Our Team
Authors
Illustrators
Chitwan Mittal
Stories were a central part of Chitwan’s childhood. Her grandmother had a wonderful imagination and could weave a story to accompany every bite of food, while her English-medium-educated mother made bedtime magical with her stories.
Chitwan’s lifelong love affair with children’s picture books that began in childhood continued through her time as a young student in Boston and London pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education. She spent endless hours browsing the children’s section in the giant bookstores there. She especially loved books that were subtle and magical and uplifting, that were beautiful to touch and feel, that inspired without being preachy. She wished to see books of this calibre with themes from home, with pictures of Indian kids and Indian places.
Then, when she had her own kids, Adi and Dev, she decided to stop wishing and start doing. And that’s how AdiDev Press came to be.
Aparajitha Vaasudev
Aparajitha Vaasudev is an illustrator, art director, graphic designer, and dancer who loves creating beauty no matter the medium she is working in. She loves the challenge of taking a project and transforming it into something that adds beauty and joy to the world and meaning to the viewer, something that elevates and inspires. She is an ardent devotee of art in all its forms and has unwavering faith in its potential to make a better world.
Ashwitha Jayakumar
Ashwitha Jayakumar is a writer, editor, and unabashed history nerd. With a background in medieval history and English literature, she now writes non-fiction for young readers. She has published picture books with Pratham Books and Puffin and chapter books with HarperCollins India and Hachette. Besides reading fantasy novels and books about the past, she enjoys building elaborate Lego cities, playing video games, and cooking up a storm.
Anjali Jaipuria
Anjali Jaipuria is an educationist with a vision of creating a fundamental change in the Indian educational system. Educational reform is her passion and she champions this at Seth M.R. Jaipuria School in Lucknow, which she runs. She also runs Navsrijan, an English-medium school for under-served children. She gives talks on the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads and evolutionary science as expressed in the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. She also writes spiritual poetry.
Nandini Nayar
Nandini Nayar is the award-winning author of over 50 books for children and over three hundred short stories. She has written picture books, chapter books, middle grade fiction, non-fiction and retellings.
Pervin Saket
Pervin Saket is a novelist and poet whose work has been featured in several journals and magazines. She was the 2021 Fellow for the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive as well as being shortlisted for the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2020. Her novel Urmila has been adapted for the stage, featuring classical Indian dance forms of Kathak, Bharatnatyam and Odissi. Pervin works as an editor for textbooks for primary, middle and senior school. She is also Poetry Editor at The Bombay Literary Magazine and co-founder of the annual Dum Pukht Writers’ Workshop.
Sarita Saraf
Sarita Saraf is a writer and an artist with an intense passion for reading. Art has been central in her life which led her to work as a graphic designer in an architectural firm for a few years. She is the author of three monographs, Nachiketas, Socrates and Abraham Lincoln, and has recently translated Sri Aurobindo’s ‘Hymns to the Mystic Fire’ into Hindi.
Ambika Karandikar
Ambika Karandikar is an independent illustrator and trained classical dancer who loves to express herself through different mediums. She particularly enjoys illustrating for children and spending time in her garden, where she is in her natural element.
Debasmita Dasgupta
Shruti Hemani
Shruti is an architect, urban designer and illustrator. Her art style involves great detailing, intricate patterns and line work. One of her recent works includes spatial design and educational wall art for school resource rooms in rural Rajasthan. She made her debut as a children’s illustrator with AdiDev Press.
Sudeepti Tucker
Sudeepti Tucker is an independent artist and illustrator who uses both analog and digital mediums. She enjoys exploring themes of nature, expression and femininity while opening up dialogues about roots, identity and image. Sudeepti has previously collaborated with Google, Tata, Maruti Suzuki, Cosmopolitan and The Times of India. Her paintings have been exhibited at art fairs globally and across the country, most recently at Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai and Art Basel, Miami.
Kalyani Ganapathy
Kalyani Ganapathy is an illustrator and picture book maker. A lifelong reader, Kalyani has been a part of many exciting, successful collaborative projects for children and young adults. Her collaborative journey includes Amrita Sher-Gil, Rebel with a Paintbrush with Anita Vachcharajani, The Song at the Heart of the River with Ishani Lauren Naidu and The Secret Life of Debbie G with Vibha Batra.
Sriya Singh
Sriya is a self-taught illustrator who creates her work digitally but keeps the process organic. She is always mindful about reflecting calm and happiness through her illustrations. Her inspiration comes from her surroundings, good conversations, dreams, music that she listens to, other artists, and creative people in general.
Boski Jain
Boski is a graphic designer and illustrator with a special fondness for drawing animals. She enjoys taking inspiration from Indian folk art while creating characters and patterns for her work.
Annanda Menon
Annada is a freelance visual artist and illustrator who loves exploring traditional and digital mediums. The themes she works on the most are nature, animals and social issues. Her published works include album art, illustrations and posters.
Sahitya Rani
Sahitya is an illustrator who has worked on numerous children’s picture books and comics. Her work has been published by Scholastic, Hachette, The Mint and Karadi Tales among others. She has also worked as a guest art director for Pratham Books. When not busy illustrating, she enjoys reading SciFi and fantasy, gaming, and hunting for the next unique picture book to add to her library, all over a hot cup of filter coffee.
Prerana Roy
Prerana is a visual artist, illustrator and architect. She enjoys reading in between lines of conversations and daily activities to develop an expressive narrative for her art and observe little things and details in human emotions. She also enjoys sleep and chocolate!
Ria Mohta
Ria Mohta is an independent illustrator and visual designer. She started her journey as an illustrator at the age of 19 while pursuing architecture. Her style is experimental and tropical and she loves to play around with earthy, homely tones. She draws her inspiration from the simple things in life
Rajyasree Sarkar
Rajyasree is a children’s book illustrator and UX designer. Most of her illustrations are based on harmony between animals and humans. She loves spending Saturday nights binge-watching shows on Netflix.
Devika Oza
Devika Oza is an illustrator. She believes illustration brings us closer to the enchanting world of stories and enjoys bringing different characters to life in her illustrations. The various emotions that a character can portray are what fascinates her. Placing them in indigenous and alien environments is a challenge she loves to face. When she’s not drawing, Devika loves to dance, read romance books and watch action movies.
Devika Oza is an illustrator born and raised in Kolkata, the city of joy. She grew up listening to her grandfather’s stories. Devika loves stories with adventure. When she’s not drawing, Devika loves to dance, read romance books and watch action movies.
Neeti Banerji
Neeti Banerji is an illustrator and visual artist. After completing a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, she worked with publishing houses in Boston and New York as a designer before returning to India. Since going freelance full-time in 2020, she’s worked in a number of fields including editorial art, F&B, visual identity creation, and board game development.
Chandrima Chattopadhyay
