Madhulika Liddle

Madhulika became born, the second one of daughters, in Haflong (Assam, India) to Andrew Verity Liddle and Muriel Liddle. The first twelve years of her existence were spent in numerous components of India, for the reason that her father became an officer in the Indian Police Service (IPS) and was transferred frequently from one metropolis to another. In 1985, Mr.Liddle become transferred to New Delhi, and Madhulika completed her education inside the metropolis, wherein she went directly to examine on the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition (IHMCN) in New Delhi. Madhulika is married to Tarun Bhandari, a classmate from IHMCN.

Career
Madhulika worked from 1994 to 2008 in a sequence of firms, in various industries. Her first stint was as a Management Trainee and then an Assistant Manager in Food & Beverage Controls with Habitat World, on the then-newly set up India Habitat Centre in Delhi. This became accompanied by three years with an marketing organization; two years with a travel portal; and sooner or later, 4 years as an Instructional Designer at NIIT Limited. In early 2008, she resigned from NIIT if you want to write full-time.

Writings
Madhulika were writing considering that formative years, however her first paintings to be posted changed into a quick story named Silent Fear, which gained the Femina Thriller Contest in June 2001. She has when you consider that written a wide kind of brief memories, travel articles, humorous articles, and a singular, The Englishman’s Cameo. In addition, Madhulika continues a blog on classic cinema.

The Muzaffar Jang Series
Madhulika’s great-known collection of works are historic whodunnits featuring the seventeenth century Mughal detective, Muzaffar Jang. Muzaffar Jang first appeared in print in a brief story, Murk of Art, inside the anthology, 21 Under 40, published by means of Zubaan Books in 2007. Liddle had already started paintings on a complete-period Muzaffar Jang novel, which became published by using Hachette India in 2009 as The Englishman’s Cameo. As of 2021, 4 books inside the collection had been posted.

The Englishman’s Cameo (2009)
The Englishman’s Cameo introduces Muzaffar Jang, a twenty-five-yr-old Mughal nobleman dwelling in the Delhi of 1656 AD. Muzaffar finally ends up investigating a murder of which his friend, a jeweller’s assistant, is accused. The e book became a bestseller in India, and become published in French by means of Editions Philippe Picquier, as Le Camée Anglais.

Both versions acquired numerous beneficial critiques, with Pradeep Sebastian of Business World writing: “Its intimate image of existence in Emperor Shahjahan’s Dilli resembles a sensitive Mughal miniature…” and Zac O’Yeah of Deccan Herald describing the book’s “originality and freshness” as its strongest factor. Gargi Gupta, for the Hindustan Times, wrote: “The Englishman’s Cameo is a quick-paced yarn written in snappy prose. It also succeeds in evoking the Mughal era via its manners, models, jewels and structure. There’s blood, lifeless bodies each 50 pages or so, and even a love hobby to preserve readers hooked.”

The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries (2011)
The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries is a set of ten brief mystery memories set inside the latter half of 1656 AD, following Muzaffar Jang’s successful solving of the case of The Englishman’s Cameo. These tales are set towards varying backdrops, inclusive of the Imperial Atelier, a conventional Mughal lawn, the sarai built by way of the Princess Jahanara in Delhi, and the Royal Elephant Stables. Included inside the collection was the first Muzaffar Jang brief story (Murk of Art), reprinted on this series as The Hand of an Artist.

Engraved in Stone (2012)
Engraved in Stone, the 1/3 book inside the series, is ready in Agra. When a rich and influential service provider named Mumtaz Hassan is murdered, the Diwan-e-Kul, Mir Jumla (who is in Agra, en path to the Deccan, where he’s been sent on a marketing campaign) assigns Muzaffar the task of locating the offender. In the system, Muzaffar stumbles throughout some other thriller that is as antique as Muzaffar himself.

Crimson City (2015)
Crimson City, the fourth Muzaffar Jang ebook, is set in Delhi throughout early spring, 1657. While the Mughal armies besiege Bidar in the Deccan, Muzaffar comes up in opposition to a chain of murders in his neighbourhood, in addition to other unconnected crimes, inclusive of the abduction of a moneylender’s little one son, and the death of a wealthy nobleman inside the tub residence he himself had built.

Short memories
Madhulika calls herself “by and large a brief tale writer”. Her first work to be posted, in 2001, changed into a brief tale (a supernatural mystery called Silent Fear). Since then, she has written more than a few short memories in one-of-a-kind genres, consisting of black humour, humour, crime and detection, and social recognition. Several of those have won awards (consisting of the celebrated Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Awards Short Story Competition, for A Morning Swim, in 2003) or had been decided on for anthologies. In 2016, considered one of her memories, Poppies within the Snow, became longlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the world’s richest prize for a single brief story.

Madhulika’s first series of cutting-edge short tales turned into published as My Lawfully Wedded Husband and Other Stories in 2012. The book is a set of twelve testimonies, all of which have a twist in the tale.

Miscellaneous Writings
Madhulika’s non-fiction writing includes tour writing, humour, and writing on conventional cinema.

Travel writing: Madhulika first started journey writing as a part of her job at a journey portal, journeymart.Com, in which she labored as an Assistant Editor for 2 years. During this era, she also became a member of the Rough Guides/IgoUgo tour community, writing travel opinions underneath the pseudonym phileasfogg. Since then, some of her travel writings – on destinations including Salzburg, Palampur, Pondicherry and Beijing – were posted in Indian newspapers together with Lounge (the weekend version of Mint), Eye (the weekend edition of Indian Express), and National Geographic Traveller (India).

Humour:For several years, Madhulika wrote and recorded humorous articles for broadcast on All India Radio’s ‘In a Lighter Vein’ English-language programme. Most of those articles took a tongue-in-cheek look at contemporary India’s many foibles, fads and idiosyncrasies.

Classic cinema: Madhulika maintains a weblog, normally on classic cinema (though it additionally showcases some of her other writing) at www.Madhulikaliddle.Com. The weblog is devoted to reviews, reflections, ‘preferred lists’ and similar posts on cinema previous to the 1970s. Several essays of Madhulika’s, focussing on classic Hindi cinema, were published in anthologies, on line literary journals, and newspapers.

Awards and recognition
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story Competition – Honourable Mention (2002) for Love and the Papaya Man
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story Competition – Overall Winner (2003) for A Morning Swim
Winner of the Oxfordbookstore e-Author model 4.0 for a set of 5 short tales: Woman to Woman, The Mango Tree, The Tale of a Summer Vacation, The Marble Princess, and The Sari Satyagraha.
Longlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award (2016) for Poppies in the Snow

Facebook | Instagram

madhulikaliddle.com