Non-fiction
Divya Arya is an award-winning journalist with BBC News. In the last two decades, she has reported from India and across the world. She is the first Indian journalist to be selected for the prestigious Knight Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan.
After a very warm welcome by the anchor, Ms Iti Khurana takes the opportunity to add a few more laurels to Ms Divya Arya’s introduction. Ms Iti goes on and requests Ms Divya to give the audience a background of her book Postbox Kashmir: Two Lives in Letters. Ms Divya gladly accepts the request and tells the audience that Kashmir is a very sensitive issue and is often dealt with with passion, in general discussions as well as in the media. Her book compares the lives of teenagers in Kashmir and the rest of the country but with a concept that not only slows the conversation down but also helps it get very personal and pure. Ms Divya’s book is about how a bunch of teens in Kashmir and Delhi become a part of an initiative where they write letters to each other. The book very beautifully narrates how stories unfold. Ms Divya’s book has put two sides of the same story on the table in the best possible way. As she talks about Postbox Kashmir, the audience is astonished by the concept and the conversation goes on in the same direction before coming to a close.