Ashwin Chitransh

WINNER: Salis Mania Choice Awards – Best New Author (Editor's Choice 2024) 🌟 (I checked, they didn't make a mistake. It’s actually mine.)

My journey began in Etah, Uttar Pradesh, mostly because I needed a coping mechanism for small-town boredom long before the internet made that easy. I penned my first literary "masterpiece" in the second grade. It was objectively terrible—a crime against grammar and plot structure—but it ignited a delusion of grandeur that I have successfully nursed for 42 years.

I spent decades filling notebooks with stories that the world was lucky enough to miss. But in 2019, while trying to avoid actual adult responsibilities, the concept for the Agni series attacked my brain. I spent the next five years juggling "real life" and my imaginary space friends to create the Echoes of Bhu universe—a place where Hindu mythology meets high-tech spaceships, mostly because I thought the Mahabharata needed more lasers.

When I’m not playing God in my own fictional universe, I create "generative music" on YouTube. (This basically means I let a computer make the noise and I take the credit. It’s efficient.)

I write for the generation who grew up loving comics but realized the superheroes were never quite desi enough, or screwed up enough, to be relatable. My characters are flawed, stubborn, and occasionally heroic—much like the author, but with better aim.