Tulsi
Badrinath

Born in 1967 in Madras, Tulsi Badrinath has a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Stella Maris College and an MBA from Ohio University, Athens. She gave up a career in banking to focus on her writing and dance.

Meeting Lives, her first novel, was published by Niyogi Books in 2008. Man of a Thousand Chances is her second novel. Both novels were longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Master of Arts: A Life in Dance was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2013 by Hindustan Times. Madras, Chennai and the Self: Conversations with the City, her fourth book, was published in 2015, and named the best writing so far on the city. Her poems, articles, reviews and short stories have appeared in various publications, including The Week, India Today, Namaste, the Little Magazine, Sruti, the Book Review, Indian Express, The Hindu, Deccan Herald and Deccan Chronicle.

Tulsi began learning the dance form Bharata Natyam at the tender age of eight. Almost fifty years later, she continues to learn from her gurus Shanta and V. P. Dhananjayan. As part of their school of dance Bharata Kalanjali, she has taught students from all over the world. She wrote art criticism for The Hindu and has contributed scholarly articles to magazines such as Sruti and Nartanam.