Women’s Day(s) – Myriad Hues

Radhika Joshi is a young and promising Hindustani classical vocalist of the Jaipur Atrauli Gharana. She is a disciple of Pt. Raghunandan Panshikar, a reknowned vocalist and disciple of Gaansaraswati Kishori Amonkar. Over the past few years, Radhika has presented her music at several music festivals in India as well as abroad. Some of these include Ustad Abdul Karim Khan Smriti Samiti (Miraj), Dadar Matunga Cultural Center (Mumbai), Sangit Kala Mandir (Kolkata), Gayan Sabha (Mysore), Sur Sagar (Bangalore), Sangeet Sankalp – Saptak (Ahmedabad), Pt. Bundi Maharaj Charitable Soceity (Benaras), Bangalore International Centre and Chhandayan Center (New York). Radhika has been felicitated with several awards including the first prize in Jod-Raga Spardha awarded by Sangeet Bhooshan Pt. Ram Marathe Foundation.

Sunalini is a post graduate in Food Technology and has spent more than 50 years in coffee in the arena of quality and has worked as Director (Quality) at the Coffee Board of India, as quality evaluator, trainer, professor, coffee blender, developer of green coffee brands, judge in Barista coffee competitions around the world, writer of coffee articles and even as a coffee guide to new coffee entrepreneurs. She is heading the sensory lab for coffee “Coffeelab”, the first of its kind in India, which she helped to set up in 1996 in Bangalore. She lectures and teaches at the Universita Del Cafe, De Trieste under the Ernesto Illy Foundation and the University of Trieste, Italy. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Coffee Quality Institute of the Speciality Coffee Association of America, an Independent Director on the Board of Tata Coffee, which is Asia’s largest integrated Coffee Company and one of the foremost producers of Specialty Coffee in India and the President of the Women’s Coffee Alliance India, which is affiliated to the International Women’s Coffee Alliance, USA.

Hema Ravichandar is a Strategic HR Advisor with over 39 years of industry experience. She serves on many Boards. Hema, until 2005, was the Senior Vice-President and Global Head of Human Resources for Infosys Limited. In this capacity she designed and drove the HR agenda for Infosys globally, as it scaled up from 250 employees to 40,000 employees. Under her HR Leadership, Infosys won several “Best Employer of the Year” awards in India and was placed in the Top 100 rankings, overseas. Hema has won several awards and accolades including three “HR Professional of the Year” awards, listings amongst the “25 Most Powerful Women in India” and “Successful Women Professionals in IT”. Hema is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and has been a participant at The Wharton School’s Executive Development Program.

Currently an advisor, Independent Director and mentor after retiring from formal fulltime employment in 2016, Mr. K.R.V. Parameshwar’s last position was President & CEO of Klüber Lubrication India and General Manager & Vice President of Chem-Trend Chemicals Co, both subsidiaries of Freudenberg Group of Germany. Mr. Parameshwar joined the Tata Administrative Services in 1976 and after 5 years joined Hindustan Lever Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Unilever Plc. During his 17 years in Hindustan Lever Limited, he headed various export  operations, set up a number of Greenfield projects for export, created a Japan desk and an office in Tokyo and finally was the Head of the Animal Feeds Division. Mr. Parameshwar has been active in education both as a visiting faculty to a number of institutes, as also through helping in the administration of a well-known residential school. He is/has been on the Advisory Council/Board of a management school, an IIT and an International adult education organisation. He has also been a speaker at various conferences and meetings.

Sukanya Ramgopal is one of the frontline musicians of India and the first woman ghatam artist of the country. Trained under the ghatam maestro Sri Vikku Vinayakram, Sukanya has performed across the world. The GhataTharang is a unique idea conceptualised by her, where she plays multiple ghatams to create melody on a percussion instrument. Sukanya is the recipient of the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi award. She leads an all-women’s instrumental ensemble and is also the author of the first text book for ghatam learning.

Sumana Chandrashekar is a student of Sukanya Ramgopal on the ghatam. She has performed on the ghatam in prestigious venues and festivals across the country, including several special ghatam ensembles along with her guru. As an independent researcher, Sumana is studying the history of the ghatam in Carnatic music. She has created an experimental performance work based on the story of the ghatam titled ‘Rendu Ghatam’. She has worked on music education projects and has worked closely with the families of ghatam makers.

A creative, vivacious leader of varied interests and strengths, Uzma spearheads all initiatives enabled by technology, innovation and strategic growth at the Prestige Group. Under the reputed Sublime banner, she has been instrumental in successfully launching 6 verticals focussed on media management, publishing, retail, teas, wellness and art.

Uzma has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including FICCI-FLO Award for ‘Indomitable Spirit’ in inspiring the modern woman, ‘Female Real Estate Professional of The Year’ by Bangalore Real Estate Awards, ‘Female Real Estate Professional of the Year’ at BERG Awards, Singapore and ‘Woman Achiever of the Year’ at Global Real Estate Brand Award, to name a few.

Uzma graduated with Honors and a dual degree, including a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the American InterContinental University in London. Her leisure pursuits include traveling, reading and cooking.

