The award winning internationally acclaimed world-record holding writer and film maker you should know about…

Gaurav Ojha
Sep 2, 2018 · 16 min read

Some people are unsung heroes, they don’t care about fame and are busy doing their own things. I used to be Facebook friends with one such highly successful person named Nikhil Chandwani [1] until recently when he blocked me. I’ll tell you why, but before that let me tell you a bit about him.

All of 25, he’s a prolific writer who has published 10 best-selling books. The American Society in presence of President Obama recently named him ‘Artist of the year’ and he’s not only the youngest Indian to win this award but also the youngest Asian. His other achievements include the ‘Conspiracy novel of the year award’ from the UK Writer’s forum, National award from the Indian government and ‘Artist of the year’ award by Cylo Press. His book of poems has been the highest selling book in India [2].

Apart from writing, he is an award winning filmmaker and photographer in Hollywood. His documentary ‘Escape from Kenya’ won an award in America. His movie ‘She-The Movie’ has received numerous awards. He is considered as the ‘first youth literary all rounder of the world’ by Wall Street Select. He has been the top New York Times bestselling author and has also been named ‘Global Indian of the Year’ [3].

A poster of Nikhil’s guest lecture at IIT Roorkee in Aug, 2017 [67] which states him being named one of the ’25 under 25' by Forbes India

An engineering dropout, he holds a Ph.D in Business communication / English Literature from White Lake College, USA. He has been a professor of English at K.L. University, holds a Guinness Record and has been nominated for the Padma Shri awards [4].

You must be thinking — what a genius! That’s true, he’s definitely a genius albeit not in the way you’re thinking.

So why did he block me? It happened on Sunday, Aug 26, 2018. He posted this on Facebook [5] -

Nikhil’s post on Facebook stating that a question about him appeared on KBC

Now this wasn’t the first time he had talked about this question or some similar question appearing in some national level exams [6] and, as usual, I felt good about it but noticed that the website here was ‘kbc-sonyliv.in’ as seen in the screenshot. I googled about KBC and found out that the official website of KBC is actually https://kbc.sonyliv.com/ so clearly this question hadn’t appeared on the official website. Furthermore, I found out that there are multiple such websites operating — www.kbc-sonyliv.com, www.kbcliv.in, etc — probably with the purpose of gaining visitors and making some ad revenue. In fact, if you visit www.kbc-sonyliv.in, it has a clear disclaimer at the bottom saying — ‘KBC-SONYLIV.IN meant for Information and Educational Purpose only — It has no connection with SONY TV and way2traffic’. I decided that I should comment regarding the same to clarify the issue, so I did -

My comment which was deleted later.

Some time after posting this comment, I received a poke from him, and when I tried checking the poke, I wasn’t able to see his profile. That’s when I knew he had blocked me.

I got curious. Why would someone block me for simply stating a fact. Anyway, I guess it’s fine but I felt bad about it. I had been friends with him since the launch of his first book, which was about 6 years ago. He was supposedly the ‘Youngest Indian Author’ of the bestselling book and… well, you know about that already, don’t you? Something was fishy…

So I decided to read a bit more about him. I found that Nikhil had published his first book titled ‘I wrote your name in the sky and yours and yours too’ [7] at the age of 18, sometime in June, 2012 which was launched by VIT Chancellor G. Vishwanathan. He was in his second year of engineering then at VIT [8] [9]. In about a month, it had sold 1.25 lakh copies, news of which was published in The Indian Express or maybe ‘The New Indian Express’ [10]. Soon, the book became a national bestseller and sold over a million copies [11]. Except, if you google about it, you will not find any reference about it being a bestseller.

Search results for ‘I wrote your name in the sky and yours and yours too’

For comparison, the Booker prize winning novel ‘The God of Small things’ by Arundhati Roy has sold about 8 million copies [12]. In contrast, Chetan Bhagat’s novel ‘Revolution 2020’ took about 3 months to sell a million copies when it was released in 2011 [13].

About two years later, in September 2014, YourStory correspondent Harshith Mallya [14] wrote an article about Nikhil Chandwani [2] describing him as ‘an author, documentary filmmaker and photographer of international repute’. The article claims that he has recently won the Conspiracy Novel of the Year Award for his book ‘Coded Conspiracy’ from the American Literary Forum Society.

