World Book Day 2025: 5 unmissable reads that cross borders and stay with you

Books don't just tell stories; they build bridges across time, cultures and perspectives. This World Book Day, celebrate the power of storytelling and literature to challenge how we see the world and our place in it. Whether you're curled up at home or listening on the go, the right story can transport you across borders – no passport required. With a collection of over 16,000 books and more than 2,500 audio and e-books spanning different genres, the British Council's Digital Library offers readers a treasure trove of thought-provoking titles from around the world that inspire and prompt conversation.
This year, the British Council spotlights five remarkable works in translation that speak to our most pressing emotions and complexities – displacement, digital burnout, memory, resilience and care. These stories, though rooted in specific cultures, transcend borders to offer universal truths.
1. Under the Eye of the Big Bird – by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda
From one of Japan's most acclaimed contemporary novelists, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is a speculative masterpiece that reimagines life on Earth after humans have nearly gone extinct. In this distant future, scattered tribes live under the care of mysterious 'Mothers.' Told through fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological ages, this quietly profound novel is both mournful and hopeful. Blending science and myth, it offers a poetic and unsettling vision of the end of humanity – and what might emerge in its place.
2. Heart Lamp: Selected Stories – by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi
In Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq vividly captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Originally published in Kannada, these twelve stories reflect her background as a journalist and lawyer, with a sharp focus on women's rights and resistance to caste and religious injustice. Praised for their dry humour and vivid style, the stories are filled with unforgettable characters – spirited children, outspoken grandmothers, and resilient mothers navigating complex emotions. Mushtaq's writing showcases her as a keen observer of human nature and a powerful storyteller.
3. Perfection – by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes
Anna and Tom – a millennial expat couple – seem to be living an idyllic life surrounded by plants, parties, and filtered social media moments in Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection. As digital creatives, their world is curated to appear flawless, yet beneath the surface lies a growing sense of dissatisfaction and disconnection. Their relationships, careers, and political efforts all begin to feel hollow, as they search for meaning in a life built on appearances. Translated by Sophie Hughes, the novel exposes the emptiness at the heart of curated modern living. Blending sharp social commentary with a stylish, minimalist narrative, Perfection is a striking exploration of identity, authenticity, and the subtle despair of a generation caught in the glow of its own image.
4. Small Boat – by Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson
Small Boat is a poetic and haunting novella from France that reflects on grief, guilt, and moral responsibility. Blending fiction with real events, it is inspired by the 2021 tragedy in the English Channel, where 27 migrants died after their calls for help were mishandled. The narrator – a call handler accused of failing in her duty – offers a quiet yet powerful meditation on blame, asking why one person should carry the weight of a crisis shaped by war, politics, and indifference. Vincent Delecroix crafts a deeply philosophical tale, adrift in memory, sorrow, and unanswered questions. Through Helen Stevenson's delicate translation, Small Boat becomes both a voice of protest and a lament.
5. A Leopard-Skin Hat – by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson
Anne Serre's A Leopard-Skin Hat is a poignant, dreamlike novella centred on an intense childhood friendship between the narrator and Fanny, a young woman grappling with deep psychological struggles. Through a series of short, elegant scenes, Serre explores the narrator's unwavering devotion and emotional turmoil, capturing the delicate dance between hope and despair that defines their bond. Moving and subtly surreal, the story blurs the line between reality and imagination, infused with Serre's trademark wit and stylistic grace. Beautifully translated by Mark Hutchinson, the novella is both a tribute to a life cut short and a quiet meditation on grief, love, and the complexities of care.
These five books demonstrate how stories can be deeply personal yet universally resonant. Perfect for World Book Day, each title is a small gem of cross-cultural imagination, offering a portal to the strange and sublime. Whether you're seeking stories that challenge, comfort, or connect, these voices from around the world invite you to read beyond the familiar – and rediscover the transformative power of literature.

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a day ago

• Scroll.in

The JCB Prize for Literature has shut down. What else has ended with it?

