Raymond Crossword Book Awards 2015 honours Indian literature

The 14th Raymond Crossword Book Awards' for 2015, held on Tuesday at the National Centre for performing arts (NCPA), Mumbai, saw some of the Indian literary talent being honoured.

This year, the award had gone through a makeover with the inclusion of 10 categories and a lifetime achievement award. A total of 11 awards were given away.   

Winners of the popular award included:

• Amish Tripathi who won the Raymond Crossword Book Award's popular award for fiction for his book Scion of Ishvaku.
• Twinkle Khanna's Mrs Funnybones  won the award in the 'non-fiction category'
• Sachin Tendulkar who co-authored Playing It My Way with Boria Majumdara ward for the 'best biography'
• Chanakya in You by Radhakrishnan Pillai won the award in 'business and management' category for his book
• Payal Gidwani's Body Goddess won the award in health and 'wellness' category for her book
• Roopa Pai joined the list of awardese in the 'children's book' category for her book Gita: For children

Winners of the jury award included:

• Amitav Ghosh won the Raymond Crossword Book Award's - jury award for fiction for his book Flood of fire
• Akshaya Mukul won the jury award for best 'non-fiction' for his book Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India .
• The Sun That Rose from the Earth by  Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was the jury winner in the 'Indian language translation' catgory
• Popular nature and writer for children Ranjit Lal won the award for the best children's book for his Our Nana was a Nutcase.

(Left to right) Payal Gidwani, Akshaya Mukul, Twinkle Khanna, Roopa Pai, Ranjit Lal and Radhakrishnan Pillai

Winner of the lifetime achievement award
Ruskin Bond, India's was bestowed the Lifetime achievement award by lyricist and poet, Gulzaar.  Speaking on the occasion, Gulzar said, ''Bond sir and I share a deep friendship that goes a long way back. I would like to say, "Cheers" to Bond sir, for winning this award."

Over the years, the Raymond Crossword Book Award has been equated to the Pulitzer and Booker, and is a definitive, veritable platform for Indian Authors. It not only recognises and rewards Indian literary talent, but actively promotes the same to a wider audience.

Kinjal Shah, CEO Crossword Bookstores says, ''It's that time of the year, when the whole publishing industry in India comes forward as one family to recognise its own stars. It's exciting that the voting numbers have been heartwarming this year.''

Social media maven Miss Malini was the host of the evening. Major publishers present at the Award included Penguin Random House India, Harper Collins India, Hachette India, Scholastic India, Niyogi Books, and Westland Books.

The event also saw an energetic musical performance by Indiva and was graced by a bevy of glittering stars including, Gulzar Sahab, Shekhar Gupta, Mynoo Maryel, Anupama Chopra, Twinkle Khanna, Piyush Pandey, Roopa Pai, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Durjoy Dutta, Radhakrishnan Pillai, Hrishi. K.  Subashree Krishnaswamy, Annie Zaidi, Mohd. Asaduddin, Naresh Fernandes, Kalpana Sharma, Harsh Sethi, Ira Pande, Prof M S Sriram, Prof Sukanta Chaudhuri, Aravinda Anantharaman, Sujata Noronha, Siddhartha Sarma, B S Nagesh and many more authors and guests.