Travel Tales and Close Encounters
Edited by Maithili Rao & Rinki Roy Bhattacharya | Arriving on June 29, 2025
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About the Book
An anthology of short stories featuring an incredible line-up of authors!
The journey is more important than its destination. A truism whatever the mode of travel. Trains, planes, cars, buses, bikes and on foot too. One may miss the destination, but can anyone forget the journey?
This anthology brings together many journeys of so many people from various backgrounds. Memory may blur details. What remains is the experience...anticipation, the lingering taste of shared food and stories, chance…
About the Editors
Maithili Rao drifted into subtitling and writing on cinema after a brief stint as a lecturer of English. From hobby to passion for writing on films was a natural progression.
Her recent book, The Millennial Woman in Bollywood: A New ‘Brand’ (OUP) was out in 2023 following Smita Patil, A Brief Incandescence (HarperCollins) in 2015. In between, she co-edited The Oldest Love Story, An Anthology on Motherhood (2022, Om Books International) with Rinki Roy Bhattacharya. The same year, she edited Films Through Women’s Eyes for Suchitra Film Society.
Rao contributed chapters to many books on cinema: Stardom in Contemporary Hindi Cinema (Springer), Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema, Bollywood (Dakini, London), Icons (Rupa), Frames of Mind (ICCR), Rasa (Anamika Kala Sangam), The Man who Spoke in Pictures (Penguin), Madhumati (Rupa), Suhana Safar: The Journey of Bimal Roy’s Madhumati (Mind u Read Media).
She has served on national and international juries: National Film Awards, MIFF (International festival for documentaries and short films, Mumbai) on four occasions, The International Children’s Film Festival, and was FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics) member at Sochi, and member of APSA (Asia Pacific Screen Awards).
She was member of the script committee at NFDC (National Film Development Corporation) and CFSI (Children’s Film Society India).
She is the recipient of FIPRESCI-India’s Satyajit Ray Memorial Award for her contribution to writing on Cinema for 2024 as well as the Bimal Roy Memorial Committee’s award for her “perceptive and in-depth analysis of Indian Cinema in general and the role of women as actors and creators in particular.”
Rao started as critic of foreign films for the Sunday Observer and columnist, writing on the images of women in Hindi films for Eves Weekly for over a decade. Then followed a rewarding freelancing career for Indian and international publications: The Hindu, Frontline, NFDC’s Cinema in India and London-based South Asian Cinema, Film Comment (US) and International Film Guide, BFI Website. She believes that besides aesthetics, films must have relevance to social and political reality.
Rinki Roy Bhattacharya is a well-known critic, columnist, published author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. Char Diwari, her documentary on domestic violence received international acclaim. For a while, she volunteered with Nari-kendra. By 1989, she floated HELP, a hotline to support women. She founded the Bimal Roy Foundation in 1997 to celebrate her iconic filmmaker father, Bimal Roy the pioneer of modern cinema.
Entirely self-taught, despite the demands of raising her family, Rinki learnt journalism hands-on. For over five decades Rinki contributed prolifically to print media. She reviewed art in The Indian Express, features in The Hindu, Mid-day, Film fare, The Telegraph and Times of India.
After almost fifty-odd years in the business of chasing by-lines, Rinki has caught up with her dream of bringing nostalgia to life by celebrating the memory of her iconic filmmaker father, Bimal Roy by curating benefit concerts, film retrospectives, cultural events and masterclasses. She has served on several international film juries for example, at Amsterdam, Cracow, Prague, London, Harare. Rinki was a board member of the Norway-based organisation, IAWRT. She served as Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society and the Censor board of India. A feisty patron of world cinema, and a tireless supporter of women’s rights, Rinki is an enthusiastic networker, writing when opportunity offers.
Her nonfiction works includes Bimal Roy: The Man Who Spoke in Pictures, Behind Closed Doors, The Oldest Love Story and Suhana Safar: The Journey of Bimal Roy’s Madhumati. And there is apparently more in the pipeline.
Rinki has been frequently interviewed on BBC World Service, NDTV, and other reputed channels for her informed views on cinema and relevant social issues.
For Rinki, writing is the greatest joy of life. She continues to revisit her father’s extraordinary legacy for all concerned.
