Making its debut this year, this contest widens the genres that our Kala Ghoda contests cover. We’re looking for incisive essays that see different sides of the story, that have an opinion of their own, that are lucid and engaging, and, because we live in an information overload age where no one has time to read—and because we, the judges, have lives—essays that can make a point faster and more clearly than this convoluted sentence did.
Theme
The Death of the Essay
How to enter
Go to the entry form. (But puhleeze make sure you read the entire page here first.)
Please do not put any personally identifying information in the body of your entry. By this we mean no byline, signature, credit line, copyright notice or symbol. If you have filled out the fields for name, email address and phone number, never fear, your entry is linked to that data by the system. The body of your entry is all our jury will see, and all that they want to see. Entries that ignore this will be seen to be trying to influence the jury, and will be disqualified.
Deadline
Midnight (Indian Standard Time), 3rd February, 2008. 10:00 hours, 5th February 2008. (That’s 10 a.m., for those who prefer the 12 hour clock.)
Rules and Conditions
The contest is open to anyone, anywhere, with the exception of the jury and their immediate families.
Note, however, that you must have a bank account and mailing address in India, or, if you win, be able to nominate someone in India to receive your prize.
Entries must be in English
Entries must be not more than 1000 500 words long.
Entries must be your own, original work, and previously unpublished anywhere, in print or online. (We interpret “published” to mean that there was some form of editorial or jury selection and/or payment involved. So work that appeared on a personal blog or unmoderated forum is okay, but something that won you a prize somewhere is not. Something that may have been selected to be printed in a newspaper is published, whether you got paid for it or not.)
Multiple entries are permitted. Do not duplicate entries, however. We will delete all copies of your entry from the system if you flood it.
There is no entry fee.
Submissions remain the intellectual property of the entrants, but by submitting an entry, you give the the Kala Ghoda Association, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and its Sponsors, and Caferati permission to use your entry, with acknowledgement, but with no payment to you, in their websites, as part of Press Releases (where they may be reproduced by media organisations), and in a possible special booklet or CD featuring the best of the Festival.
The decisions of the jury are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entertained regarding the jury’s decisions.
Jury
Caferati’s editors will screen the initial entries to keep the long list to a reasonable number. In the second round of judging, they will be joined by:
Trained in computer science, Dilip D’souza now writes for his meals. He has two books and essays in various anthologies. He has held several writing fellowships and also won many awards for his writing, including the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize. Sharing home with him in Bombay are his wife Vibha, son Sahir and daughter Surabhi. He misses Shaka, the handsome Rhodesian Ridgeback who once shared his home too
Ashok Malik is a journalist and writer based in Delhi. Currently senior editor with the Pioneer, he devours non-fiction – particulary history and contemporary affairs – humour, graphic novels (The Literary Form Formerly Known As The Comic-book) and blogs. If he had to relive his life, he would be a gossip columnist for Stardust.
Aakar Patel is a journalist. He has worked in newspapers since 1995 and has served as Editor-in-Chief at the Bhaskar group, where he edited their Gujarati titles, and as Editor-in-Chief of Mid Day Multimedia Ltd, where he edited their English dailies and oversaw the Gujarati and Urdu publications.He has previously edited the Mumbai edition of The Asian Age, and was Deputy Editor of Deccan Chronicle in Hyderabad. A former member of the Executive Committee of the Editors Guild, he was part of a 3-man team deputed by the Guild to study media bias during the 2002 carnage in Gujarat. The team published a report of their findings. Currently, Aakar is a partner at Hill Road Media, a publishing outsourcing firm based in Mumbai.
Amit Varma is a journalist and blogger based in Mumbai. He has written for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and Wisden, as well as for numerous Indian publications. He used to write a weekly editorial column for Mint, for which he won the 2007 Bastiat Prize for Journalism. He currently writes a fortnightly column for Mail Today. However, he is best known for his blog, India Uncut.
Prizes
Prizes worth approximately Rs 3000, Rs 2000, and Rs 1000 to be won.
Winners will be announced on the evening of 10th February, 2007, at the David Sasson Library Garden. Exact time will be confirmed.
Updates
All updates via the Caferati Contests newsgroup. Please make sure you’re subscribed.
