ournalist Mrinalini Rao is on an investigative trail to discover whether Padmavati, the Queen of Chittor, actually existed or was she only a legend created by poets.

Who was Padmavati, the Queen of Chittor? What does history tell of her? Where did she come from? What kind of life did she lead?

How did she have the courage to jump willingly into fire?

Mrinalini goes to Chittorgarh to discover the truth.

What does she really discover?

An author, poet and publishing consultant, Sutapa Basu is a compulsive bookworm and an irrepressible story teller. A thirty-year old professional career as teacher, editor and publisher has seen her traipsing across the vast Indian subcontinent with short detours into nearby Nepal and Bhutan and not-so-nearby Dubai and the United States while working with Oxford University Press, India and Encyclopedia Britannica, South Asia until she decided to strike out on her own.

Sutapa is an Honours scholar from Tagore’s Visva-Bharti University, Santiniketan and holds a teaching as well as a masters degree in English Literature.

As a publisher, Sutapa has developed and published around 400 books. Her debut novel, Dangle, a psychological thriller, was published by Readonamia in 2016. In the same year, her short story was awarded the First Prize in the Times of India’s nation-wide WriteIndia Contest.

She has co-authored Crossed and Knotted awarded ‘India’s First Composite Novel’ by Limca Book of Records. Her shorts have been published in Defiant Dreams, When, They Spoke and WriteIndia Stories. Kaafiyana and The Dawn Beyond Waste, two poetry anthologies as well as Muse India and Different Truths carries her poetry. Her poetry, short stories and features have been published online by the TOI Blog, Readomania.com, UnBound, The World News Project and Café Dissensus, USA. She has edited Chronicles of Urban Nomads, Crossed and Knotted and Rudraksha published by Readomania as well as Mountains to Manhattan, pub Omji Publishing and In Their Own Words, a nonfictional book.