If you google the phrase ‘Conspiracy Novel of the Year’ or ‘American Literary Forum Society’ you will get similar results (less than 100, if you check the last page though the first search page mentions 1000s) for both terms — they’re filled with articles about Nikhil.

Google search results for ‘Conspiracy novel of the year’.
Google search results for ‘American literary forum society’.

It seems that this specific award has only been awarded to one person and this specific literary society seems to have given out only one award so far.

Similar Google search results will come up if you search for the term ‘UK Writer’s Forum’ which is the name of the supposed literary society that awarded him the highest literary honour in presence of, in his own words [16], none other than, her majesty, the Queen herself! [17]

Strange! But it doesn’t stop here. The YourStory article mentions his achievements in film making — his documentary ‘Escape to Kenya’ has won an award in America and may get shortlisted for the Academy Awards (Oscars). If you google about this documentary, with some effort you will be able to find out that its actual name is ‘Escape from Kenya’ or maybe ‘Escaping Life in Kenya’ [15] and it’s only about 5 minutes long but has won him more than 30 international awards already [16]. Not sure if there’s any category in the Oscars for ultra-short documentaries.

He delivered a TEDx talk at TEDxNagpur [6] where he highlighted some of his achievements including a question paper carrying a question about him receiving the ‘Most Promising Talent’ award [18] of the ‘UK Writer’s Forum’ from some examination which he himself had failed in about a year ago. The problem with this claim is that he doesn’t mention the name of the examination.

Nikhil’s talk at TEDxNagpur [6] where he shows a question paper carrying a question about him.

He also shared few minutes of his award winning documentary of a tiger trying to kill a prey at night but giving up later due to certain maternal instincts. The problem with this TEDx talk is that it seems that the auditorium is empty.

Of course, with so many ‘reputed’ awards to his name, isn’t it obvious he would be awarded an honorary doctorate? Indeed, that’s what actually happened -

Nikhil Chandwani granted a Ph.D. in English literature.

Although [16] mentions it as ‘Ph.D. in English Poetry’, it is also sometimes mentioned as ‘Ph.D. in Business Communications’ [19]. Some sources say he was granted an honorary doctorate [20] while others say he completed Ph.D. at the age of 21. The organization that granted him this Ph.D. doesn’t seem to exist. Regardless, he became the youngest person to do so and, therefore, also became a record holder for the same [21] recognized by ‘World Records India’. If you search for the organization which maintains his record, you will find that it comes under the ‘Genius Foundation’ in Ahmedabad [22]. This foundation also awarded him its ‘Genius Indian Achiever’s Award’ [23] later on although its website does not mention anything related to this.

What do you do when you have a Ph.D.? Naturally, one of the foremost options is that you can become a professor. And that’s what Nikhil did in June, 2015 [24], even though his doctorate was supposedly an honorary one.

Nikhil flaunting his ID card as a Professor of English at K.L. University.

As can be seen in [25], he was one of the 655 faculty members of K.L. University. In contrast, IITs have, on an average, about 350–500 faculties [26]. I found a news article about this university where it has been mentioned that to enter it, there’s an entrance exam in which about 36,000 students participate and about 30,000 qualify [27]. Apparently, there’s a common exam for all courses, so whether you want to become an engineer or a lawyer, you write the same exam. Brilliant!

Nikhil worked at K.L. University from June, 2015 to February, 2016. During his tenure there, he was featured in various magazines and newspapers [28] [29] [30], received the ‘Singapore Youth Award’ [31], ‘First Youth Literary Allrounder’ [32] and inspired thousands of students in ways that remain to be seen. Even these two new awards suffer from the same problem as his ‘UK Writer’s Forum’ award or his ‘American Literary Society Forum’ award, i.e. if you Google about these awards, you will see only his name and his articles repeating the same lines over and over again.

