Sudipto Das

Sudipto Das (born 12 July 1973) is an Indian author, social worker[1][2] and musician.[3] He is also a columnist,[4] a speaker at TED events[5][6] and a veteran in the semiconductor industry,[7] having co-chaired the Industry Forum at the VLSID 2020.[8] He has been the co-founder of two startups.[9][10][11] In 2020 he spearheaded a country wide initiative to deliver daily groceries to people stranded due to lockdowns in the wake of the breakout of COVID-19.[12][13]

Sudipto Das in 2017

Sudipto Das
Born (1973-07-12) 12 July 1973
OccupationAuthor, Musician, Columnist, Entrepreneur
NationalityIndian
Alma materIIT Kharagpur
Notable worksNovels The Ekkos Clan, The Aryabhata Clan, The Broken Amoretti; Music of Schweyk in the Second World War, Blooming Orchard
Website
www.sudiptodas.com

Das has written three novels: The Ekkos Clan (2013), The Aryabhata Clan (2018) and The Broken Amoretti (2019). He has also published the coffee table book Myths & Truths Behind The Ekkos Clan (2014).[14] Within a fortnight of its release The Ekkos Clan came to 3rd position[15] in the best seller list in Flipkart in the Literature and Fiction section.

Sudipto, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, has been a secretary at the Sarathi Socio Cultural Trust for many years,[16] looking after their cultural initiatives in Bangalore.[17][18] Presently he is the General Secretary of Sarathi.[19]

Early days

Sudipto was born in Calcutta to a family which fled Bangladesh during the partition riots of 1947.[20]

Music
Sudipto performing in Kohal, 2008

Sudipto started the music band Kohal in Bangalore in 2007[3] with some of the members of ETMS.

In May 2014 he tried his hand at creating background scores for a play,[21] directed by Sharmin Ali, where he used only Mozart's compositions for the entire score. In the same year he composed original scores[22] recreating the Balkan music[23][24][25] of the 1940s for a Forum Three[26] musical, an adaptation of Schweyk in the Second World War by Bertolt Brecht,[27][28] which was staged many times in Bangalore[29] and once in Auroville for an international audience.[30][31]

In 2018 he composed the theme music of Blooming Orchard,[32] the English adaptation of Manoj Mitra's Bengali play Sajano Bagan.

Kohal have performed some of Sudipto's original compositions in their shows.

Entrepreneurship

Sudipto played key roles in creating three startups in VLSI Design Services in the past ten years. In June 2017 he co-founded a company, which was adjudged one of the Top 10 most disruptive and potentially game-changing startups in the electrical and electronics sector[33] by the "ELECRAMA Startup Awards 2018", for its AI enabled IoT based Smart Lighting solution. As a "Cardinal Provider of IoT & AI-Controlled Solutions with Social, Financial & Environment Viability",[11] Sudipto was recognized as the founder of one of the "20 Most Promising Electronic Design Service Providers 2018".[34]

Novels

The Ekkos Clan

Das began working on his first novel, The Ekkos Clan, in 2008,[20] and it was launched in Bangalore on 3 August 2013.[35] A contemporary mystery novel set against the backdrop of ancient Indian history and delving deep into the behind the scene stories of Rig Veda, the oldest book of the mankind, the book deals extensively with linguistic palaeontology, Astronomy, Archaeology, History, Music and Poetry.

The Ekkos Clan is one of very few literary works in any Indian language to have touched based on the horrors of the Bengal side of the Indian Partition.[36] Sudipto talked about his research into the Bengal Partition and its sparse representation in Indian literature at a panel on Borderland Narratives of the Bengal Partition,[37] held at the UIUC in April 2019.[38]

Another book, The Myths & Truths Behind The Ekkos Clan, is a compilation of historical and linguistic facts and figures which loosely form the background of Sudipto Das' debut novel, The Ekkos Clan. Das presents a series of discoveries and theories, espoused by a particular school of historians and linguists, which are used as the historical background in the novel.[39]

The Aryabhata Clan

Das plans a trilogy with Afsar-Kratu-Tista and linguistic palaeontology. In The Aryabhata Clan, the sequel to The Ekkos Clan, he uses a verse composed by the Indian mathematician Aryabhata[40] to decipher a riddle which lies at the center of a mysterious and sinister plan to create an apocalypse in India. The Aryabhata Clan was released in December 2017.[41]

The Broken Amoretti

In various interviews,[42][43] given between September and December 2013, Sudipto mentioned that he had already completed the first draft of a book, Prembajar (working title), which wouldn't be a sequel of The Ekkos Clan. "My yearning to make my alma mater IIT Kharagpur (KGP) a part of my literary creation is so strong that I want to write a KGP trilogy too, a set of three unusual love stories, all originating in KGP," he said. Later, Prembajar was rechristened The Broken Amoretti, Sudipto's third novel. Set against the backdrop of IIT Kharagpur and a nondescript place called Prembajar, which lies just outside the IIT campus, it was published by Niyogi Books and released in May 2019. Totally different from Sudipto's earlier two thrillers, this one, co-written with Aparajita Dutta, "has a bold theme, a much-needed voice to the many unconventional relationships that have been silenced since ages".[44][33]

