Bangalore-based historian Vikram Sampath is the author of three acclaimed works of non-fiction “Splendours of Royal Mysore: the untold story of the Wodeyars”, “My name is Gauhar Jaan!- the life and times of a musician” and “Voice of the Veena: S Balachander, a biography”. His book on Gauhar Jaan won him several laurels including the Sahitya Akademi’s first Yuva Puraskar for English Literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York. Vikram is a visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and the University of Queensland, Australia. He served the Government of India’s Ministry of Culture as Executive Director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Southern Regional Centre and is currently the Director of the Symbiosis School of Media and Communication (SSMC) Bangalore. He is the Founder of the country’s first online digital repository for vintage gramophone records of the country called Archive of Indian Music (AIM) and is the Director of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF). He serves on several Government Committees like the Karnataka Knowledge Commission, Karnataka Tourism Vision Group and the Prasar Bharati Archives Core group. Vikram was among the 4 Artists and Writers selected by the President of India for an In-Residence Programme at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in March 2015. A trained Carnatic vocalist under several eminent Gurus, he writes regularly for newspapers and magazines on a wide variety of subjects.