Shilpa Raj

The daughter of a housemaid and an elephant chaser from a South Indian village, Shilpa Raj’s life changed dramatically when she was selected at the age of four to attend Shanti Bhavan, a boarding school for poor children. At sixteen, her need for self-discovery drove her to write this moving memoir of her turbulent past. Shilpa Raj completed high school with distinction in 2011—the first in her family to do so—and received a Master’s degree in psychological counselling.