One full month after the announcement of the 2025 International Booker Prize winner, it is difficult to enter a London bookshop without seeing the winning book, Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq's short story collection Heart Lamp, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, displayed in full glory. From the Foyle's shop window in Charing Cross to special tables in Waterstones and Hatchard's, not to mention dozens of independent bookshops, Heart Lamp is, quite literally, everywhere. While sales figures in the UK are yet to be disclosed publicly, publishers And Other Stories, whose decision to publish the book in the UK made it eligible for the prize, have been working hard to meet the demand from online and in-store buyers. In India, sales are believed to be closing in on the 100,000-mark, an incredible achievement by any standards for a work of serious contemporary fiction, and a translation, and a volume of short stories, at that. These figures are in the same orbit as the sales of Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand, the English translation of Ret Samadhi by Daisy Rockwell, which won the International Booker Prize in 2022, and of the Hindi original. Clearly, when an Indian book wins the International Booker Prize for its English translation, readers – some regular, many more sporadic – in the country snap up copies. Earlier, we saw the same success for Indian or India-linked winners of the Booker Prize – Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, and Aravind Adiga – for their books. The end of the story This is exactly what the JCB Prize for Literature had wanted, hoped and expected to achieve with its winning titles in India. Launched in 2018, the prize picked seven winners in seven successive years, awarding the writer Rs 25 lakh, and the translator, when there was one, Rs 10 lakh, before quietly disappearing. The prize that had positioned itself as the Indian Booker, and had definitive plans to make the same impact on the world of books in India, had the unlikeliest of endings – at least, in the form in which it had begun life – by simply ghosting the entire literary world. No announcement, no farewell, no summing up. Of course, the modest ceremony for the 2024 award, held not at a swank venue but at the sponsor's corporate headquarters in Faridabad, Haryana, held a clue. So did the near-total lack of marketing for the shortlisted books. Everyone in the literary establishment, especially in Delhi, had an inkling that this might be a swansong. There is still no formal acknowledgement, but with no announcements having been made for the 2025 awards, it is obviously the end of the prize as we knew it. The only official document in this context is a document that has been uploaded to the website of the JCB Prize for Literature, stating, among other things, that the 'Notice is hereby given that in pursuance of sub-section (4)(ii) of section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013, an application has been made by JCB Literature Foundation to the Registrar of companies, Delhi & Haryana at Delhi for revocation of the licence issued to it under section 8(5) of the companies Act, 2013. After the cancellation of license, the company will be required to add the word 'Private Limited' to its name in place of 'Foundation'. The same document, however, lists activities that are more or less the same as those involved in running the prize. The same mills that churned with the rumours of closure have also been suggesting that the JCB Prize might be back, in a different form. The organisers have commissioned a survey to assess the impact of the prize over seven years, and many people in the world of books have been interviewed for it. But whether the findings will form the basis of a newer version of the prize, or will feed into a closure report, is a closely guarded secret at the moment. Play Why, then, did the JCB Prize fold? Why, for that matter, did its big-ticket predecessor, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature go the same way after its 2019 awards, the ninth in the series that gave $25,000 to the winning title (shared equally between the writer and translator in case of a translated book). The onset of the pandemic may have forced the hands of the sponsors, although there, too, no formal announcement was made. Still, the JCB Prize for Literature came on the scene with a grand flourish and with seemingly powerful intent, as exemplified by the extravagant marketing, advertising, and event-management that went into the first two years of the prize with Rana Dasgupta as the director. Dasgupta, for reasons never made clear to the literary community, was let go of immediately after the second year of the prize, and a few months later, Mita Kapur, founder of the literary agency Siyahi, took over, leading the prize over the next five years, including the difficult ones during the pandemic. To its credit, despite