30 January - 3 February 2025 | Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur
Rachana Yadav is a professional Kathak dancer and choreographer. She founded the Rachana Yadav Kathak Studio in Gurgaon , with a performing repertory as well as a training wing with more than 50 students. In 2013, following the passing of her father Rajendra Yadav, celebrated Hindi author and editor, Yadav took over as the Managing Director of Hans – the largest Hindi literary magazine in India, with a wide and diverse readership. As of today, she manages both these professions. She is choreographing and actively performing. With her literary background, she is able to blend contemporary literature into her choreographies, which has helped her carve a special niche for herself in the field of performing arts. Simultaneously, she strives to ensure a continuous publication of Hans, with the objective of heralding its leading position as well as increasing its reader base. For this she and her team have been spearheading new ideas in the conventional field of Hindi literature in India through Hans English, a series of English translations of the best of Hans, and Hans Vani, the audio magazine of Hans and the first of its kind in India.
The much loved writer Mannu Bhandari's inspired body of work forges a significant link in the evolution of modern Hindi fiction. Her novels and short stories are a testament to a time and a moment and to the nature of humans, of men and women and their complex relationships. Vidya Pradhan's translations, presented as The Best of Mannu Bhandari: The Wise Woman and Other Stories, introduces us to unshackled women, some flawed and self centered in the eyes of a patriarchal society and yet worthy of agency and respect. Taking forward Bhandari’s unflinching gaze, the stories in this collection are a testament to the inner lives of women, their strength and their fragility , and the odds they battle against, then and now. In conversation with writer and translator Poonam Saxena, Pradhan is joined by Bhandari’s daughter Rachana Yadav as they explore the profound spirit and inimitable style at the root of these transformative tales.