Shakti Bhatt

Shocked and deeply saddened to hear about Shakti Bhatt's passing away. I can't claim to have known her well; but I know many people who knew her, and had heard of her often, all nice things.

I met her just once, at the Kitab Festival in February, where I got to thank her for releasing our book at the Jaipur Literature Festival in January, and for a workshop she, Jeet Thayil, her husband, and Nilanjana Roy, conducted for Caferati Delhi. At Kitab, we shared a light at the Prithvi Cafe, and talked of this and that, and the impression I filed away was of a hugely intelligent, vibrant, cheeerful person. Later, at the dinner, I joined her, Jeet, and a couple of other friends and chatted a bit. I have been an admirer of Jeet's writing from the days that he was a columnist for a Bombay paper, so it was a pleasure to meet him; Shakti said charming, encouraging things about the things we - Caferati - were doing. Meeting them was pretty much the best thing about Kitab for me, and I was looking forward to strengthening the acquaintance when I next visited Delhi..

My thoughts are with Jeet, and the family.


Update: You can leave your memories of Shakti here, and read remembrances by others here.