having to go online for everything, the prize did not falter in its commitment during this period, returning to something like the grandeur of its pre-pandemic version from 2022 onwards. What changed, then, forcing the decision to close down? Maybe it is important to accept and acknowledge here that the corporate entity behind the prize, JCB, has had its own inadvertent image problem in India with its bulldozers being pressed into service for demolition of private property as a means of punitive administrative steps undertaken by several state governments. This even led to an open letter criticising the prize, signed by over 120 writers, translators, and publishers in 2024. But the company, of course, has not gone public with its reasons for stopping – or, at the very least, pausing – the prize. Did the prize make an impact? Perhaps the more important question, however, is what sort of JCB-Prize-shaped hole there will be in India's literary world now. To make even informed guesses, it is, of course, necessary to consider the achievements of the prize over its seven years. And the very first question here is, are seven years long enough for a literary prize to have made significant effect? The JCB Prize for Literature was by no means the first high-profile literary prize in India. The Crossword Book Award was instituted by the bookshop chain back in 1998 and continues to be run despite a brief break. The Hindu Literary Prize began life in 2010, continuing the till the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019. The Sahitya Akademi awards were established as far back as in 1954, and continue to be given out. And there was, of course, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Stepping as it did into a space already primed for literary awards, the JCB Prize had the luxury of being able to hit the ground running. Given this backdrop, seven years was long enough to build on an impactful beginning. For comparison, remember that Tomb of Sand won the International Booker in its seventh year. The greatest opportunity for the prize was to create interest – and, by extension, a return to a reading culture – in not just the winning book but the entire list of shortlisted and even longlisted titles. Over seven years, these numbered 71 (in 2019, two of Perumal Murugan's novels were considered as a combined work) and 35, respectively, amounting to a fine showcase of fiction from India. And yet, despite efforts ranging from special films, appearances at literary festivals, and bookshop partnerships, none of the novels could be said to have gained a boost because of their appearance on the longlist or shortlist. Why, even the winning books have not reported anything remotely close to the kind of sales that India's two International Booker Prize winners did. Consider the seven fine novels that have won the JCB Prize between 2018 and 2024. 2018: Jasmine Days, Benyamin, translated from the Malayalam by Shahnaz Habib. 2019: The Far Field, Madhuri Vijay. 2020: Moustache, S Hareesh, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil. 2021: Delhi, A Soliloquy, M Mukundan, translated from the Malayalam by Fathima EV and Nandakumar K. 2022: The Paradise of Food, Khalid Jawed, translated from the Urdu by Baran Farooqi. 2023: Fire Bird, Perumal Murugan, translated from the Tamil by Janaki Kannan. 2024: Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life, Upamanyu Chatterjee. While official sales figures are not available, the informal response from publishers was that none of these books became break-out successes among book-buyers. Play Arguably the most important actual achievement of the prize, therefore, was to create expectations of winning, among writers and publishers. For the first time, both of these groups thought actively about the possibility of winning the prize when they put out a title. Perhaps the great change in publishing programmes came because of the decision of the prize to consider translated books as well as those written in English. As many as 19 of the 36 shortlisted titles over seven years have been translations from various Indian languages. While it might be an exaggeration to state that publishers looked at translations with greater intent because of the chances of one of them winning the prize, there was undoubtedly a renewed focus on translated because of the prize. The impact of the end of the prize, then, will be felt mostly by the publishing community. Most of all, probably, by the writers and translators who will not win the Rs 25-lakh and Rs 10-lakh purses. With serious writing being a monetarily dismal practice in India, awards like these can go a long way towards supporting future work by prize-winning authors. For readers, unfortunately, the closure of the prize may have very little impact. Still, the JCB Prize for Literature has create a model. The literary community will certainly be hoping for a second version of the prize – or a new one to replace it.

