Vikram Chandra is a famous Indian-American writer. In 1996, he published his first novel, Red Earth and Downpour, and won the Commonwealth Writers Award in the same year.
Wiki/Biography
Vikram Chandra was born in New Delhi on Sunday, July 23, 1961 (age 60 years 2021). His zodiac sign is Leo. He received his school education at Mayo College, a boarding school in Ajmer, Rajasthan. Thereafter, he attended St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, for a short period. Later, he went to the United States to study as an undergraduate. In 1984, he earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a specialization in creative writing from Claremont Pomona College in Los Angeles. Shortly after receiving his bachelor’s degree, he joined the Columbia University Film School in New York. He received his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and his master’s degree from the University of Houston in 1987.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5’4″
Hair color: black
Eye color: black
family
Parents and siblings
His father’s name is Navin Chandra, a retired corporate executive, and his mother’s name is Kamna Chandra, who has written several Indian Hindi films and radio scripts.
Vikram Chandra with his parents and sisters
He has a younger sister named Tanuja Chandra who is a film producer and screenwriter. Tanuja Chandra is also the director of several Indian films. His other younger sister named Anupama Chopra is a Bollywood film critic.
Vikram Chandra’s mother Kamna Chandra and her daughters Tanuja Chandra and Anupama Chopra
Bollywood’s famous Indian director Vidhu Vinod Chopra is the husband of Anupama Chopra and the wife of Vikram Chandra brother-in-law.
wife and children
Vikram Chandra’s wife, Melanie Abrams, is a novelist. 
They both teach creative writing at UC Berkeley. Vikram Chandra lives in Mumbai and Oakland, California, USA. The couple has two daughters named Leela and Darshana.
sign
Vikram Chandra autographs his novel
Profession
While studying at Columbia University, he began writing his first novel, “Red Downpour,” and dropped out of school. After 1987, he began working as a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and George Washington University. The subjects he taught were – literature and writing. While writing his first novel, he also worked as a computer programmer and software and hardware consultant. He has provided services to a variety of companies, including oil companies, non-profit organizations and the Houston Zoo. In 1995, his first novel “Red Earth and Downpour” was published in Penguin/India. His book was published in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber and in the United States by Little and Brown. Vikram Chandra’s first novel was inspired by James Skinner’s autobiography, The Irish Raja of Hansi, Haryana, A legendary 19th century British-Indian soldier.
In 1997, he published his second book, a collection of short stories titled Love and Longing in Bombay. Shortly after its publication, the book won the Eurasian Best Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers Award. The book was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize.
In 2006, he published his next novel, Sacred Games. The story of the novel features policeman Sartaj Singh, who had already appeared in his second book, Love and Longing in Mumbai. Sacred Games triggered a conflict between major publishers in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom to publish his novel Sacred Games.
In 2013, Vikram Chandra’s book “Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty” was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism). 
In 2018, his novel “Sacred Games” was adapted into a web series by Netflix. 
In June 1997, Vikram Chandra appeared on the cover of The New Yorker and became India’s top novelist. Vikram Chandra’s books and articles have been translated into 20 languages. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015. In 2016, Vikram Chandra founded Granthika Corporation, a software startup in California. It offers writing tools from word processing to reinventing digital writing and reading. It is an online editing platform where authors create knowledge as they write and transform text into semantics.
books
- 1995: The novel “Red Earth Downpour”.
- 1997: Love and Longing in Bombay: The Story.
- 2013: Geek Sublime: Writing novels, writing software.
- 2018: Sacred Games Netflix Simulcast Part 1.
- 2018: Sacred Games Netflix Bundle Part 2.
Facts/Trivia
- In late October 2000, Vikram Chandra and Suktu Mehta co-wrote the script of the film Mission Kashmir. The film is directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and stars Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Preity Zinta and Jackie Shroff in the lead roles.
Poster of the movie “Mission Kashmir”
- Vikram Chandra’s mother Kamna Chandra is a writer. She began writing for television and radio in the 1950s. Kamna Chandra has written screenplays for several Indian films, including “Prem Rog” and “1942: A Love Story.” Kamna Chandra has also written several drama scripts for Indian Television and All India Radio.
- Vikram Chandra’s sister Tanuja Chandra is a screenwriter and director of many famous movies in Bollywood. Sur and Sangarsh are two of them.
- His other sister Anupama Chopra is a film critic. In 1995, the famous Indian film “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” written by her became very popular. She is also an author and has written the book Sholay: The Making of a Classic. In 1995, the book won the Swaan Kamal National Award for Best Film Book.
- When he was fifteen, Chandra began reading works by modernist writers and books such as The Great Gatsby. He said in an interview with the magazine,
Once I started reading [the Modernists], I realized they were doing something to me that I couldn’t understand. I read The Great Gatsby when I was 15 in India and I knew nothing about it – I had no idea of its context, social or symbolic – but it still blew my mind, it was so beautiful . “
- According to Vikram Chandra, most of his writing ideas come to him in the shower. In an interview, he was asked what he did when the idea for writing suddenly came to him in the shower.
I write it down once I’m out. The shower is actually my most productive work area! It introduces this meditative, calm state that allows you to explore. Sometimes problems just pop up in the shower. My girls get mad at me! They complain ‘Daddy takes so long in the shower! ’”
- In an interview, Vikram Chandra was asked about confusion of his name with NDTV CEO Vikram Chandra. He recounted a hilarious incident of mistaken identity,
I do get emails from time to time congratulating or cursing me for being interviewed by some politician. Another Vikram told my sister that he once had a guest on his show congratulating him on winning an award for Bombay Love and Longing. “
- In an interview, Vikram Chandra revealed the research he did while writing his novel Sacred Games. He said,
Talk to sociologists, historians and police officers. As he researched, the world of policing that I wanted to unravel became increasingly complex. Crime leads to politics, which leads to religion, which leads to state intelligence. So it became 900 pages. “
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education