Ms. Rana Safvi is a historian, writer, scholar and translator who by her own admission is passionate about the culture and heritage of the Indian subcontinent and about preserving the ‘Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb’ of India. With a masters in medieval history from the prestigious Centre for Advanced Studies, Dept. of History, AMU, she started with a teaching career in different schools at the various places she lived. But as the writing bug bit her, even though a little late in life, she became an author at the age of 58 with her first book “Where Stones Speak: Historial Trails in Mehrauli, the First City of Delhi”, which was launched in 2015, and became an instant bestseller. Her other books followed in quick succession; “The Forgotten Cities of Delhi”, “Tales from the Quran and Hadith”, a translation of Syed Ahmad Khan’s “Asar us Sanadid and Zahir Dehlvi s Dastan-e-Ghadar and City of my Heart 4 accounts from 19th and 20th century, (2017)).
Safvi uses social media to give voice to her views on issues relating to our cultural heritage – gaining and sharing knowledge as she says. Her Blog ‘Hazrat-e-Dilli’, is a storehouse of her writings on Delhi’s culture, food, heritage and age-old traditions. She is also the founder and moderator of the hashtag #Shair on Twitter, a forum seeks to revive popular interest in Urdu poetry. Her latest video for a news website “Urdu wasn’t just meant for the Muslims” has gone viral with more than 630,000 hits on the internet.
Rana Safvi is a columnist with The Hindu and Daily O, and in general contributes pieces to all major newspapers and magazines.
CONVERSATIONS:
The Making of an Imperial City