In Pics: The Write India journey

Conceptualized and launched by Vinita Dawra Nangia, Write India started as a simple thought in a meeting in 2015. It soon saw the coming together of India’s 11 bestselling authors and a journey unforgettable!

Write India was officially introduced during the curtain raiser of Times LitFest-Delhi 2015. The 11 participating authors of Write India Season 1 were Amish, Chetan Bhagat, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Preeti Shenoy, Tuhin A Sinha, Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Datta, Madhuri Banerjee, Jaishree Misra and Anita Nair.

Spread over a period of 11 months, a passage was shared by the celebrity author of the month which was unveiled at midnight. The participants had to develop their story using the author's passage and rules. The winners were announced on the 15th of each month.
(Pic Credit: Thinkstock Photos)

Hundreds of aspiring writers participated month after month. To resolve their queries and boost their morale, live Twitter chats on TOI Books' handle were organized with the respective author of the month. During the 11-months of the writing contest, several Write India Meet & Greet sessions with the authors were also held in various cities.

Write India authors Amish, Ravi Subramanian and Ashwin Sanghi came together for a panel discussion on Write India - Searching for New Stories at the Times LitFest Delhi 2015. The jam-packed session was moderated by Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director, Write India.

During the Write India session the best-selling authors discussed their writing experiences. While Amish said that he doesn't need to search for his stories, instead they come to him; author Ravi Subramanian asked the aspiring writers to be different and not follow the current book trends. Talking about the importance of marketing the book, author Ashwin Sanghi said, "Marketing is like a hangover after writing the book. Writing and editing on the other hand are easy to do...The last para of your book is your marketing para for the next book you write."

Two of the Write India winners were felicitated at the session during Times LitFest Delhi which was held in November 2015. Seen here are author Amish's first winner Sutapa Basu (centre left) and author Ashwin Sanghi's first winner Kena Shree (centre right).

Author Ashwin Sanghi felicitated his winner Kena Shree, an HR professional from Lucknow at the Times LitFest Delhi 2015.

Author Amish felicitated his winner Sutapa Basu, a writer from New Delhi at the Times LitFest Delhi 2015.

Spreading the word about Write India and the lifetime opportunity of being mentored by India's 11 bestselling authors, a panel discussion was held at Literati 2015, Chandigarh. Write India authors Ravinder Singh and Ravi Subramanian discussed about the path of revolutionizing Indian Contemporary writing with Write India Director Vinita Dawra Nangia.
(Pic Credit: Chandigarh Literary Society)

While thousands of entries were flooding Write India each month, the mentors were equally enthusiastic to meet their winners. In December 2015, Write India author Chetan Bhagat met and felicitated his first winner Nainesh A Jadwani at his office in Mumbai. Nainesh also got an opportunity to interact with the author.

After successfully entering its eighth month, we were left with some amazing facts about the contest. "People from ages 10 to 60 participated; more women wrote on infidelity; 10-year-olds wrote for Chetan Bhagat and Amish," revealed Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director, Write India. This along with many other interesting trivia were shared at an interactive session with aspiring writers at the Readomania Talkfest, Delhi in January 2016.
(Pic Credit: Readomania)

The first Write India Meet & Greet session was organized in February, 2016 in Mumbai. A huge crowd turned up at the event as the winners and aspiring writers got a chance to meet the Write India authors.
(L to R: Durjoy Datta, Madhuri Banerjee, Ravi Subramanian, Tuhin A Sinha)

Write India author Tuhin A Sinha pointed out the lack of opportunities available a few years ago, when the publishing industry was still at the nascent stage. Now, with growing authors, several publishing houses are setting up in India. He added that Write India will not only encourage budding authors to open up, but also give them a platform to display their work.

At the end of the event, the Write India winners from Mumbai were felicitated. Chetan Bhagat's winner Nainesh A Jadwani, an engineer by profession said, "After listening to the authors open their heart out about the struggles of writing, I felt like 'Hey, they are just like me. They weren't born with any advantages. If they persevered, so must I!' It was hugely inspirational."

