Namita Gokhale is a writer, publisher and festival director. She is the author of eighteen works of fiction and non-fiction. Her acclaimed debut novel,
Paro: Dreams of Passion, published in 1984, has remained a cult classic and has been issued in a double edition with its sequel
Priya. Gokhale has worked extensively across genres on Indian mythology, including her retelling of the Indian epic in the
Puffin Mahabharata, and her novel for young readers,
Lost in Time: Ghatotkacha and the Game of Illusions. The edited anthologies
Himalaya and The Himalayan Arc: East of South East, provide valuable resource material on the culture and politics of the region. Gokhale is also founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival and of Mountain Echoes, the Bhutan Literature Festival. She is director of Yatra Books, a publishing house specializing in translation.
'I am the rakshasa Ghatotkacha, born of the Lord Bhimasena and the lady Hidimba. I rule over hill and vale, wood and stream, protecting the spirit of the forest and all who live in it.'
Young Chintamani Dev Gupta, on holiday in a bird camp near Lake Sattal, is transported via a wormhole to the days of the Mahabharata. Trapped in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mother, the demoness Hidimba. But the gentle giant, a master of illusion and mind-boggling rakshasa technology, wields his strength just as well as he knows the age-old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces. And in his enlightening company, Chintamani finds himself in the thick of the events of the most enduring Indian epic.
An intense yet tender look at a rare friendship as well as the abiding puzzles of the past, this is a fascinating read.
