Words and Sketches

The Black Book: Indian Media Celebs Biography

Author and Sketches: Prof. Pijush Dutta

Co-Editor: Dr. Parul Malhotra

Preview by Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee

The concept of the book is innovative. Short biography of ‘Media Celeb’ and his/her sketch by Prof. Pijush Dutta. We have had umpteen numbers of biographies of politicians, actors, sports persons, entrepreneurs. But few on media practitioners and educators. Prof. Dutta’s book is a welcome addition to that domain. It has short biographies of media celebs like Homai Vyrawalla, the first Indian woman Photojournalist to Satyajit Ray, one of the greatest film maker that India has produced to Khuswant Singh, known for his scholarly work on History of Sikhism, his novel A Train to Pakistan and his acerbic and witty columns to Bal Thackeray. It also has biographies of contemporary celebs like P. Sainath, Arun Shourie, Prannoy Roy, Arnab Goswami,  Anurag Batra, and many others including Neera Radia. The book also has biographies and sketches of media educators like Prof. Sanjeev Bhanawat and KG Suresh and media edu-activist Kalyan Singh Kothari.
Prof. Dutta has a good hand in sketching and illustrating. There is an interesting mix of sketching styles- some portrait like while some are caricatures.


The short biographies have been co-edited by Dr. Parul Malhotra. The write-ups are lucid and full of information without being eulogistic.
Prof. Pijush Dutta mounted an exhibition of the sketches featured in the book at Udaipur, Rajasthan on the sidelines on All India Media Conference (AIMC) , 27-29 Sept 2019.

Prof. Dutta is presently working as Associate Professor and Programme Director in Apeejay Institute of Mass Communications at Dwarka, New Delhi. He can be contacted at [email protected]

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