Samah Visaria, the winner of Preeti Shenoy's contest just wanted the right push from the right people at the right time. "Meeting some of the best writers of the country was totally an overwhelming and encouraging experience," she quipped.

"Being a part of Write India made me proud of the writing community. It shows that the giants of the writing world are not just in name, but also have giant sized hearts to welcome and encourage new entrants," said Ameeta Anand, the second winner of Ashwin Sanghi's contest.

Juhi Kothari, one of the top 6 winners of Amish's contest from Pune, had specially come down for the Mumbai event. "In an ocean of nobody's, Write India and Times of India are making us feel like 'somebody'. Sincere appreciation and deepest gratitude for them!," she shared.

After an overwhelming response in Mumbai, Write India headed down South with a Meet & Greet session in Chennai in April, 2016. Winners and participants gathered in huge numbers to meet author Ravi Subramanian along with Vinita Dawra Nangia, Write India Director. With a house-full session, the Chennai Write India Meet & Greet event turned out to be a big hit.

The free-wheeling interaction with author Ravi Subramanian in Chennai on the art of writing turned into a discussion of ideas. Meanwhile sharing the Write India insights, Vinita Dawra Nanagia said, "We are here to nudge the writer in you and provide a platform for authors and budding writers to connect and create a piece of fiction. So, we collaborated with 11 authors and surprisingly the response has been very warm with thousands of entries pouring in each month."

Talking about the thrill of writing Rangarajan R, a participant whose story was among the top 10 for author Preeti Shenoy, said, "The initiative helped me to get back to writing which I had stopped years ago."

Bangalorians turned up in huge numbers as the next Write India Meet & Greet session was held in their city in April, 2016. Celebrity authors Preeti Shenoy and Anita Nair were seen in a conversation with Vinita Dawra Nangia. The overwhelming response at the session confirmed the fact that Write India had hit the right notes.

"If you have an idea, stick to it and write it," was the message that author Anita Nair and Preeti Shenoy had for the aspiring writers in Bangalore. Preeti Shenoy shared an interesting take on 'labeling books'. She said that publishers gave labels to writings so that books can be slotted neatly in stores. While Anita suggested that activists and people who lack an interesting point of view must not become writers.

"This is a competition where you've won if you've participated, because you have written your story," said Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director, Write India, during the Write India Meet & Greet session in Bangalore.

Mumbai wanted more and more of Write India Meet & Greet sessions and this time authors Tuhin A Sinha and Ravi Subramanian joined in to felicitate the winners in May, 2016.

Author Ravi Subramanian felicitated Jacintha Saldanha, who won the first position for Ravinder Singh's contest, during the Mumbai Meet & Greet session at Crossword. Jacintha works at a personal assistant at an MNC in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, author Tuhin A Sinha met and felicitated his first winner Aarati Shah, who is a researcher and writer from Mumbai.

Mumbaikars gathered to meet their favourite authors again. Winners based in the city also joined in to know interesting inside stories about the contest. Such sessions have been our favourite too.

With Write India Season 1 coming to an end, TOI Books had a live Twitter chat with Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director Write India. Write India enthusiasts, who were eager to know the future plans of the campaign made the chat a huge success, so much so that the hashtag #TOIWriteIndia showed up on the top Twitter trends. Ms Nangia revealed that "Write India Season 2 will soon be unveiled". During the course of the contest, a whopping 25000 entries were received in a period of 11 months! The overwhelming participation and enthusiasm of budding writers, strengthened our determination and gave wings to the concept. Read the full Twitter interaction here.

On 12th November, 2016, we brought along our winners from different parts of the country. The much-awaited creative writing retreat for Write India winners was held at the iconic building of Times of India, Mumbai.

The session was kickstarted by Director of Write India, Vinita Dawra Nangia who expressed her gratitude and passion for the campaign that she nurtured from its nascent stage. "Today, while coming for the event, I felt like Shah Rukh Khan from Chak De India," she said on a lighter note.