In March-April, 2016, he started his online venture iclassonline.net — a portal for e-learning for GRE, GATE and UPSC — which was immediately covered by Zee News [33] and India Today [34]. Both the news articles mention that it already had offices in North America and South East Asia. Business Weekender wrote about it [35] saying that the site had been recommended by IAS topper Rachit Raj [36]. That’s really impressive. Except, the domain name is now available for purchase from GoDaddy for Rs. 699 for the first year [37]. That’s a lot of money — huge brands don’t come cheap!

Soon, Lokmat Times wrote about him [38], and he was all set for his interview [39] with UCN News, a celebrated news network in its own right [40]. The only problem — the interview is only about 2 minutes long [41] and he seems to have been associated with the channel in a professional capacity at that time [42].

Soon afterwards, in July, 2016 [43] he started another venture — The Walnut School of Ideas — a school for photography, script writing, direction, cinematography, acting and music. Given his international repute as a photographer, award-winning filmmaker and actor (to date), this sounds like a modest beginning. Except, its website [44] has a story similar to that of iClassOnline even though Glassdoor says it is 200–500 employees strong [45] and has few reviews as well!

By September, 2016, he had clearly become a famous personality [46], except nobody seemed to have noticed him (yet!)

Accolades kept pouring in. Air India Magazine seems to have had an article on him in October 2016 even though it [47] doesn’t look like Shubh Yatra, the actual Air India Magazine [48]. In November, 2016 he spoke at Ensemble, a fest at XLRI which was reported by the TOI [49].

Skip to March 2017, his elder brother Dinesh Chandwani became a co-founder of Walnut School of Ideas and interviewed with a news channel. No prizes for guessing it was UCN [50] and the interview was filled with stories of their ground-breaking successes, working with Discovery channel, etc. The same month he delivered a talk at TEDx IIM Nagpur [51] announcing IIM Ahmedabad as his next stop. Nikhil was totally killing it!

In April, 2017, he was again featured in an in-flight magazine of some airline [52] which carried the same news of his multiple untraceable awards. This was followed by more such features [53] [54] [55].

He received another prestigious award in May, 2017 in Ahmedabad [56] apparently named ‘Educational Genius of the Year 2017’ [57]

Nikhil shared this news piece on his Facebook account in May, 2017.

Probably fed up of the multiple domain names getting expired, he set up his own personal website [58] which is full of phrases like ‘world’s first’, ‘world’s youngest’, etc.

Fast forward few months and innumerable awards, TEDx talks [59] [60] including one in MNIT Jaipur [61], where, already 6 New York Times best-selling titles strong, he says he had approached about 1500 publishers for his first book after which a (self) publishing company [62] agreed to pay him a hefty advance (sic) and some highly inconsistent information about his awards, interviews [63] and features by nameless magazines [64] [65], including two workshops in August 2017 in IIT Madras [66] and IIT Roorkee [67] related to ‘Freelance entrepreneurship’, to May, 2018 where he claims he is running a ‘Writer’s rescue centre’ [68] to mentor people from all ages in order to make them successful writers. He has helped over 9000 teens and adults and trained over 75000 students [69], produced more than 30 best-selling authors, over 50 TEDx speakers and over 8 National award winners in less than two years! In this article he is also quoted saying that he dropped out of engineering in the very first year, whereas the story line so far was that he dropped out in the second year. His foundation apparently has modules such as ‘writer-to-author’, ‘public speaker’ and ‘visiting professor’ — you can choose what you want to become! The article claims that with his mentorship, books can be published ‘within a month’ — that’s crazy!

Yeah, because investors are smart enough! [68]

In this article outlining the success of his ‘students’, Nikhil mentions the case of Ritesh Verma [70] who met him at one of his lectures at VIT university, having 13 backlogs, and later, under his guidance, won the Los Angeles Film Festival award for his short film ‘Fears’ [71] or maybe it was ‘LA Short Film Festival’ and the film was titled ‘The Forgotten Words’ [72]. Regardless of what the name of the award or film is, if you google about it, you will find that there’s a film festival by the name of ‘LA Shorts Fest’ [73] but if you google the exact thing in quotes (which is Google’s syntax for saying, find me an exact match) and add his name — e.g. “‘LA Shorts Film’ Ritesh Verma” — you will see results similar to Nikhil’s ‘American Literary Forum Society’ award and others.

