Rachna Chhabria Profile

I feel stories have the ability to both entertain as well as educate children. I like to make readers see things from a different perspective through the prism of my stories. My characters are a combination of sweet and spice. Naughty, curious, adventurous, loyal, grumpy, my characters encapsulate all these traits. I like to create characters that children can identify with, bond with, befriend and visit again and again. Rachna Chhabria

Profile

Rachna Chhabria’s characters stalk her day and night, until she writes about them. Beware if you find Rachna staring at you. She probably has plans of putting you in her stories - not necessarily as the hero or heroine.

As a child Rachna refused to eat until she was told a story. Her grandmother would narrate one story every week, changing it’s ending every day. In her childhood she loved listening to stories, now she loves writing them.

Rachna finds stories and characters everywhere. Or rather they find her. Animals stories are her all-time favourite. Food and humour are recurring motifs in her writing. She has written more than 300 stories and features, her stories have travelled into anthologies, textbooks and newspapers. Many of her longer stories have been serialized in Young World.

She is the author of Festival Stories Through The Year (HarperCollins Children’s Books) which is on several reading lists. Her book Lazy Worm Goes on a Journey (Scholastic) is a part of supplementary reading programmes in schools and has a discussion guide with a fun lesson plan along with it. Her illustrated book The Lion Who Wanted to Sing (Unisun Publications) was mentioned by school principals during graduation speeches as an inspirational book about following your dreams. Her book Bunny in Search of a Name (Unisun Publications) was a firm favourite of both adults and children who felt that they were shortchanged in the name department.

Author, columnist, creative writing teacher, blogger, freelance journalist, Rachna wears many hats. Her favourite hat is that of a writer’s. She freelances for Deccan Chronicle, The Asian Age, Young World, Open Sesame, Tele Kids and Deccan Herald Student Edition newspaper.