This Blogger blog has been designed and created by 10 year old Madhav Lavakare in 2011.(This kid happens to be my son!)
Jyoti Pande Lavakare is an India-based columnist and writer. She currently writes articles for the Economic Times Sunday Magazine and is working on a book of fiction and another, creative non-fiction, on the journey of parenting: from noun to verb. She wrote two stories for children, published by Hachette in 2010 as anthologies- "Dad and Me" and "Mom and Me."
Until 2012, she was writing two columns for the Business Standard - Chai Latte, on urban conversations that transcend geographic boundaries, and Garage Gigs - on the Indian entrepreneurial eco-system. Before that, she lived in Palo Alto, California, from where she wrote "Letter From California." for Mint, an Indian business daily associated with the Wall St Journal. At that time, she also wrote occasional pieces for a Bay Area parenting magazine. While in California, Jyoti took some creative writing courses at Stanford for credits, interacted with some very talented and accomplished writers and was lucky enough to win a short-story competition run annually by a California publication. She also attended some outstanding talks on parenting and was an active volunteer in her children's state-funded, magical elementary school. No, in Palo Alto, that isn't an oxymoron.
Before moving to California, she helped start-up and grow the South Asia bureau of Dow Jones Newswires in New Delhi - which she only left in 2002 after seven years, for the most meaningful job in the world - raising two children as an engaged, hands-on, full-time mother.
And before that, she worked for The Economic Times (1990-95). In 1995, she went on a British Foreign and Commonwealth office scholarship to the U.K, and as part of her internship, worked for The Financial Times and The Independent. Jyoti has earned her M.A.degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics. She is a trained Hindustani Classical musician and was on the All India Radio panel of singers. She also created and produced youth programs for radio and television in her...er, youth.
So. Its been a long journey.
Her dream is to have her own music and literature media channel - populated by her friends and family and other self-selected, like-minded people. And in today's world of social media, YouTube and podcasts, who knows, perhaps JyotiVaani will become a reality one day....
