foods and Culinary Memories’ was published in Global Food History Journal (April 2023 Issue). Her research article ‘Resurrecting Tilak Chandan: The Fall and Future Rise of Local Rice Varieties in North India’ shall be published in Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies (25.1 Spring Issue 2025). Tarana is the author of a critically acclaimed book on Rampur cuisine, Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (Penguin Random House India) and a bestselling historical fiction The Begum and the Dastan which won the Kalinga Literary Award for fiction and was shortlisted for Women Writer’s Award by She The People. She has co-edited and contributed to an anthology of food writings, Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India). She worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield on an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, ‘Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’ (2019-2024).

Dr Tarana Husain Khan

Dr Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian. Her articles have been published in prominent media outlets such…

Jerry Pinto is a much-awarded author, poet and translator. He is the author of Em and the Big Hoom, Murder in Mahim and The Education of Yuri. From Marathi he has translated Baluta by Daya Pawar, I Want to Destroy Myself by Mallika Amar Sheikh, Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar among others. From Hindi he has translated I Have Not Seen Mandu by Swadesh Deepak as well as some of his short stories which appeared in A Bouquet of Dead Flowers and some of his plays which appeared in Court Martial and Other Plays.

Jerry Pinto

Jerry Pinto is a much-awarded author, poet and translator. He is the author of Em and the Big Hoom, Murder…

Naresh Fernandes is a journalist who lives in Bombay. He is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital daily. He was previously editor-in-chief of Time Out India. He is the author of City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay and Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age. He has also worked at The Times of India and the Associated Press in Mumbai, and The Wall Street Journal in New York. His journalism has appeared in several national and international publications. He has been a Poeis Fellow at New York University and a resident of the Rockerfeller Foundation's Bellagio programme.

Naresh Fernandes

Naresh Fernandes is a journalist who lives in Bombay. He is the editor of Scroll.in, a digital daily. He was…

Rakhshanda Jalil is a multi-award-winning translator, writer, and literary historian. She has published over 30 books and written over 50 academic papers and essays. Some of her books include: Liking Progress, Loving Change: A Literary History of the Progressive Writers Movement in Urdu (OUP, 2014); a biography of Urdu feminist writer Dr Rashid Jahan: A Rebel and her Cause (Women Unlimited, 2014); a translation of The Sea Lies Ahead, Intizar Husain's seminal novel on Karachi (Harper Collins, 2015) and Krishan Chandar's partition novel Ghaddaar (Westland, 2017)’ and recently two collections of essays entitled But You Don’t Look Like a Muslim (Harper Collins, 2019) and Love in the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu (Simon & Schuster, 2024), among others. She runs an organization called Hindustani Awaaz, devoted to the popularization of Hindi-Urdu literature and culture.

Rakhshanda Jalil

Rakhshanda Jalil is a multi-award-winning translator, writer, and literary historian. She has published over 30 books and written over 50…

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist, translator, and independent curator. His collections of poetry include Central Time (Penguin, 2014), Jonahwhale (Penguin, 2018; in the UK, by Arc, as The Atlas of Lost Beliefs, 2020, which received a prestigious Poetry Book Society Recommendation), Hunchprose (Penguin, 2021), and Icelight (Wesleyan University Press & Penguin, 2023). He is the author of the acclaimed translation of a 14 th -century Kashmiri woman mystic’s work, I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded (Penguin Classics, 2011) and of The Homeland’s an Ocean (Penguin Classics, 2024), a translation of the celebrated 18 th -century Urdu poet, Mir Taqi Mir’s poetry. Hoskote has been a Fellow of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa (1995) and writer-in-residence at Villa Waldberta, Munich (2003), as well as researcher-in-residence at BAK/ basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2010 and 2013). In 2023, Hoskote was appointed to the Editorial Board of the Murty Classical Library of India, published by Harvard University Press. Hoskote has been honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award, the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize, the S H Raza Award for Literature, and the 7 th JLF-Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Award for Poetry.

Ranjit Hoskote

Ranjit Hoskote is a poet, cultural theorist, translator, and independent curator. His collections of poetry include Central Time (Penguin, 2014),…

Manu Pillai is a historian and the author of five books, most recently Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his first book, The Ivory Throne, he is also a columnist at Mint Lounge. Manu holds a PhD in history from King's College London.

Manu Pillai

Manu Pillai is a historian and the author of five books, most recently Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of…

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