Usha Rajagopalan is a writer, translator and lake conservationist based in Bengaluru. She was born in Manamadurai, a small municipality town in Tamil Nadu and grew up in Trivandrum, Kerala. After her MA in English Literature, she worked as an editor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and as Assistant Executive to Dr Verghese Kurien, then Chairman, National Dairy Development Board, Anand.
Her books are in multiple genres – The Zoo in my Backyard (memoir), A Bond So Sacred (literary novel); Tracking Purnima (crime novel), poetic translation into English of Subramania Bharati’s Tamil poetry (Panchali’s Pledge and Selected Poems), a social novel Amrita; Corpse Kesavan & Other Stories and a manual for writers Get Published (ed.).
She won the Federation of Indian Publishers’ Award for Get Published, prizes in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and The Quest All India Poetry Prize, 1993.
Her writing has received support from the Charles Wallace India Trust, University of British Columbia, Sangam House, Le Château De Lavigny, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the International Water Management Institute.
In 2008, Usha mooted a campaign to save Puttenahalli Lake in her neighbourhood which led the municipality to rejuvenate the lake. She co-founded Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT) which has been nurturing the lake from 2010. Usha and her team have won several accolades for their conservation activities.
She is currently the Homi Bhabha Fellow, 2023 – 2025, working on a memoir on her experience as a lake conservationist.
Usha Rajagopalan "Lakeika" 