Quarter-Mid-Late Life Crises

Latha Reddy served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1975 to 2013. The highlights of her career were her postings as Consul General in Durban, South Africa, Ambassador to Portugal, and later to Thailand, and serving as Secretary(East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, and finally, as the Deputy National Security Advisor of India.

Since her retirement in 2013, she has been based in her hometown Bangalore. Here she has worked intensively on Cybersecurity and served on two Global Commissions on the subject. She has served on the Boards of a Microfinance company, a bank, and a Telecom industry body.

She also heads and works actively on several NGOs and Trusts in the fields of heritage, theatre, international affairs, creative arts, classical dance and music.

She is a Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation and is on the Adjunct Faculty of the Takshashila Institute.

When she was eight, Samhita Arni started writing and illustrating her first book. The Mahabharata – A Child’s View went on to be published in seven language editions, sold over 60,000 copies, and won the Elsa Morante Literary Award. Samhita’s second book, Sita’s Ramayana, a graphic novel developed in collaboration with Patua artist Moyna Chitrakar, was on the New York Times Bestseller list for Graphic Novels. She is also the author of a mythological thriller, The Missing Queen, and The Prince, a work of historical fiction set in South India. The Prince won the 2020 Neev Book Prize.

Samhita spent six months in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she was head scriptwriter for an action-packed police drama, titled ‘The Defenders’, and was the scriptwriter for ‘Good Morning Karachi’, a film directed by Locarno award-winning director, Sabiha Sumar. Earlier this year, she worked on ‘Barroz’, a Malayalam film featuring and directed by the legendary superstar, Mohanlal. In 2021, India Today magazine listed Samhita as one of “The Next 100 Young Achievers who symbolize India Tomorrow,” a list which included Tapsee Pannu and Aditya Thackeray.

The literary journal Out of Print produced an issue on Sexual and Gender Violence, which was conceived by and guest-edited by Samhita, and which went on to receive a Laadli Media award for Gender Sensitivity. Samhita was the 2014 artist-in-residence at the FIND Foundation in Zagarolo, Italy, and also received their 2015 grant. She was also the recipient of the 2015 Charles Wallace – British Council Fellowship, and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Kent.

She also is a consultant with the Starlight Effect, a firm that uses storytelling to transform businesses and organizations.

Akash Kumar is a Bangalore based health-tech entrepreneur. An alumnus of IIT Madras and KL-YES Program of the US Department of State, Akash takes a keen interest in all things tech, political economy, futurism & any intersection of these worlds. He gets around to writing on these issues, albeit sporadically and has by-lines in Hindustan Times and Deccan Herald.

To repent for his writer’s block, he started a writing fellowship to empower students interested in writing about public policy in India. He tweets at @aye_kaash. You can find more about him on his personal website.

Mamtha Rajesh is a psychotherapist and the founder of Utsmaya Parenting. With 23 years of experience working with over 2500 individuals, couples and families from across 12 countries, she had a burning desire to stitch her experience and knowledge together to help parents raise emotionally healthy children and prevent the need for them to need therapy later on. This gave birth to the idea of Utsmaya and she offers parenting coaching programs for parents of 0-8 years of age.

She’s a Bangalorean, an animal lover and a life long learner.