Speakers
A ghost is loose in Tagore’s fiction.
Her name is Kadambari Devi. She was Tagore’s sister-in-law in real life, and now she has time-travelled to talk with two of his heroines about the choices they made. As the three women debate, challenge, and inspire one another, they discover a surprising truth: the world may have moved from the 19th century to the 21st, but the inner battles women fight for independence, desire, and meaning, remain strikingly familiar.
Three Women — A Graphic Novel is adapted from Isheeta Ganguly’s musical, Three Women: A Musical Theatre. This evening, she joins Vani Kola in conversation, with dramatised readings from the book and an audience Q&A to close.
Speakers
Isheeta Ganguly
Isheeta is a Tagore fusion singer, playwright and director whose musical theatre productions, Three Women, Sundays with Chitra & Chaitali, and Shakuntala Awaits, blend contemporary feminism, history and mythology with 19th-century heroines. Shakuntala Awaits had an Off-Broadway run at HERE Arts Center, NYC. Her album Damaru, arranged by Shantanu Moitra, is among her most celebrated works. She has collaborated on a number of acclaimed multi-media Tagore fusion projects, including Chiranthan with Amitabh Bachchan and Tanushree Shankar, Still I Rise with danseuse Mallika Sarabhai, A Tribute to Tagore with the late Ustad Vilayat Khan and Riot with actresses Shabana Azmi and Madhur Jaffrey. She holds degrees from Brown University and Columbia University and is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. She was Country Head for Sesame Street India, and is currently on the global board of The Antara Foundation and Columbia University Entertainment.
Vani Kola
Vani Kola is Managing Director of Kalaari Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Bangalore. After 22 years as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, she now works with first-time founders to build global companies, with investments spanning e-commerce, mobile, education and healthcare. She has been named among Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business and speaks widely on entrepreneurship and leadership.