Usually awards make people famous but in Ritesh’s and his mentor Nikhil’s case it seems to be the opposite — apparently the recipients are making the award famous.

However, things have changed recently since he has been nominated for the Padma Shri [74] for rescuing hundreds of ‘writers’ [75]. Except, the Padma awards opened for public nominations couple of years ago [76] and has since been receiving over 15,000 nominations [77] yearly including self-nominations. A popular north eastern magazine has called him India’s youngest nominee for the Padma Shri award for 2018 for ‘rescuing and publishing 104 young writers in India’ [78]. Can’t help but notice Nikhil’s fascination for superlatives when describing himself! No points for guessing that a couple of his ‘students’ like Md. Zabi Khan are also Padma Shri nominees in their 20s [79] and proudly speak about it as a credential even though actual awardees are requested to desist from using it as a title [80]. This is not only a dubious credential for self-promotion but also dilutes the value associated with a Padma Shri nomination to practically nothing.

In August, 2018, he conducted another entrepreneurship talk, this time at IIIT Hyderabad [81], on the lines of those at IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee (where his primary credential was ‘top 25 under 25 in 2015/16, Forbes India’). In his description in this talk, it has been written, among other incredible things, that he is a guest columnist (his Facebook profile says ‘editorial columnist’) for Speaking Tree. Indeed I found him on Speaking Tree [82] but only as a ‘seeker’ — which is the title one gets upon registering on the website, which is free and open to all.

My email to Speaking Tree seeking information about becoming a seeker.

I am totally stunned by this whole exploration. Fake best-selling novels are not new [83] [84] but something at this scale was totally unexpected and I’m not the first to feel so [85]. Nikhil’s recent work ‘rescuing writers’ might be helping people but his foundational claims, i.e. his first book selling a million copies or him being granted an honorary Ph.D., are too hollow. It is shocking that organizers at his events at IITs or TEDx, or the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India [86] failed to doubt his credentials. Even newspapers like The Hindu, Financial Express [87] and TOI are adding credibility to his claims by carrying news about him. News channels like Zee News and ETV [88] have interviewed him and never seemed to have felt a shadow of doubt!

Nikhil seems to be experiencing the opposite of ‘Imposter Syndrome’ [89] and through his extremely promising venture, unbounded confidence and highly appreciable SEO skills he is clearly determined to make us read many more extravagant success stories like his own!

BTW for more mind-boggling trivia about Nikhil, don’t miss his ‘speaker profile’ document that he had sent to E-Cell, IIIT Hyderabad which they were happy to provide upon request; maintaining, however, that they did not feel the need to verify his credentials.

References:

