LOL Season 4 E04 - Sangeeta Vallat

GUEST Sangeetha Vallat, a former railway employee, passionate about books, travel, friends and conversations is a people watcher and a seeker of stories. Platform Ticket (Penguin) her debut nonfiction memoir, chronicled her ticketing days in Railways. She followed this with Extraordinary Life of a Helicopter Pilot (Sabre and Quill) a biography of a decorated war veteran of the 1971 Liberation War. Ms Vallat currently resides in Dubai, working on a Middle East memoir. HOSTS Jay Yes Foundation: The foundation believes literature can build meaningful global connections, so it nurtures literary communities and supports emerging writers. Under the leadership of its founder, Jayanthi Sankar, the foundation continues to create inclusive platforms that encourage writers across borders. This altruistic international body aims to nurture the irreplaceable creativity of the human mind—something no AI can ever replicate. By operating with no entry fees, the foundation also challenges the conventional assumption that literary initiatives require financial investment to achieve the intended impact. Instead, it shows that genuine commitment, sustaining dedicated group efforts, and sincerity can be the most powerful investments in building a vibrant international literary community. LOL (Love of literature) PODCAST: What started as a teaching moment between the internationally acclaimed author Jayanthi Sankar and her mentee SreDhanea Ramkrishnan, turned into a podcast series of their dreams. LOL is a peep into the behind the scenes of the literary world. It revolves around conceptualising, writing, publishing, promoting, publishing and many other angles of the kaleidoscope of a literary journey. Started in Feb 2022 , LOL has had the privilege of hosting authors, publishers, literary agents, readers, reviewers, editors etc and building a strong community of like-minded enthusiasts whose love for literature has finally won them the love of literature. The season is in association with the International Jay Yes Short Story Contest 2026 to not only touch base with the existing literary stars but also to introduce fresh minds, budding authors into the mix. Jayanthi Sankar has been in several international literary festivals, including the APWT 2018 at Gold Coast. Her recently published novella 'When Will You Die?' The book is making a lot of buzz among readers. She loves reading fiction as much as experimenting with writing fiction. Tabula Rasa was a 'Distinguished Favourite' in the Historical Fiction category of the 2022 NYC Big Book Award and an 'honorable mention' in the San Francisco Book Fest. Misplaced Heads, was on the Eyelands Book Awards 2020 final list of historical fiction, in Greece, making its mark as an outstanding postmodern historical fiction. Fiction: short story winner in the 2020 International -American book fest award 'Dangling Gandhi' also won the international Literary Titan award as well. She lives in Singapore since 1990. R. Sredhanea is the author of ‘The Cord’, who has also written more than 20 blogs in the Coffeelicious publications of Medium. A Food technologist by profession and an aspiring author by passion, she published 7 Self-help articles in magazines like ‘The Infinithoughts’ and is a Freelance content writer for Carty Studios. Her debut historical fiction 'THE CORD' won the outstanding aspiring author award from ‘The Cherry Book Awards' before it was even published. It bagged several prestigious awards after print.