Venita Coelho | |
---|---|
Born | 1966 (age 57–58) Dehra Dun, undivided Uttar Pradesh (now part of Uttarakhand), India |
Occupation | Writer, director and artist |
Language | English |
Alma mater | [Loreto Day School, Dharamtala,Kolkata] St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, Sophia College for Women, Mumbai |
Period | First television series written and directed by in 1987 (Head Over Heels). First book published in 2007. |
Genre | Novel, short story |
Notable works | Film, television, children's literature. Washer of the Dead and Boy No.32. |
Notable awards | The Hindu : Good Reads award for best fiction for children 2016. |
Website | |
facebook |
Venita Coelho is an Indian writer, director and artist and currently lives in Goa. [1] [2] [3] Coelho is credited with having made a mark for herself in children's literature, besides film and television. [4]
Born in Dehra Dun, which today lies in Uttarakhand, Coelho grew up and was educated in Kolkatta (then Calcutta), where she attended St. Xavier's College. She later moved to Mumbai (Bombay), and did her diploma in social communications media at the Sophia College there. [5]
After working in film and television for over a decade as writer-director-producer, [3] she re-located to Goa. She is now the author of ten published books, [4] [6] including Dead As A Dodo, which won The Sahitya Akademi Bal Puruskar for 2020 and The Hindu for Good Reads award for best fiction for children 2016.
Her career in television started as an intern at UTV in Mumbai. She has since written, produced and directed shows. She quit her decade long career in television when the saas-bahu genre became dominant. Coelho has said, "I couldn’t bring myself to do that to other women. Put out as a role model a heroine who only suffers endlessly."
She returned to television to work on the show, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin (an adaptation of Betty La Fea) which ran counter to the dominant narrative style of television to tell the story of an ugly underdog. For Indian television her writing credits include the series Na Bole Tum Na Maine Kuch Kaha, Amma and Family, Avishkar, Jungli Toofan Tyre Puncture, Trikaal and Head Over Heels. She has also written and directed telefilms -- Wild Rose, Picnic and The Lost Son.
She gets co-writing credits on the Story/Screenplay for Musafir and the Adaptation and Screenplay credits for We Are Family.
For Malaysian television she wrote Idaman. Her work for television in Singapore includes the telefilm, Angel, and the series Anything Goes, Rojak, Bold and Bollywood, Rehai among others. She has been Vice President, New Product Development at Sony Entertainment Television; Vice President, Fiction Content, Endemol India; Vice President, Fiction Content, Nimbus and Creative Head, Cinevistaas Ltd. [3]
Coelho has written the daily soap Trikaal and Karan Johar's adaptation of Stepmom, We are Family. [5] She also wrote the script for Jassi Jaisa Koi Nahin in 2003. [2]
Coelho works in oils and acrylics on canvas and glass. She held her first solo exhibition titled ‘The Naked Gaze’ in Goa in 2010.
She wrote a column for The Indian Express titled "The Tale of Two Cities" that covered the difference between lives in privileged South Mumbai and life beyond Bandra. Under the pseudonym "Hot Potato", she wrote a column for The Indian Express on the inner complications of working in the media. She wrote a series of short fictions in The Asian Age titled "Five Minute Fiction". Her column for The Herald ( O Heraldo ) in Goa was called "The Accidental Activist", and chronicled her challenges as part of the Goa Bachao Abhiyaan and the popular people's movement that protested a controversial Regional Plan for Goa.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey and wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou, and Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film that she wrote and directed.
Urvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir.
Mário João Carlos do Rosário de Brito Miranda, popularly known as Mario Miranda or Mario de Miranda, was an Indian cartoonist and painter based in Loutolim in the Indian state of Goa.