This was the first time all the winners were meeting each other and the enthusiasm was in the air. The day long workshop was moderated by Dipankar Banerjee from Readomania.

Celebrity author and script writer, Madhuri Banerjee opened up a Pandora of writing jewels during the workshop as she took the winners through the process of ideation, writing and technicalities of creating plots and characters. She also shared interesting insights into writing models that work.

We were joined by another celebrity author and script writer, Mahendra Jakhar who compared an idea of a novel to a science invention. "It's important to think out of the box. If you don't have a revolutionary idea, don't write," he said.

The winners were then joined by celebrity author and banker, Ravi Subramanian, who confessed disliking the tag of 'celebrity'. He added, "I have never called my readers, fans." He shared the nuances of the publishing industry and gave deeper insight into the publishing business and why it is important to have a continuous zeal to follow your passion for writing.

Followed by the Creative Writing Workshop, 11 of the country’s top celebrity authors came together to celebrate the culmination of the first ever short story writing competition in the country, Write India, a Times of India initiative. The event took place on November 13, 2016 at St. Regis hotel in Mumbai with the grand unveiling of the book, Write India Stories.

In a light and engaging conversation with Vinita Dawra Nangia, Director, Write India, celebrity authors opened up about their personal writing experiences and shared some interesting tips for aspiring writers. Author and businessman, Ashwin Sanghi told everyone that he was destined to become a good writer because he lied too well!

Thereon authors went into a candid mode and celebrity author and script writer Durjoy Datta even quipped, “I was amazed to see the quality of writing. It kept me hooked and somewhere made me wonder if they wrote better than me.” The authors also teased Ravi Subramanian about his latest book on infidelity.

The grand book launch of Write India Stories was no less than a dream come true. Authors Amish, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Preeti Shenoy, Tuhin A Sinha, Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Datta, Madhuri Banerjee and Jaishree Misra came together to make the event an evening to remember!

The book Write India Stories is a compilation of the top 36 winning stories of Write India. This marks the debut of 33 budding authors in the country, thanks to this amazing talent hunt.

A dramatized enactment of winner Nainesh Jadwani’s story was performed by theatre artist and actor Swati Das. Nainesh had written it for author Chetan Bhagat's contest. The story was inspired by the Godhra riots and brought alive the characters.

The camaraderie between the winners was something that could not be missed, with all of them taking each other’s autograph in their copy of the book. This brings us to what author Ravi Subramanian said in an interaction, “The world of writing is the best. There is no jealousy between writers and it is a healthy environment to grow!”

Write India finale was a gala event. Seen here are authors Ravi Subramanian, Amish, Ashwin Sanghi and Madhuri Banerjee at their candid best.

The grand book launch was no less than a dream launch for all the 36 winners whose stories got published in the book Write India Stories.

Write India's Delhi finale turned out to be full of surprises for its fans, as it featured none other than the elusive octogenarian writer Ruskin Bond along with authors, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian and Ravinder Singh and Write India Director- Vinita Dawra Nangia. Mr Bond unveiled the Write India Season 1 book with a hope of reading more such interesting stories in the second season, of which he's looking forward to be a part of.

Seen here are Write India authors Ravi Subramanian, Ravinder Singh and Ashwin Sanghi capturing a selfie with India's beloved author Ruskin Bond, who made a surprise visit to the Write India session at Times LitFest Delhi 2016.

The best-selling authors shared their most memorable experience of Write India. As per Ashwin, his biggest challenge was to select the best entry from the top 6-7 stories. Ravinder said that the coming together with other authors in such a huge way for an enriching platform like Write India was his most memorable moment. As far as Ravi was concerned, his moment of surprise came when he learnt that a 14-year-old wrote on the prompt he gave on infidelity and made it to the top three.

Write India Director - Vinita Dawra Nangia closed the enriching session by saying that if a story stayed with with her, she knew it would make a mark.