• Leave a Comment
• Send an Email
• Invite as Friend

She began her career as a lecturer of Psychology, teaching young science graduates and post graduate students of Psychology. She studied child-behaviour studying Social Maturity among four year olds and presented papers on facets of social maturation, frustration and aggression in children and maturation as expressed among in stories made by children in Psychology Conferences and Indian Science Congress. In 1983 she received doctorate in Child Psychology. Literature has always been a passion with her and she indulged in painting landscapes in oil, as a hobby. She wrote articles in college magazines and local papers, which took a professional turn as she began to writing stories for children in 1979 and articles on children’s literature in India. She gave counselling to children and parents and wrote stories, novels, non-fiction in Hindi and English. She is a founder-member of the Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children founded in 1981. As the Treasurer and later as the Secretary of AWIC she involved herself in various projects to develop books and reading promotion. She has evaluated and edited story collections for AWIC, organised seminars, conferences and exhibitions of original illustrations. Of her many publications Caught by Computer and The Virus Trap (award winning), both computer crime novels became popular with child readers, ‘For the Green Planet’ is a science fiction, award winning Manmauji Mamaji (Happy go-lucky Uncle) in Hindi relates the humorous adventures of a favourite Uncle, and another award winning Hindi novel - Gajmukta ki Talaash (Quest for the Jumbo Pearl) is an adventure tale reinforcing the Gandhian principles of non-violence, following the writing of non-fiction on India’s struggle for independence. Faces in my Cupboard is a collection of sensitive stories for 9-12 year olds. She has won many awards for her stories and books, the most prestigious being Shankar’s Award for Writing. The status of children’s literature and the rich cultural heritage of Indian stories caught her attention as she contributed articles to Anthology of Children’s Literature and journals. She presented papers at many Conferences on Children’s Books in India and abroad.In England: She moved to England with her family in 1992. While she continued to write for Indian publishers, she actively joined the board of the UK section of IBBY where she participated in the annual conference of UK BBY and the evaluation committee to select the UK nominee for H.C.Anderson Award. She taught Psychology for five years in the Oxford University Distance Learning at the East Berkshire College. To pursue her interest in Children’s Literature she joined the research team to evaluate multicultural resources at Reading University, visited schools for story telling and presented papers on aspects of Indian children’s books. She also offered reading help to slow-learners and children deficient in verbal skills. She wrote for Puffin’s anthology for children. She received Unesco study fellowship at the International Youth Library, Munich and studied the National Identity of Indian characters in western publication in English.She returned in 2005 involving herself in various programmes of AWIC. She was elected the Secretary once again and elected to the Executive Committee of IBBY (2006-2008). She was nominated the jury of the IBBY-ASAHI Reading Promotion Award. She went to South Korea on invitation to the Inauguration of the Nami Book Fair. She was invited to present the key-note paper and conduct a Workshop on Writing at the Asia-Pacific Conference on Children’s Books in Malaysia. At the IBBY Congress in Copenhagen she presented a paper on the historical quality of Indian Epics and participated in the Workshop on Bibliotherapy.Currently two of her short story collections for children are in press. She is the Convenor of the AWIC Book Therapy Project.

Some Recent Publications:
Papers and Articles in Literary Journals and Conference Proceedings.

Books
Fiction and Non-Fiction:
Island of Seagulls - Novel Children’s Book Trust, New Delhi

Caught by Computer - Novel, Children’s Book Trust, New Delhi.

The Virus Trap - Novel, Children’s Book Trust, New Delhi.

For the Green Planet – Novel Children’s book Trust, New Delhi.

Triumph of Non-Violence(Non-Fiction)-Frank Brothers, NewDelhi.

Together We Marched - Story Collection, Publications Division, Government of India.

Manmauji Mamaji (Happy-go-lucky Uncle) - Story Collection in Hindi, Children’s Book Trust.

Gajmukta Ki Talaash (Quest for the Jumbo Pearl) – Novel in Hindi Children’s Book Trust. (Winner of Shankar’s Award for Writing)

Faces in my Cupboard - Collection of Stories, Radical Publishers.

Panna – The Lonely Duckling – Picture Book.

Gabbu and his Long Trunk – Picture Book.

Fascinating Folktales – Pictorial folktales.

Tales of Vishnu, – Picture Books, Nita Mehta Publications

Tales of Shiva

The Curse of Grass (Novel) - Pony Tale Books, New Delhi, India. (Available on Amazon.com)

In Press:

Mamaji ne musibat paali (Mamaji Tames Troubles) – humorous Stories.

Chunnudada’s Farmhouse – Pet stories.

She began her career as a lecturer of Psychology, teaching young science graduates and post graduate students of Psychology. She studied child-behaviour studying Social Maturity among four year olds and presented papers on facets of social maturation, frustration and aggression in children and maturation as expressed among in stories made by children in Psychology Conferences and Indian Science C... More