Mannu Bhandari was an Indian author, screenplay writer, teacher, and playwright. Primarily known for her two Hindi novels, Aap Ka Bunty and Mahabhoj (Feast), Bhandari also wrote over 150 short stories, several other novels, screenplays for television and film, and adaptations for theater. She was a pioneer of the Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature, which focused on the aspirations of the emerging Indian middle class, and her own work is notable for its depiction of the inner lives of middle class working and educated women. Her work tackles themes of family, relationships, gender equality, and caste discrimination in India.
Shashi Deshpande is an Indian novelist. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri Award in 1990 and 2009 respectively.
Anuradha Paudwal is an Indian playback singer and politician who works predominantly in Hindi cinema. She has been described in media as one of the most prominent Bhajan singer and also as one of the most successful playback singers of 80s and 90s era of Bollywood. The recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, four Filmfare Awards and two Odisha State Film Awards, she has been honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, the country's fourth-highest civilian honour for her contribution in the field of arts. Her contribution in Indian devotional music and Bollywood Industry gained her the titles such as "Bhajan Queen", "Melody Queen".
Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin is an Indian soap opera which aired on Sony Entertainment Television from 1 September 2003 to 4 May 2006. The series was an Indian-themed version of the Colombian drama Yo soy Betty, la fea.
Mona Singh is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films and series. Having first gained prominence in 2000s for playing the eponymous heroine in the soap opera series Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin (2003–06), she has since appeared in several other television and film roles. Singh is the recipient of two Indian Television Academy Awards.
Anuradha Menon, also known as Anu Menon, is an Indian actress and theatre artist. Lola Kutty, the popular Channel [V] VJ, is her alter ego.
Shilpa Saklani is an Indian television actress. She known for her role as Ganga Sahil Virani in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Vidhi in Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin. She was a contestant on the reality shows Nach Baliye 1 and Bigg Boss 7.
Mridula Sinha was an Indian writer and politician who served as Governor of Goa from August 2014 to October 2019. She was the first woman Governor of Goa.
Shveta Salve is an Indian television actress and model, best known as the 1st runner-up of the dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 1.
Annie Zaidi is an English-language writer from India. Her novel, Prelude To A Riot, won the Tata Literature Live! Awards for Book of the Year 2020. In 2019, she won The Nine Dots Prize for her work Bread, Cement, Cactus and in 2018 she won The Hindu Playwright Award for her play, Untitled-1. Her non-fiction debut, a collection of essays, Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010.
Kausar Munir is an Indian lyricist and screen writer in Bollywood.
Janhavi Acharekar is an Indian writer of fiction and travel. She is the author of the novel Wanderers, All (2015), a collection of short stories Window Seat: Rush-hour stories from the city (2009), both published by HarperCollins and a travel guide Moon Mumbai and Goa (2009), by Moon Handbooks.
Rochelle Potkar is an Indian fiction writer and poet based in Mumbai, India. Her work includes the short story collections The Arithmetic of Breasts and Other Stories and Bombay Hangovers, as well as the poetry collections Four Degrees of Separation and Paper Asylum.
Neha Singh is an Indian theatre-maker, author and campaigner who encourages women to ignore harassment and reclaim the public space.
Rohena Gera, born in 1973, is an Indian director, screenwriter and producer.
Priya Sarukkai Chabria is an Indian poet, translator and novelist writing in English, and a curator. She has written four poetry collections, two speculative fiction novels, translations from Classical Tamil, literary nonfiction, and a novel. She has edited two poetry anthologies. She is also founding editor of Poetry at Sangam, an Indian online literary journal of poetry.
Vinitha is an Indian author of over 25 books tailored for children and young adults, spanning genre fiction, non-fiction, and picture books. Notably, her book Sera Learns to Fly clinched the Best Children's Book of the Year award at the FICCI Publishing Awards in 2019, while Lost and Found in a Mumbai Koliwada received multiple award nominations in 2020. Also her children's picture-book Ammu and the Sparrows gained recognition by being listed on the Parag Honour List and receiving the prestigious Neev Literature Award in 2021. Four of her stories have been integrated into the curricula of prominent educational boards such as CBSE and ICSE.