Shalini Narayanan

Hi. I'm Shalini Narayanan, D.Phil. and I've been working in media and communication for over three decades now. I was part of the Indian Information Service, Group 'A' for 23 years but felt I needed to experience the world outside of bureaucracy too for personal growth. So, I took early retirement when I still had 15 years to go. And tried my hand in fields like digital financial inclusion, drug deaddiction and mental health. Though the work was satisfying, I felt I was not yet ready for it. I had kept up with my teaching and training activities and was finally getting recognition for my work. Partnering with Prof Sunetra Sen Narayan of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication was my lucky break as we worked well together. The new media or digital media's impact on India was what concerned the both of us. Our first book looked at that - India Connected: Mapping the Impact of New Media. Alongside I started doing some creative writing on my Facebook Notes. These got published as 'Looking for Myself', a book on identity and self-discovery, followed by daily writing of micro-stories on Facebook for over two years. In 2017 we started worrying about the impact WhatsApp was having on all of us. From that quest was born 'The WhatsApp India Story: Inside the Digital Maya Sphere.' Some startling revelations awaited us in our journey. You can read about them in the book. You could also find me as @AuthorShaNar on Facebook and my website is coming up soon :)