  1. Nikhil Chandwani’s Facebook profile — https://www.facebook.com/nikhil.chandwani
  2. Nikhil Chandwani, ‘Artist of the year’ — https://yourstory.com/2014/09/nikhilchandwani-codedconspiracy/ — 2014
  3. Deccan Herald https://www.deccanherald.com/content/445846/author-director-wins-global-indian.html— 2014
  4. Nikhil Chandwani granted a PhD — http://laughingcolours.com/constantly-failing-engineering-21-yo-nagpur-boy-completes-phd-enters-guinness-records-46102/ — 2018
  5. SonyLiv post — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10214857206414968&set=a.2040611506178
  6. Nikhil Chandwani at TEDxIIMNagpur event — https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/22564 & video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqC7c1XfTE
  7. First novel on Flipkart — https://www.flipkart.com/wrote-your-name-sky-yours-too/p/itmdepnqkf95rury
  8. First novel release, TOI — https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Young-Nagpur-writer-to-release-his-first-book-today/articleshow/14347886.cms — 2012
  9. Nagpur Today — https://www.nagpurtoday.in/nagpurian-nikhil-chandwani-wins-u-k-forum-award-as-the-promising-talent-of-the-year/10021115
  10. 1.25 lakh copies a month — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4015764443767&set=a.4015738363115
  11. Million copies sold — https://www.indiainfoline.com/article/print/news-business-wire-advertising/nikhil-chandwani-becomes-worlds-first-youth-literary-all-rounder-at-an-age-of-20-114072300687_1.html — 2014
  12. ‘The God of Small Things’ — https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/ht-podcast-20-years-of-arundhati-roy-s-the-god-of-small-things/story-WIC1QchFkXqCKo3gtjHmfI.html
  13. Chetan Bhagat — https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20140908-chetan-bhagat-novel-half-girlfriend-two-million-copies-set-to-roll-off-press-805059-2014-08-28
  14. Harshith Mallaya — https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshithmallya/
  15. Escaping Life in Kenya — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7JvxjhzdCk
  16. UK Writer’s Award — https://www.writerstory.com/nikhil-chandwani-interview-coded-conspiracy-book/, Also — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208205908696682&set=a.10208205908496677
  17. Description of his documentary — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208205908736683&set=a.10208205908496677
  18. ‘Most promising talent’, Deccan Herald — https://www.deccanherald.com/content/445846/author-director-wins-global-indian.html
  19. PhD in Business Communication — http://laughingcolours.com/constantly-failing-engineering-21-yo-nagpur-boy-completes-phd-enters-guinness-records-46102/
  20. Honorary doctorates — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/honorary-doctorates-its-validity-dr-subramonian-shanmugham/
  21. Youngest Ph.D. — http://www.worldrecordsindia.com/2017/04/youngest-phd-holder-in-english-education/
  22. Genius Foundation, Ahmedabad — http://www.geniusfoundation.org.in
  23. Genius Indian — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211471593856770&set=a.2040611506178
  24. Professor, K.L. University — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205914472532210&set=a.10205914434451258
  25. Wayback machine, K.L. University — https://web.archive.org/web/20151026201503/https://www.kluniversity.in/flist.aspx
  26. S/F ratio in IITs — https://www.iiitd.edu.in/~jalote/GenArticles/StudentFacultyRatio.html
  27. K.L. University Counseling — http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Andhra-Pradesh/2017-05-05/31232-candidates-qualify-for-KL-University-Engineering-counselling/297894
  28. Jet Airways, India Daily — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=499466590219432&set=p.499466590219432
  29. Midweek, Indian of the week — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206635026025597&set=a.2040611506178
  30. Indian book of records — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207342516592419&set=a.2631112028322
  31. Singapore Youth Award — http://oi67.tinypic.com/a5dwzp.jpg & http://oi66.tinypic.com/vfdrpd.jpg
  32. First Youth Literary Allrounder in his own words — https://www.sweetsharing.com/sweet-talks-with-nikhil-chandwani/
  33. iClassOnline, Zee News — http://zeenews.india.com/news/education/e-learning-portal-iclassonline-launches-its-india-operations_1873752.html
  34. iClassOnline, India Today — https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/competitive-exams-india-316980-2016-04-08
  35. Business Weekender — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207991987788793&set=a.1105840737493
  36. Rachit Raj — https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachit-raj-ias-16485838/
  37. GoDaddy, iclassonline.net — https://in.godaddy.com/dpp/find?checkAvail=1&tmskey=&domainToCheck=iclassonline.net
  38. Lokmat Times Article — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208205910776734&set=a.10208205908496677
  39. Recording Room, UCN — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208430548512537&set=a.2040611506178
  40. Copyright violations at UCN — https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/3-ucn-directors-booked-for-copyright-violation/articleshow/59402860.cms
  41. Nikhil Chandwani’s UCN Interview — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zmNKeT--0k
  42. Nikhil’s involvement with UCN — http://www.firststepcorp.com/authors/nikhil-chandwani/
  43. Marathi Newspaper — thewalnutideas.com — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1047838718639896&set=a.326713387419103
