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For A to Z challenge this year, I have chosen to feature the “Authors of Razzmatazz” as it has always been a desire to not just interview the authors on my YouTube channel but also write about them. The idea is to feature as many authors I can, however, it won’t be possible to include them all. You can watch all the 100 episodes on my channel anytime.
“Razzmatazz with Rashi” is a YouTube show that gives a platform to the authors to introduce their books and share their writing journey. A book is a dream and on this platform we celebrate that journey of hard work and dedication. The show is the winner of the Global Book Community Awards 2020. It has become a trusted platform for authors and running successfully with four seasons and more than hundred episodes so far.
In today’s post we have Pooja Priyamvada
Pooja has been featured in Razzmatazz in more than one season and every time with a new book and a wonderful conversation around books and writing. It is an absolute pleasure and honor to have her on my show. You will find the links to her books and social media in the description of the video.
About the Author
Pooja Priyamvada is an author, columnist, professional translator, online content and Social Media consultant. Currently she is Academic Director at International Institute of Mass Media (IIMM) Delhi. She is also an awarded bi-lingual blogger, formerly also radio announcer and lecturer. She is a trained psychological/mental health first aider, emotional wellness corporate trainer, mindfulness and grief facilitator, reflective listener, mental health researcher and suicide prevention and awareness activist. She has been associated and published at reputed national & global portals. Both her blogs have been awarded several times consecutively at the Orange Flower Awards.
She has an M.Phil. in English from Panjab University and speaks vociferously about issues of gender, identity, and marginalization at several International platforms and mediums. She has been a facilitator of an online course- “Leadership & Management in Health” offered by University of Washington. She has taught Disability Competencies using poetry to Medical Students in UCMS Delhi and actively conducts mental health awareness and emotional wellness talks, webinars, workshops and programs at several forums. She is a part of the organising team of Kritya International Poetry Festival 2021 and has been actively organising theatre and reading workshops at the National Museum, New Delhi.
Her translations are: Apke Avchetan Man Ki Shakti (The Power of Your Subconscious Mind) by Joseph Murphy, Penguin Random House (2022), Caregivers’ Handbook for Downs’ Syndrome for Sangati Foundation in 2021, and A Night in the Hills, a collection of short stories by Manav Kaul published by Westland Books in 2019. She also translates for other forums like the Sahitya Akademi and The Raza Foundation. Her ebooks Mental Health: A Primer and Lessons for Life from Death: Papa & I and translation Land of Ghosts: Iceland & JP: From Nayak to Loknayak are available on Amazon Kindle. She is currently translating freelance & for Penguin Random House, Vani Prakashan and Hind Yugm. Her poetry and fiction have been published in several reputed online journals and print anthologies in India, UK and Canada, and a few poems can be read with a hot cup of coffee on the walls of The Human Bean Cafe, Cobourg, Toronto.
She has been associated with reputed national and international online addresses like BBCHindi, The Mighty, The Financial Express, Rising Kashmir, Mad in Asia Pacific, Yahoo, Livemint, Satyahindi, News18, Newslaundry, Menstrupedia, Tarshi, Women’s Web, Navbharat Times, Feminism In India, ShethePeopleTV, Kavita Kosh, The Armchair Journal, RHIme, Momspresso, Sheroes, Bonobology, Evolve Beings, Writersmelon, Jansatta and Sadaneera.
She has been featured amongst “10 Indian Women Bloggers you must follow” and “25 writers whose work readers enjoyed the most” at Women’s Web in 2018 and also in “Most empowering moments by Indian women” by SheThePeopleTV. Her areas of work are mental health, disability activism, sexual wellness, gender, and marginalization, and her favorite mediums remain poetry and theatre. A single parent and fibromyalgia survivor, she believes that she derives her strength from being a voracious reader and a tea connoisseur.
About the Books
“Lessons for Life from Death: Papa and I”
This is a collection of poems I have written about my late father and are a tribute to him as well as a graph of my process of grief that still continues 5 years hence. This book would be relevant for anyone grieving the death of a loved one or just pondering on life, loss and death.
“Mental Health: A Primer”
The book is a short manual aiming at de-stigmatising mental health and offering some directions and insights. It includes the theories and science behind Mental Health issues and offers practical tips on medications, therapies and coping strategies. This book is also specific to the Indian Mental Health context and shares the author’s lived experiences as well as her observations as a Mental Health First Aid provider, researcher and activist.
“A Night in the Hills (Prem Kabootar) by Manav Kaul” – English translation by Pooja Priyamvada
A tourist is baffled by his taciturn companion on a dark and scary night in the hills. Two teenage boys compete to win a girl’s heart, the old-fashioned way, through letters. A woman aches to find a way out of an extra-marital affair that is going nowhere. A middle-aged man ponders the little details of his first love affair from the confines of a hospital bed. In this collection of stories set in the unnamed villages and towns of the country, Manav Kaul mines the varied and many-hued emotions of teenage crushes, fear, love, longing and lust. Appearing for the first time in English translation, A Night in the Hills (published in Hindi as Prem Kabootar) establishes Kaul as an essential voice in Indian literature.
‘Rooh by Manav Kaul’ English Translation by Pooja Priyamvada
When Rooh tells Manav in a bar in New York that he ought to go to back home to the hills in Kashmir, he’s suddenly thrown into the loop of his past-a blue door, white walls and a house at the end of a lane. Soon, the seemingly small worlds in which his memories reside coalesce into a giant mass and envelop both his past and present, like dark clouds covering a brilliant blue sky. Two young boys on the cusp of growing up, the cruelty of being a refugee in their own country, a father who is unable to come to terms with this confusing reality-an undercurrent of pain sweeps through his life. In this stream-of-consciousness novel, the protagonist, Manav, makes a physical and metaphorical journey back to Kashmir and relives the past as a part of the present. Rooh emerges as a deeply touching story of tender but broken people he meets along this journey.
If you have read any of the books or have watched the episode on my channel, don’t forget to comment below.
Stay tuned for the next lovely author.
This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2Z 2023.
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