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Yogini Gandhi
 Meet
dancer, actress, teacher and compere Yogini Gandhi.
Underneath the magnolia face is a razor-sharp intellect
and steely determination. As a child, she was initiated
by her parents into Kathak, the flowing, graceful
dance form of north India. It was then that she
decided to take up dance as a vocation. With the
decision made, her parents took her out of school
to pursue her art with single-minded intent. Later,
she was enchanted by Odissi, which she learnt under
the training of Guru Natabar Maharana. She
is one of the few dancers to excel in two distinct
classical dance styles. Acclaim and accolades started
pouring in as audiences in India and abroad were
enthralled by her complex rhythmic technique, her
expressive interpretation, along with her strong
command over nrittya and nattya. Bestowed
with the Sringar Mani title and the Outstanding
Young Person award, Yogini has travelled extensively
to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and England
presenting concerts in both Kathak and Odissi. |
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Niranjan Ghate
Niranjan Ghate, a resident of Pune, is considered
the H G Wells of
Marathi literature. He recently finished his 94th
book. A bookworm, Niranjan
buys books from anywhere and everywhere, be it a
bookshop or a raddiwala.
A voracious reader since the age of seven, Ghate
started his career as a
writer way back in 1965 when he wrote a sports column
for Tarun Bharat
for which he was paid Rs. 5 per article. It was
a huge amount when the cost
of a cup of tea was 5 paise. He also started writing
science articles and
eventually became a regular science columnist. He
wrote his first story
in 1970. In 1977, Ghate was selected by All India
Radio (AIR) for their
science programmes. He won a state government prize
for literature for the
book Vasundhara. He won an award for the
book Space Jack in
1985 in the Science category. In 1992 he won the
Savarkar prize for the
book Adhunik Yuddha Saadhana. He won the
Vidnyan Sahitya Puraskar
for his book Antartica in 1993. His endless
list also includes the
Prof Dr Chiplonkar prize for science popularisation
by the Indian Physics
Assosiation in 1997.
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