Vyoma is an MBA from IIM-Bangalore with over 14 years of experience in Real Estate. With a career panning across top brands in the country like Lodha Group, Brigade Group, Shriram properties, Vyoma is now Co-founder at FLOW, India’s first Real-Estate-as-a-service agency. At Flow, she specializes in solving one of the toughest problems in real estate – CASHFLOW management & SALES acceleration by way of innovative marketing and sales strategies. The Flow team is one of the most sought-after sales outsourcing teams today in Bangalore with clients like Sterling, Habitat, UKn, Svamitva, Sipani, Navami and more. Mom to a hyper-active kid, she lives by the mantra of balance and loves donning multiple hats. She is also an avid reader, a tech enthusiast, travel-buff and could break into a dance anytime you want!

Aparna Narasimhan an architect with over 32 years of experience is Partner and Design Director at Venkataramanan Associates a leading architectural practice. In her position, Aparna guides the firm’s design process and critical review sessions. As co-founder of Kadambari – an organization that is involved in the promotion of performing arts and fine arts of India, Aparna has organised several exhibitions and workshops on traditional Indian textiles, arts and crafts. Her work, which is dominated by residential and institutional projects, is characterized by an ability to straddle complex parameters and feasibility studies, a good understanding of context and a design process that displays knowledge ranging from master-plan level decision-making to minute design detailing.

Ravichandar is the Honorary Director of the Bangalore International Centre. He has been active in urban reforms and governance for the last two decades starting with the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and most recently as a part of the 3-member Government Expert Committee tasked with re-imagining governance and administration for Bengaluru. Ravichandar is a self-styled Civic Evangelist and continues to tilt at wind mills in the civic space!

Chandni is a Graphic Designer by day and most nights while the musician in her patiently waits in the wings to monetize her talent only so she can say that she ‘moonlights’ as a singer.

Dhamini Ratnam is a senior editor with the Hindustan Times. She writes on gender, sexuality and their intersection with the law and society.

Arundhati is a poet in Bangla and sometimes writes in English. She works in the cultural sector.

Vijeta Kumar teaches Communicative English at St. Joseph’s University, Bengaluru. She also writes at rumlolarum.com.

Priya Ramani is a Bangalore-based journalist. She is the co-founder of India Love Project and on the editorial board of news website Article-14. She is a columnist for BQ Prime and The Hindu Sunday magazine

Laxmi Murthy is a journalist, editor, writer, researcher, trainer and women’s rights activist with three decades of experience. She is one of the founder-members of the Network of Women in Media, India, a forum for women media professionals across India. She is co-founder editor of the Free Speech Collective, a platform for journalists and free speech advocates to protect and promote the right to free speech and expression.

Laxmi has been active in the autonomous women’s movement and civil rights movement in India for more than three decades. She was part of the drafting process of the civil law against sexual harassment at the workplace in the late 1990s in Delhi and continues her engagement with creating safe spaces for working women by evolving organisational policies, raising awareness, conducting training and serving as the external member of Internal Committees in a range of organisations in Bangalore.

Currently, Laxmi heads the Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange a unit under the Himal banner, conducting cross-border research in a region fraught with political divisions. She is also contributing editor with Himal Southasian, the region’s only political review magazine, published from Colombo Sri Lanka. Laxmi also helped co-ordinate the Sexual Violence and Impunity research and publication project anchored at feminist publishing house, Zubaan Books, New Delhi. She also co-authored the book Our Pictures Our Words: A Visual Journey through the Women’s Movement. 

Ashmi Mridul is a multidisciplinary artist, interested in making art more accessible by bringing it into the public realm. She designs participatory projects to facilitate research and experiential learning. Through her projects, she engages with the everyday to interact with diverse communities and people around the world.

She graduated in Interaction Design Arts from the London College of Communication. At university, she was awarded a scholarship for Route Artlantique, a local arts residency in Senegal. She explored her interest in participatory art by working with art and architectural and firms in UK, Berlin and India. On her return to her hometown, she worked on an oral history project with the Mehrangarh Fort & Museum (Jodhpur), documenting unheard stories of Marwari women. Currently she is doing her Master’s in Art, Culture and Technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Formerly, she was awarded an art grant for the Gender Bender Festival (2019) in Bangalore. She also exhibited at the Irregulars Art Fair (2019) in New Delhi and Science Museum Lates (2018) in London.

Sneha Joshi is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and cultural practitioner based in Bangalore.  Through her artistic and curatorial practice she aims to challenge perceptions around sociocultural norms and identity, promoting dialogue with various communities around relevant and pressing sociocultural themes through discussion and workshops. She engages with everyday themes in the Indian and global context to initiate cultural conversations. Sneha’s work is highly research based and often takes the form of participatory, interactive art projects, workshops and publications.

Her work has been exhibited at Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, London (2018) and The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Arts, Rijeka, Croatia (2016). She was awarded a grant for Gender Bender Festival (2019) supported by Goethe Institut Bangalore and Sandbox Collective. She was  an Artist-in-Residence at Pollinator Studio’s virtual art residency, Virtual Nursery (2021-21). Her work was also exhibited at the Students’ Biennale 4th Edition, at Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2020-21) and her digital works have been exhibited as part of The Wrong Biennale (2022) and at areybyte Gallery, London to name a few.

She graduated in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, and holds an M.A. in Curatorial Practices from Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore.

Aarthi Parthasarathy is an Indian filmmaker and webcomic creator. Having grown up in Mumbai and living in Bengaluru, Parthasarathy is known for creating the webcomic Royal Existentials and writing for the webcomic Urbanlore. Parthasarathy became part of feminist art collective Kadak in March 2016, where she has collaborated to create Personal (Cyber) Space and Aloe Vera and The Void.