Community service

In 2020, Sudipto Das lead a campaign to help the poor and the needy during the prolonged lockdown due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The campaign provided daily rations to nearly 10,000 people across India, mostly migrant labourers, daily wage earners and poor people.[45][46][47]

References
  1. "Coronavirus Lockdown: Ration without queues for needy in East Midnapore". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  2. "The Bengaluru heroes who have stepped up during the COVID-19 crisis". Lifestyle Asia India. 2 July 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  3. "Musically apt". Deccan Chronicle. 20 February 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  4. Das, Sudipto. "Sudipto Das". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  5. "TEDxBMSCE". TED. TED. 18 April 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  6. How my passion guided me towards the road not taken | Sudipto Das | TEDxBMSCE, 9 November 2017, retrieved 27 November 2017
  7. Das, Sudipto. "Sudipto Das". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  8. "Organizing Committee". Embedded & VLSI Design Conference. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  9. "Amazon.com: Sudipto Das: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  10. Das, Sudipto. "Sudipto Das". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
  11. "Insilico: Cardinal Provider of IoT & AI-Controlled Solutions with Social, Financial & Environment Viability". enterprise-services.siliconindiamagazine.com. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
  12. Datta, Sravasti (2 April 2020). "This apartment in Bengaluru is distributing groceries to daily wage earners". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  13. "Networked kitchens add to relief efforts". Deccan Herald. 14 April 2020. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
  14. "Myths & Truths Behind The Ekkos Clan". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
  15. "The Ekkos Clan - Bestselling new release". sudiptounplugged.blogspot.in. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  16. Lasrado, Svetlana (28 September 2011). "Many facets of a fest". Many facets of a fest. Deccan Herald. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  17. Sukumaran, Ajay (27 September 2009). "Lakshmi smile on Durga Puja - Hint of revival from crisis in bangalore festivities". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 30 September 2009. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  18. Das, Sudipto (10 December 2014). "It's no smooth ride on app cabs". Bangalore Mirror. Retrieved 13 December 2014.
  19. "Welcoming the Goddess". The Hindu. 30 September 2016. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  20. "Sudipto Das". www.sudiptodas.com. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  21. An eccentric 'Potli' on stage: 29 April 2014, Bangalore Mirror
  22. Datta, Sravasti (26 March 2019). "Stories of yore". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  23. "THE LITTLE MAN AND THE WORLD - The Times Of India - Bangalore, 3/16/2019". epaper.timesgroup.com. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  24. "Actor Prakash Raj to produce periodic play in Bengaluru". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  25. Faisal, Falah (18 June 2015). "When music meets war and epic drama". Bangalore Mirror. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  26. "Forum Three". Forum Three. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  27. Gupta, Namita (13 September 2014). "Keeping a "Brecht"" (PDF). Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
  28. Rajagopal, Rashmi (12 September 2014). "War Time Tales". New Indian Express. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  29. Datta, Sravasti (15 March 2019). "An anti-war musical". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  30. Zoya (30 November 2014). "Schweyk in the Second World War". Schweyk in the Second World War. Auroville Radio. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
  31. Sudipto Das (2 December 2014), Schweyk in the Second World War (Auroville production: songs audio), retrieved 22 February 2018
  32. "The Blooming Orchard". www.jagrititheatre.com. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  33. "A potpourri of action, suspense, conflict and politics - The Times Of India - Bangalore, 2018-08-11". Retrieved 11 August 2018.
  34. "20 Most Promising Electronic Design Services Providers - 2018". industry.siliconindia.com. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  35. "Strains from a grand lineage". The Hindu. 2 August 2013. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  36. "An unflinching look". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  37. "Panel: Borderland Narratives of the Bengal Partition, Events, Spurlock Museum, U of I". www.spurlock.illinois.edu. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  38. Das, Sudipto (12 May 2019). "Borderland Narratives of the Partition of Bengal - Transcript of Sudipto's lecture @ UIUC, 25 April 2019". Unplugged - Anything Anywhere!!. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  39. "On Dravidian-Iranian connect". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  40. "Decoding ancient scriptures" (PDF). Sakal Times. 6 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  41. "Sudipto Das". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  42. "Star Of Mysore Online". indiatimeline.tripod.com. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  43. Blogger Interviews | Nishita's Rants and Raves | Reading Corner | paperblog | Aditi Chopra's Blog | Eloquent Articulation |
  44. "Sudipto Das". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  45. This apartment in Bengaluru is distributing groceries to daily wage earners, The Hindu, April 02, 2020
  46. Ration without queues for the needy, The Telegraph India, May 9, 2020
  47. The Bengaluru heroes who have stepped up during the COVID-19 crisis, Lifestyle Asia, 2020
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