In about a week, I will complete a year as a fulltime editor in book publishing. My earlier assignments in publishing were for freelance work, especially spiritual books, considering my nearly decade-long editorial job with The Speaking Tree . I've had a life-long tenure in journalism mostly with The Times of India as an editor, although I did mean...

As the year draws to a close, the air fills with a familiar energy: hope, anticipation, and the universal tradition of making resolutions. People chart their goals, envision fresh starts, and cling to the optimism that a new year inevitably brings. Yet, amidst these rituals, one truth quietly stands: nothing is truly in our hands. The threads of ou...

Towards the end of August, when the air was still rife with patriotic fervour, the editorial team at Vitasta began work on a series of books coincidentally all written by retired defence personnel — and so we had a pleasant month dealing with some absolute gentlemen authors on books that highlighted the importance of our three esteemed services, th...

Last month, our Publishing Director, Renu Kaul Verma , who set up Vitasta exactly 20 years ago and who never misses coming to office, unexpectedly lost her young son, 18-year-old Advaitha in a heart-numbing tragedy. At the prayer meeting held in young Advaitha's memory, it became apparent to the packed auditorium at the India International Centre t...

A WhatsApp message arrived from an author earlier this week. Like an overexcited schoolgirl, I hit the forward button immediately, sending it to Renu Kaul Verma, Vitasta's director (no harm in the editorial team at Vitasta scoring brownie points, with Renu, I thought to myself). Here's what the author had sent in her whatsapp message: "After seeing...

In late March 2024, virtually out of the blue, Renu Kaul Verma, the feisty lady who set up Vitasta Publishing offered me a job as executive editor. I had spent a lifetime in The Times of India, retiring as a deputy editor with The Speaking Tree, their spiritual newspaper. Then, for a while, I had edited spiritual books for Bloomsbury and Westland, ...