The Hindu

2 days ago

• The Hindu

Beyond Heart Lamp's success: Are translators getting the credit that's due?

'Against Italics' - Deepa Bhasthi's translator's note for Heart Lamp, which won the International Booker Prize 2025, made headlines. The translator's note section, which is usually skipped, drew attention this time. 'Setting aside the futile debate of what is lost and found in translation', Ms. Bhasthi talks about her deliberate choice to not use italics for the Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic words that remain untranslated in English. Ms. Bhasthi ends the translator's note saying, 'Italics serve to not only distract visually, but more importantly, they announce words as imported from another language, exoticising them and keeping them alien to English. By not italicising them, I hope the reader can come to these words without interference, and in the process of reading with the flow, perhaps even learn a new word or two in another language. Same goes for footnotes – there are none'. While talking to The Hindu, Ms. Bhasthi says this translator's note has been met with a lot of love and care, and attention by readers as well. One of the reasons why words are italicised in translated texts is that there may be no exact equivalent in the target language of translation ~ seen as untranslatability. Until some years ago, this idea of untranslatability was the prominent discourse in translated literature, viewed negatively. Conversations about translated texts have, however, become more nuanced now, and translation is coming to be seen as a creative process as much as writing. As translators claim creative agency and push back against conventions like italicisation, the way a translator's role is perceived is evolving. From what's lost to what's found Ms. Bhasthi prefers the term writer-translator over just translator, which reduces the translator's job to one less than the writer. She says translation is as much a creative practice as writing, and autonomy in translation is important, as without it, her job would be no different than ChatGPT. 'That said, of course, if the author is living, it is always nice to be in conversation with them about their stories and, you know, get insights', she says. Moutushi Mukherjee, Commissioning Editor at Penguin Random House India, states that translators are now able to talk more about the tremendous impact a translation can have on expanding a literary heritage to wider audiences. She notes that there is a growing number of enthusiastic and resourceful translators in the country, which she sees as a very positive development. Ms. Mukherjee adds that the translators themselves are now more vocal about their role, putting themselves out there, so to speak, and emphasizing their contributions. According to Ms. Mukherjee, wins like Tomb of Sand (for Daisy Rockwell) and Heart Lamp (for Deepa Bhasthi) have also, obviously, changed the way readers perceive the translator. Translator visibility on book covers The book cover for Heart Lamp, published by Penguin, features an artwork at the top, followed by the book title and subtitle in red and sky blue-colored fonts, respectively. The next prominent feature is the author's name, Banu Mushtaq, spaced across the centre of the cover. It is then followed by Ms. Bhasthi's name in a smaller font, highlighting her 'Winner of the English PEN Translates Award 2024' achievement. A similar pattern of book covers is visible in the Perennial translation series by Harper Collins, and their back covers provide a brief introduction to both the author and the translator. This wasn't always the norm. Ms. Bhasthi says this visibility on the book cover is much better than until a few years ago, as translators' names would be somewhere inside the book and not on the cover. But now nearly all publishers put the translator's name on the cover. In a 2016 opinion piece for The Hindu, translator S. Krishnamurthy writes, 'Except on the title page and the cover, nowhere else will you see your name or any other details about you (translator). If your name is an ubiquitous sort, as is mine, nobody will even know you are the translator, unless you tell them'. Ms. Bhasthi says there still needs to be a lot of awareness about this, and it needs to start with the media. She states that there is an attitude that continues to persist in the media, especially, where somehow it is enough to just name the writer of the original work and not name the writer-translator who has brought the work into English or whatever other language. Ms. Bhasthi says we have certainly come a long way, but she thinks we still have a very long way to go before writer-translators are also seen on an equal footing with the writers in the original languages as well. Stepping aside from India, the research paper, 'Examining Intersemiotic translation of book covers as a medium of culture transfer,' was published in 2018. Among other aspects, it attempts to concentrate on the elements and criteria that are directly related to the visibility of translators. It takes into account five translations of Ernest Hemingway's, 'The Old Man and the Sea', in Iran, one of the most translated books in the country. The research paper finds that the title is designed with the biggest font, and then the name of the author in a quite smaller font, and lastly, the name of the translator is printed in the smallest font. 