Diksha Basu

Diksha Basu is an American writer and actress.[1][2] She is the author of the novel The Windfall which is under adaptation for a television series by Shonali Bose.[3][4]

Diksha Basu
Born
Delhi, India
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCornell University
Occupation(s)Writer, Actress
Parents

Biography

Diksha Basu was born in Delhi,[5] to the sociologist Alaka Malwade Basu and economist Kaushik Basu,[2] who later became the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India and then the Chief Economist at the World Bank.[2][6] She grew up in Delhi during the 1990s till the age of 10.[7] She moved to Ithaca, New York in 1994,[8] as a teenager with her family.[1] Basu states that after moving to upstate New York, she would keep visiting Delhi every 4 to 6 months.[9] She eventually graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics,[1] and in the French language as part of a double major.[6]

In 2008,[10] she moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in acting,[6] and lived in the city for four years.[5] She featured in the comedy series Mumbai Calling (2007) and in the drama film A Decent Arrangement (2011).[6][10] She began writing while in Mumbai, and her debut novel Opening Night was published by HarperCollins and launched in 2012 by Chetan Bhagat.[10] The novel depicted the struggles of an American-born actor who moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in acting.[10] It was described as a deeply personalised non autobiographical work of literary fiction.[11]

Basu joined the Columbia University School of the Arts to attain a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, from where she graduated in 2014.[3][11] She also featured in the memory film A Million Rivers (2017).[12] In the meantime, she married the music producer Mikey McCleary and gave birth to her daughter in 2017.[13] Her second novel The Windfall was also published and launched in the same year,[7] it was a humorous fiction marketed as a debut novel and depicted the life of a middle class Indian man who had suddenly encountered wealth.[14] It received positive critical acclaim and was signed in for a deal to be adapted into a television series.[9][3] According to ELLE magazine, it broke stereotypes of exoticism surrounding India while according to The Wire, it was a "shrewd and unstintingly funny story about the neuroses of New Delhi's 1%".[1][8] The Hindu gave it a mixed review objecting at its lack of nuance and inaccuracies in social and cultural depictions.[14]

In 2020, she published her third novel, Destination Wedding.[15]

Books
  • Opening Night (2012)
  • The Windfall (2017)
  • Destination Wedding (2020)

Filmography
YearTitleRoleNotes
2007Mumbai CallingCall Centre OperatorDebut
2011A Decent ArrangementAmita Chandra
2017A Million Rivers

References
  1. Patel, Naheed (14 August 2017). "Readers Are No Longer Looking for Only the Exotic Indian or the Immigrant Novel". The Wire. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  2. Bakshi, Asmita (29 May 2017). "When I started writing, I Felt Freed". India Today. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  3. Deng, Audrey (25 June 2020). "Diksha Basu '14 Releases Second Novel, 'Destination Wedding'". Columbia University School of the Arts. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  4. Roy, Gitanjali (14 March 2017). "Shonali Bose Will Direct New TV Series Based On Novel About Delhi's Noveau [sic] Riche - NDTV Movies". NDTVMovies. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  5. "Diksha Basu - Author Overview". HarperCollins Publishers. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  6. Rathnam, Shilpa; Rege, Prachi; Bari, Nishant; Kumaraswami, Lakshmi; Sharma, Avantika (30 January 2012). "CEC Kaushik Basu's daughter Diksha busy chasing B'wood dreams". India Today. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  7. Kohli, Diya (22 July 2017). "Diksha Basu: The joke's on everyone". Livemint. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  8. Aggarwal-Schifellite, Manisha (26 June 2017). "An Ex-Bollywood Actress Challenges Indian Stereotypes With Her Debut Novel". ELLE. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  9. Arora, Naina (3 August 2017). "Author Diksha Basu says Gurgaon lanes look straight out of Desperate Housewives". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  10. Mehta, Shweta (8 January 2012). "'My life's not interesting enough'". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  11. Bakshi, Asmita (29 May 2017). "The Traveller's Tale". India Today – via Pressreader.
  12. Ramnath, Nandini (1 February 2017). "The things we do not and cannot say flow through arthouse film 'A Million Rivers'". Scroll.in. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
  13. Vora, Shivani (30 June 2017). "How Diksha Basu, a Novelist, Spends Her Sundays (Published 2017)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  14. Guha, Keshava (22 July 2017). "Ambitious but ill-equipped". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  15. Ghosh, Devarsi. "Diksha Basu's 'Destination Wedding' is a funny but sensitive look at old money and new India". Scroll.in. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
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