For The Love of Apricots

Although best-known as the creator of the fictional Mughal detective, Muzaffar Jang (the hero of The Englishman’s Cameo, The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries, and the soon-to-be-released Engraved in Stone), Madhulika

 is, first and foremost, a writer of short stories. She has been writing short stories ever since she can remember: short stories that her long-suffering and ever-supportive parents and sister endured cheerfully over the years.

Silent Fear, a story set in the dingy and decidedly creepy cubicles of an office after working hours, was her first piece of writing ever to be published – it won Femina magazine’s Thriller Contest in June 2001. Her first collected set of contemporary black humour short stories, My Lawfully Wedded Husband and Other Stories, is soon to be released by Westland-Tranquebar Press.

Since then, Madhulika has written a number of short stories, spanning genres that range from humour to social awareness to detective. Her story, A Morning Swim, about an eight-year old boy who dives into the Yamuna to collect coins, won the Overall Prize in the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition in 2003. Other stories of hers have been published in magazines and anthologies, and a set of five stories won Oxford Bookstore’s e-Author Version 4.0 Competition in 2006.

In addition, Madhulika writes on travel (she is one of the ‘Hall of Fame’ guides on IgoUgo.com, besides having written travel articles for Lounge). She also occasionally writes humorous articles for broadcast on All India Radio.

In addition, Madhulika is passionately fond of classic cinema – a subject about which she blogs at www.dustedoff.wordpress.com.

Madhulika lives in New Delhi with her husband, Tarun.