'It is also worth mentioning that in two works, the name of the translator is not even printed on the front cover, i.e., Manzoori and Parsay translations. In other words, the mentioned pattern prioritises the importance of each item: first the work, then the author, and last the translator. These covers also don't provide specific information in the book for introducing the translator or his/her other translated works to the interested readers', the paper says. In the Indian publishing industry the scene has changed. Urvashi Butalia, publisher, teacher and activist, says, 'There is greater acknowledgement and this is evident in all the things such as larger fonts, better placement, and also in including translators in media events. By contrast, I've not seen many reviews that mention names of translators, although again I could be wrong'. Ms. Mukherjee says credit is very important. She states that a simple act of giving credit to the translator on the cover of the book, and yes, equal weightage inside the book, has gone a long way, in her personal experience. Ms. Mukherjee also says we should expand that credit in a broader sense: include the translator in all marketing and publicity details, retail campaigns, and general discussion about the book. She emphasizes giving the translator the visibility they deserve across festivals and awards. According to Ms. Mukherjee, if we want to give visibility to translators, we must do so collaboratively, across all stakeholders. Promoting translated literature Translators are being acknowledged as co-creators in the literary process and not as secondary personas. There is a drive for better visibility of translators through book publicity campaigns, panel discussions, and other media. 'However, broader industry support and consistent credit across marketing, media, and events are still needed. I do think it's not enough for a few publishers and award ceremonies to promote translation literature. We need more publishing groups, more juries, and certainly, more of the mainstream media, supporting and recognising the significance of literature in translation', says Dharini Bhaskar, Associate Publisher, Literary at HarperCollins India. It helps to keep translation central to all conversations to do with books and literature. For instance, on World Book Day, Harper Collins had a full translation panel—which included Mini Krishnan, Sheela Tomy, Jayasree Kalathil, and Ministhy—and they spoke about the challenges faced by translators and the space translation literature occupies in the literary firmament. On how they bridge this gap, Ms. Bhaskar says, 'For one, we give literature in translation as much prominence as the poems and novels, and non-fiction originally published in English. Translation literature not only gets equal editorial care and attention but also has the full support of both the sales and marketing teams. We promote our works of translation—and not just when they're nominated for awards—and back translator and author equally. For they're a team. The book belongs to both of them'. Ms. Mukherjee says their publicity campaigns include the translator along with the author; this is without exception, and they will never have it any other way. She states that they make it clear at the outset to the author as well as the agent that the translator is going to be equally involved in the editing process, in planning publicity, and even on decisions pertaining to the cover of the book. Ms. Mukherjee says the translator has equal space (and equal say) on the journey of the book, both during and after its publication. Zubaan recently began a translation collaboration with Ashoka University called Women Translate Women. Every event for the books in this series has had translators present. Ms. Butalia says, 'This is also the case with many other publishers – in fact, several mainstream publishers now employ editors whose main task is to source translated manuscripts. This is a very positive development'. Are readers more willing to buy translated books? Publishers say winning the International Booker does drive sales of translated works. Though publishing houses have been increasingly taking steps to highlight the work of the translator alongside the author, the media lags in giving translators due credit. Readers, too, are increasingly open to buying translations, though Western approval still influences Indian buying habits. Ms. Bhasthi says there has been a lot of love that the translation of Heart Lamp has received, apart from the stories, and she is very grateful for that. She highlights the importance of the International Booker Prize giving equal emphasis to both the writer-translators and the writers from the original language. 'So, I think that attention is very important for translations and writer translators as well', she says. Talking about the media coverage Heart Lamp received, Ms. Bhaskar says there is immediate media coverage once a book is longlisted or shortlisted for a prestigious award, and such coverage doubles if the book wins. She adds that this kind of visibility has a direct impact on sales. 'This, in turn, has a direct impact on sales', she says. Ms. Bhaskar says they have seen sales numbers of books spiralling the moment they win prestigious awards. She notes that the ripples spread far, and that major wins typically benefit all literature coming out in a certain language. She emphasizes that such recognition also helps literature in translation overall, and sometimes even specific genres like poetry or short fiction. It also bodes well for literature in translation (as a whole), and sometimes, it bodes well for certain genres. Ms. Bhaskar points out that very often, in India, readers look for approval abroad before buying a book published locally. She stresses the need for Indian readers to start recognising the wealth of literature already available in the country—in English, in translation, and in regional languages—and to start supporting these books without necessarily waiting for validation from the West. Ms. Butalia says readers are more willing to buy translated works in general, perhaps this is because translated books are also more visible now, both in offline and in online bookshops. And they are better marketed, as books in their own right and not as poor cousins of an original. Ms. Bhasthi says that compared to other literary fiction, translated fiction is still not as widely read as it should be in a diverse country like India. She expresses hope that readers show more interest in translated fiction, and specifically mentions Kannada as one of the more under-translated languages in South India. Ms. Bhasthi says'I hope more translators bring forth some of the extraordinary works that we have in my language.'

