Vimla patil

Vimla Patil () is an Indian Journalist, event designer, writer (books and features, speeches and research), author/activist, columnist.
Early life
Vimla Patil was born in Mumbai. She received her school as well higher education in Mumbai and obtained a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Ancient Indian History and Culture (B.A.) as well as a bachelor’s degree in law (LL B) from Mumbai University. Thereafter, she studied journalism at the London University and also obtained a degree in this subject.
Career
During her years in London, while studying at the university, Vimla Patil was a part-time trainee for the Daily Telegraph and then worked for a business journal called The Offiice Magazine.
Upon returning to India, she joined Femina, a Times of India publication, with its inaugural issue in 1959. In 1961, she joined the United States Information Service (USIS), coincidentally for her, the following five years (1961-66) were scintillating years in Indo-American relations with the youthful John F. Kennedy as the US president. Ms. Patil was fortunate to meet a number of US celebrities, artists, writers and politicians and to write about them. She wrote for SPAN as well as many Indian journals and conducted programmes at Indian universities. An example is her publicity campaign for Pandit Ravi Shankar and his US students, prominently Penny Estabrook. Among the celebrities she met and worked with were Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck, who visited India for the making of the film Guide, with Dev Anand and novelist R K Narayan. Ms. Patil planned the programmes for Kennedy confidante Arthur Schlesinger, famous Jazz musicians Red Nicholls and His Five Pennies and Duke Ellington during their visits to India. She provided back-up research for some memorable public addresses by US ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, several consular officials and US celebrities on short visits to India.
In 1966, she returned to her first love, Femina, as the journal’s assistant editor. Helping to plan its content and marketing strategies, she became the editor in 1973 and continued in that position till 1993 and built the journal into a world famous brand. Femina, under her editorship, became the flagship venture for the empowerment of Indian women and was successful in pitching for changes in laws that gave Indian women rights to property, fair laws governing marriage, child rights and the right to equality in all walks of life. Femina also set trends in fashion, food and films (entertainment industry) by unifying the whole country under one umbrella of being ‘Indian’. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Femina, through its huge reach and popularity, created the ‘modern Indian woman’ as well as helped to create an ‘Indian cuisine’ and ‘Indian fashion’.
Being an English publication, it attracted educated women who set examples by becoming leaders in various social movements which benefitted millions of women who perceived themselves as ‘citizens entitled to equal rights’. Femina promoted education entrepreneurship and equality for all Indian women, across linguistic, social strata and financial levels in the nation. Under Vimla Patil’s editorship, Femina became one of India’s greatest publishing successes and was published in Gujarati and Hindi for some years.
Femina also initiated the Miss India shows in India. It held the rights to choose Indian candidates for the Miss Universe, Miss World, Teen Princess, Miss Asia Pacific and other titles. Through this contest, the journal reached to college students and young working women who, for the first time, experienced pride in their appearance and grace. With these contests, Femina shows also promoted Indian textiles - mill-made as well as handloom - giving the fashion and crafts industry a huge boost and an international presence. Some of India’s greatest designers began their careers during this period. Femina laid the foundations for the beauty and fashion industries of India through its influence and popularity. Some of the young achievers who won titles and became top models or film stars from this contest were: Zeenat Aman, Tina Munim, Juhi Chawla, Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra and many others.
Femina encouraged women to seek a higher, better life for themselves and their families. In a sense, today’s powerful Indian women are a product of these early years. She was honoured by the Benaras Hindu University as one of the top 10 women in India.
Ms. Patil travelled widely as editor and invitee to several countries. She was chosen Indian Woman Journalist of the International Women’s Year 1975 by the US Government and travelled through the USA, visiting universities and women’s institutions from New York to Hawaii. She also travelled to all the cities of West Germany in 1970 to work with media celebrities of that country. In 1989, she was the head of an Indian delegation to the Women’s Peace Initiative in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and later visited Moscow to meet leading Russian media-persons. Ms Patil contributed prolifically to Femina, other Times of India publications as well as other journals across India.
After finishing her 20 years’ stint as one of India’s most successful editors, Vimla Patil wrote for several websites, television production companies and edited journals for various corporates such as the Leela Hotels Resorts Palaces group and Johnson & Johnson. One of the prominent assignments she completed was as the event planner and publicist for the 50th anniversary of India’s Independence in 1997 for the National Gallery of Modern Art in collaboration with the Berlin Museum, West Germany, whose Indian art collection was brought for an exhibition in Mumbai. Among artists who performed for this event were Hema Malini (dance), Amrish Puri (poetry reading) and Vrinda Mundkur (vocal music).
Ms. Patil also led a delegation of women activists to Iran in 1999 and visited several institutions in Teheran and Isfahan. In 1999 too, she won the Travel Writer’s Award from the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) and travelled through England, Scotland and Wales. During 2002-04, she wrote the scripts for four Son et Lumiere (Sound & Light Shows) for the Ministry of Tourism, India. The first for the Somnath Temple, Gujarat, is one of the most successful in India. In this show, she has written the English and Hindi scripts, designed the music and done the artistic direction. For the Udaygiri Cave show in Orissa, she wrote the script in English and Hindi. For the Ganga Water Show, Uttaranchal, she wrote the script in English and Hindi and designed the music. For the Nayakar Palace show in Tamil Nadu, she wrote only the English script. In 2007-8, she created an audio-visual show called “Sacred Rivers of India” - pitching for the conservation of Indian rivers - showing how rivers have created the culture of India. This AV was shown at the Indian Merchants’ Chamber, the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai and the CSMVS (Prince of Wales Museum of Western India) and the Ramakrishna Mission, Mumbai.
She has been a major contributor to popular websites, magazines and newspapers all over India - and Asia - and continues to pitch for women’s rights through her writings. She has written several books on food. Her book on Indian Baby Names has been a huge success. So also, her book How To Be Successful & Happy has been so popular that it has been translated in the Korean language. Ms. Patil writes a regular column ‘Eavesdropping’ for New Woman Magazine on issues of concern to women.
Vimla Patil is today one of India’s senior notable multimedia persons with a presence on several websites.
Family
Vimla Patil was born in the eminent community of Chitrapur Saraswats. This community has an interesting written history of being natives of Kashmir, who travelled to Bengal to avoid conversion to Islam and then to Goa and coastal Karnataka to conserve their culture and religious institutions. Today, they are one of India’s most progressive communities with high education and achievement standards and have spread in Britain, Europe, USA and Australia, though small in numbers.
Vimla Patil is married to Prabhakar Patil, an engineering consultant and has two children. Her son, Dr. Naishadh Patil, M.S, Ph D, FRCS is a highly successful ENT surgeon who works in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. He is married to Anita and has two sons Anish and Aishan. Ms. Patil’s daughter, Monisha Bharadwaj, is one of Britain’s most successful consultant chefs and has been acclaimed for her award-winning food books and TV shows. Her website www.cookingwithmonisha.com is highly popular. Her famous Food Walk has been named as one of the five most fabulous food experiences of London by the Guardian newspaper in the UK. She has two children, son Arrush and daughter Saayli-India.
Books
1. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id3PsCtwAACAAJ&dqKashmir+to+Kanyakumari&hlen&saX&eimZPwTu-mOYHxrQfPo938Dw&ved0CDgQ6AEwAA Kashmir to Kanyakumari — A Recipe Collection]

