Arty-party Giveaway - Sandhya for Saffron Tree

Sandhya was a doctor in a faraway lifetime but quit setting bones for delving into tomes. Her daughter is the centre of her universe. Together they have had many adventures of the bibliophilic kind, which she writes about at My Handful of the Sky. History, math, language and music make up the rest of her world. Her idea of heaven is a lazy afternoon with a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other, with her favourite raga playing in the background. She dreams of writing a book someday. A quote that she loves: “The world was hers for the reading!” She is very generously sponsoring a gift for my readers to promote saffron tree.

Tell me a little about SaffronTree?

SaffronTree is a site where parents and children can go for recommendations and detailed reviews of eclectic books, not just the best-selling ones. These are handpicked by our contributors, who are all parents and share their experience of reading these books with their children. SaffronTree was started by Praba Ram when she found very few resources for good multicultural and specifically Indian books. It wouldn’t be the wonderful place it is for book recommendations, if it wasn’t for the wonderful people who contribute, and I am proud to be one of their numbers. We often joke among ourselves about an ST standard for choosing our books.

Other than the frequently updated reviews and author interviews, we also have our annual festival that is held at the site, in the last week of October. It is called CROCUS – Celebrate Reading Of Culturally Unique Stories – and is a 5 day fest of books around a theme. Certainly worth visiting.

Something about you?

I love books. It is evident in everything I do. I would definitely define myself as primarily a reader. I also love to write about the books I have loved. What kind of books do I read? Anything and everything that appeals to me, both children’s books and those for grown-ups. I can say with conviction, that over four decades of reading, I’ve honed a sixth sense about the good, the bad, the ugly and the inconsequential as far as books go.

I have my own blog on which I write about my books and much else. I have one daughter, in whom, miraculously, I’ve managed to inculcate a similar affection towards reading, and some of our memorable times together have been of reading and discussing books we both love.

I also freelance at a few places, and hope to write a book sometime not too far into the future. Preferably historical fiction.

What made you start doing book reviews? and When?

As I said, I read a lot. At some point, I felt the need to share with others my joy in these books. Around that time, a few years ago, everyone who had something to say was saying it at their blog. I thought it would be a good idea to write about the books we’ve enjoyed, and what better way than to review them? I take my time over them, researching into the background, author/illustrator details, etc., preferring it to one liners.

Contact Details –

I blog at http://arightowrite.blogspot.in/. There is of course, SaffronTree – www.saffrontree.org, and Womensweb atwww.womensweb.in. My contact details are there on my blog.

What would you be gifting our readers.

I would let the readers choose one book from these four.

I would also give a separate, non-art/craft book of my choice, which will be chosen according to our ‘ST standards’, to the winner, which I will choose depending on the age of the child.

Rules of the giveaway