Anita Ratnam, dancer and choreographer, talks about the qualities and lessons she has learnt from her Gurus, what she drives as a Performance Mentor in her students and the relevance of arts in a highly mechanized world. Excerpts from the interview.
What does it mean to teach a bunch of kids coming from low-income backgrounds? Meera Sivakumar shares her thoughts on this transformational experience. Text and Pictures by Meera Sivakumar.
Aarti Mohan is the editor of The Alternative, an online platform that strives to chronicle and support social development in India.
Shantanu Bhagwat is the author of the popular blog Satyameva Jayate where he discusses Indian politics, history and religion. He is a graduate in Computer Engineering and also holds an MBA from London Business School where he was a Chevening Scholar. He has also been a part of the Indian Foreign Service. A political activist by choice, Shantanu now divides his time between India and the U.K. He is now working with early stage companies and on ideas to improve political systems and governance in India. And he has a message: “Get Interested. Get Informed. Get Involved.”, he says, “Contribute, support and spread the word; Contribute with your skills and your ideas. Join us in reclaiming India!”
Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik is a medical doctor by education. Mythology is his passion. He is the author of the popular books ‘Myth = Mithya : A Handbook of Indian Mythology’ and ‘Book of Ram’, both published by Penguin India. His columns also appear in different magazines and newspapers. To know more about Devdutt, visit his website http://devdutt.com
Deepa Venkatraghvan is a Chartered Accountant and was the Personal Finance editor at web18 (www.moneycontrol.com). She is also the author of the CNBC-TV18 Bestsellers “Everything you ever wanted to know about investing” (which was later updated and released as, “Everything you wanted to know about investing in difficult times”) and “What your financial agent will tell you and why you shouldn’t listen”.
Anita Nair is the author of the bestsellers ‘The Better Man’, ‘Ladies Coupe’ and ‘Mistress’. She has also authored a non-fiction collection ‘Goodnight and God Bless’ published by Penguin in 2008. Her latest book, ‘Lessons in forgetting’ was published by Harper Collins in January 2010. To know Anita more, visit her website http://anitanair.net
Hariharan Krishnan is Director, L.V. Prasad Film & TV Academy, Chennai, where he also heads the department of direction. Hariharan, who is a graduate from FTII Pune, is the director of the National Award winning Tamil film, ‘Ezhavadhu Manidhan’. He also has many documentaries, children’s films and short features to his credit. Hariharan is a visiting faculty member at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Hamsini Ravi works for the news desk of The New Indian Express in Chennai. Reading, writing and sports are a few of her interests. She has a thing for chocolate, her own and other people’s. She dreams of a utopian world, where there is no poverty or gender discrimination and where chocolate has no calories.