With her amazing narrative skill, in this book of essays, Santosh Bakaya holds the unsuspecting reader spellbound from the first line to the last. Her remarkable passages of exquisite observations and picturesque descriptions, are crafted in resplendent prose and convey the immediacy of experiences. Erudite and allusive, inspiring and profound, sensitive and endearing... these essays touch every aspect of human existence. Multiple perspectives are adroitly juggled in this splendid literary work. Gifted with a vast and impressive vocabulary, Santosh Bakaya reveals a flair for making the “familiar, unfamiliar.”

–Vijay Nair

 Retired Professor of English, Language and Literature from Victoria College, Palakkad, Kerala

Winner of Reuel International Prize for Poetry [2016], many a time Best Poet and Critic, Destiny Poets Website UK and World Union of Poets Competition Certificate Winner

Sanely insane, a pathological procrastinator, a die-hard believer in Martin Luther King’s dream and John Lennon’s Imagine, dreaming of a day when there is ‘nothing to kill or die for’, and ‘all the people sharing all the world’, Santosh Bakaya has been critically acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu, and has also won the Reuel international award [2014] for her long poem, Oh Hark!

In May 2016, she was conferred with the Universal Inspirational poet award by Pentasi B friendship poetry group and Ghana government. Many of her poems have made it to the highly commendable category of Destiny Poets, a UK based poetry website, besides having figured in many international anthologies. Her latest book, Where are the lilacs, a collection of peace poems, is also winning international laurels.

She lives in Jaipur with her husband and university going daughter.

 Known by the moniker Mad Hatter, in school, like the Hatter she has not the slightest idea why the raven is ‘like a writing desk’, but, she still continues to sit at her writing desk pouring and injecting some madness in the sane world around and justifying her insanity, by the great filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s words, “In a mad world, only the mad are sane.”

 She has a doctorate in The Political Theory of Robert Nozick but it is the practice of everyday life that enthrals her. Hunting for the extraordinary in the everyday ordinary happenings, an infant’s happy chortle, an octogenarian couple’s toothless grins and the serendipitous gleam in a rag-picker’s eyes, are enough to send her into a tizzy.

 An amateur bird-watcher, the birds, in sweeps of a reckless generosity have supplied wings to her and she has soared high, magpie like, flitting from one place to another, picking and pecking whatever has caught her fancy.

 Her latest book, Where Are The Lilacs? [A Collection of Peace Poems, Authorspress] is also winning international laurels.

She lives in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, with her husband and university going daughter.