The Hindu

3 days ago

• The Hindu

Kanishka Gupta's open door policy

Kanishka Gupta, 43, is likely the most popular book agent in the country right now. One strategy that has helped him go from being an outsider who 'didn't know the ABC of agenting' — and someone whom publishers fobbed off by saying they didn't pay author advances — to an industry insider who runs the largest literary agency in South Asia, is that he always keeps his doors open. 'I don't say, tune mujhe kitab nahi di, katti (You didn't give me your book, so I won't speak to you),' he says. He once helped a journalist-author conduct an auction for her book despite the fact that she didn't want him to be her agent. In turn, she introduced him to many writers. In an insulated and competitive field, Gupta's open door policy is rare. Now he's the agent for feminist lawyer Indira Jaising's conversational biography with Ritu Menon; says he can tell if ChatGPT is the real author of a piece of writing by the overuse of words such as 'tapestry' and 'align'; and promises to send me an award-winning book published in 2019 that he's re-pitching for publication in the U.K. and the U.S. because he has 'never read a book like this'. He's talking about Numair Atif Choudhury's Babu Bangladesh!. Choudhury died in a freak drowning accident in Japan a year before his book was released. He may not yet have discovered an Arundhati Roy in his slush pile, like literary agent David Godwin once did, but Gupta now has an author roster that includes two International Booker winners in four years. He is the agent for Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp (translated by Deepa Bhasthi), which recently bested around 150 entries to win the prestigious prize. He was also translator Daisy Rockwell's agent when she and author Geetanjali Shree won the 2022 International Booker for Tomb of Sand. Agent 'by accident' Gupta was also representing two books of Shehan Karunatilaka when the Sri Lankan writer won the 2022 Booker Prize (Gupta got a shoutout in the victory speech alongside Godwin). His author Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar was shortlisted for the Booker in 2020. Gupta says he's been the agent for around 1,700-1,800 published books so far. As Heart Lamp propels bookstore sales across the country, Gupta has been inundated with translation offers. '…Malay, Sinhala, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Arabic… a Georgian publisher is interested, the Polish book is a big deal,' he rattles off at 2x speed, adding that he has also received invites from 30 literature festivals. Gupta became an agent 'by accident'. In school he had 'zero interest' in books. As a teenager, he suffered from 'life-threatening depression' and a few years after, he began writing a book. Somehow, due to regular visits to Delhi book shops, he developed an interest in publishing. 'I kept observing and Googling,' he says. His own book was rejected by publishers at first because it was overwritten. But in classic Gupta style, he worked on his own writing, read voraciously and made it to the longlist of the now discontinued Man Asian Literary Prize. At 21, he was that pesky author who would email agents repeatedly (he still has half-a-dozen manuscripts, 'one worse than the other'). The people connect He had two short stints working with literary stalwarts Namita Gokhale and Mita Kapur and, in 2008, he started Writer's Side to give authors editorial feedback. Two years later, when he signed on his first client, Anees Salim, then an unknown author, Gupta became a literary agent. 'There was a lot of opposition, confusion, uncertainty from the publishing industry,' he says about the early years. 'I had no credentials, some were not keen on working with me, but I always stayed in touch with people and that worked for me.' When his business thrived, Gupta began sharing his observations about the publishing industry. 'I'm blunt, so I'm disliked. Once I felt I was in a position to speak my mind, I started doing that,' he says. 'I called out the nepotism and casteism in publishing.' One of his pet peeves is that many talented authors are forced to publish paperback books while the hardbacks seem to be reserved for the prestige memoirs of bureaucrats. The breadth of Gupta's author list is impressive. 'I'm known for my translation list,' he says. 'It's big.' But then he has also been the agent for at least 50 Pakistani authors. He has a long list of nature writing, sports books, Dalit writers and academics-turned-authors. 'I'm open to everything,' he says. After 7-8 years of wading through the slush pile to discover writers, Gupta now has the luxury to operate from references and his travels. He represented Pakistani author Moni Mohsin after meeting her at the Galle Literature Festival in Sri Lanka and signed up writer and naturalist Yuvan Aves after they connected at the Jaipur Literature Festival. He was the agent for the book, Trial By Fire, about the Uphaar cinema tragedy, and Life after MH370, written by a man who lost his wife on the plane. 'I get drawn to personal stories,' Gupta says. His personal story is not bad either. The writer is a Bengaluru-based journalist and the co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.