2. Fabulous Recipes From Indian Homes
3. How To Be Successful And Happy — The Ancient Wisdom of India
4. Indian Baby Names (English and Hindi)
5. Working Women’s Cookbook
6. My Times
7. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?idTAaCAAAAMAAJ&qinauthor:%22Vimla+Patil%22&dq=inauthor:%22Vimla+Patil%22&hlen&saX&eisJTwTrPrD8borQfbk_HRDw&ved0CDoQ6AEwAQ Celebrations - Festive Days of India]
8. Aahar - Food Treasures of India
9. Festival Cookbook
10. Entertaining Indian Style

11. Exotic Curries of the Orient
12. Yummy Sweets & Desserts
13. International Food, Indian Style
Articles
At a random guess, Vimla Patil has written about 15000 articles. It is impossible to list all of them in this profile. Below is a short list of articles to show the range of subjects she wrote about:
'Other Articles', home>>Essays>>Vimla Patil, http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-other-articles/Vimla-Patil.aspx Vimla Patil - Pip! Profiles > http://pipl.com/directory/name/Patil/Vimla 'Moroccan-Arabic Sufi Darvesh Look Sweeps Indian Fashion!', South Asian Women's Forum, http://www.sawf.org/bin/tips.dll/gettip?user&classEZine&tipid10352&pn&arch=1 'How does the West look at Indian culture today?', www.invadingthesacred.com 'Monsoon Ragas', Mirror of Tomorrow, www.mirroroftomorrow.org/Blog/-archives/2009/10/15/4351316.htm 'Forts and Palaces of Maharahtra', Mirror of Tomorrow, www.mirroroftomorrow.org/Blog/-archives/2010/12/2/468/4681279.htm 'Of Royal Canvas - Raja Ravi Varma's paintings', www.deccanherald.com>supplements>Sunday Herald Art & Culture 'A Fascinating Page From History - Monuments of Angkor Wat', Connect, South Asian Women's Forum, www.sawf.org/newedit/edit10172005/index.asp 'Five Elemental Women', Groups, yahoo.com/group/jainismtoday/message/1185 'Divorce: Attitude change, so do responses', Social Monitor, The Tribune online edition, July 1, 2001, www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010701/herworld.htm

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