An IAS officer for over 30 years, Geetika Kalha has done extensive fieldwork in Northwest India to promote the revival, documentation and dissemination of art and culture. With a background in history, Kalha is now a writer and a consultant who specializes in rural tourism, museums and cultural interpretation. An avid traveller, birder, painter she also leads an NGO that provides underground wastewater management systems in villages. She is presently working on her next book.

With their new book Kathak Lok Temples: Traditions and History, Shovana Narayan and Geetika Kalha want people to learn the truth about Kathak.

It is about a remarkable journey of discovery that unravels the story of Kathak villages, Kathak Lok and Kathak dance. The reader is kept in suspense as the authors unveil layers upon layers of history. Laced with anecdotes and legends the book unearths little-known facts of pre-Christian era roots of Kathak and its role in propagating and preserving Dharma over centuries, which continues as a living tradition in temples today.