An Author’s Afternoon on September 6, 2017 hosted Neelima Dalmia Adhar in a candid conversation with Supriya Newar at Taj Bengal, Kolkata. The session was presented by Shree Cement and organised by Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

Neelima created a stir with her debut book Father Dearest: The Life and Times of R K Dalmia which also became a bestseller and she was regarded as a daredevil ‘family chronicler’ who had exposed some fiercely guarded secrets. Her second book Merchants of Death in 2007 also received wide critical acclaim. Her latest The Secret Diary of Kasturba is a fictional autobiography that gives the readers a glimpse into her life and the person she was behind the transformation of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi into a Mahatma. In the process she also portrays Gandhi as a human being with all his foibles. All the three books bear her stamp of candour and fearlessness.

Neelima, a student of psychology grew up in a Marwari family along with six siblings and a mother who was the first woman graduate from Jaipur and was a poet of repute. However, in her ‘bizarre’ childhood as she terms it she had to share her father with his six other wives and 18 children. “I’m a writer partly by default and partly by legacy, from my mother.” She also added that writing is her destiny and she would have been very sorry if this had not happened.