  44. Thewalnutideas.com — DNS Unresolved — http://thewalnutideas.com
  45. Glassdoor, The Walnut Ideas — https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Reviews/The-Walnut-School-of-Ideas-Reviews-E1593884.htm
  46. GISL — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209083108466128&set=a.2040611506178
  47. Air India Magazine — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209209818353796&set=a.1105840737493
  48. Shubh Yatra, Air India — http://shubh-yatra.in/emagazine/
  49. Ensemble, XLRI, TOI — https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jamshedpur/XLRI-annual-fest-ends-with-a-bang/articleshow/55410005.cms and https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209602067159771&set=a.2040611506178
  50. Dinesh Chandwani, UCN — https://www.facebook.com/thewalnutschool/videos/1834830973453166/
  51. TEDx IIM Nagpur — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10210766607032540&set=a.2040611506178 & [6]
  52. Jet Air — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211041122655259&set=a.2040611506178
  53. Hello — 25 under 25 — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211185326140256&set=a.2040611506178
  54. Another interview — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211216166711251&set=a.1476002151297
  55. And another — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211350390226755&set=a.2040611506178
  56. Genius Indian — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211418855018332&set=a.1105840737493
  57. Educational Genius of the Year 2017 — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10211863110164433&set=a.2040611506178
  58. Nikhil Chandwani’s Personal Website — https://www.nikhilchandwani.com/
  59. TEDx LaxmiVidyapeeth event https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/23763 & video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKumfRV0vfA
  60. TEDx MITSG event https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/2484 and & video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEzL8nxMPg; TEDxVBIT event https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/26738 & video not found online.
  61. TEDx MNIT Jaipur event https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/22796 & video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Ck1W3JvWY
  62. Easy Writer, The Hindu — Power Publishers — https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/easy-writer/article4150457.ece
  63. Aajtak interview — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212337211256664&set=a.1105840737493 , not found online
  64. South Asian Journal — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213017650267214&set=a.1105840737493
  65. Asian Times — https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10213136316393793&set=a.1105840737493
  66. Workshop at IIT Madras — https://www.facebook.com/events/459257061124374/
  67. Workshop at IIT Roorkee — https://www.facebook.com/events/1584491928238212/ and https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212195609796716&set=a.2040611506178 and https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212225354620318&set=a.2040611506178
  68. Writer’s rescue centre — YourStory -https://yourstory.com/2018/05/foundation-rewrite-stories-struggle-success
  69. Trained over 75000 students — https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290750
  70. Ritesh Verma on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/verma.ritesh25
  71. Los Angeles Film Festival, Fears, Ritesh Verma, Mid Day — https://www.mid-day.com/articles/two-writers-who-almost-gave-up-their-dreams-have-a-different-success-story/19484172
  72. LA Short Film Festival Honour, The Forgotten Words — https://www.educreation.in/author/riteshverma/
  73. LA Shorts Fest — http://www.lashortsfest.com/
  74. Padma Shri nominee, Nikhil Chandwani, TOI — https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/wrc-helps-depressed-differently-abled-publish-their-inspiring-stories/articleshow/65234761.cms
  75. Padma Shri nominee for rescuing 104+ writers — https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/nikhil-chandwani
  76. Padma Awards — https://padmaawards.gov.in/
  77. Padma award nominations, Economic Times — https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/15700-nominations-received-for-padma-awards-2018/articleshow/60465852.cms
  78. Youngest Padma Shri nominee, Eastern Panorama — https://www.easternpanorama.in/index.php/other-articles/3974-9thaprillyricalinterview18
  79. Padma Shri nominee Md. Zabi Khan, New Indian Express — http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2018/mar/14/from-depressed-and-suicidal-to-author-and-speaker-1786613.html
  80. Padma awards as titles, The Hindu — https://www.thehindu.com/2003/06/04/stories/2003060402101300.htm
  81. IIIT Hyderabad Talk — https://www.facebook.com/ecell.iiithyd/posts/2159562074316274
  82. Speaking Tree — https://www.speakingtree.in/nikhil-chandwani-3/blogs
  83. Fake bestsellers, The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/25/handbook-for-mortals-by-lani-sarem-pulled-from-nyt-bestsellers-list
  84. What does it take to be a best-selling author? $3 and 5 minutes! https://brentunderwood.quora.com/Behind-the-Scam-What-Does-It-Take-to-Be-a-%E2%80%98Best-Selling-Author%E2%80%99-3-and-5-Minutes
  85. Exploits…, Reddit — https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/4i8vwv/came_across_this_article_highlighting_the_many/
  86. MEA, Govt. of India — https://mea.gov.in/lok-sabha.htm?dtl/23858/Indian+Author+Wins+American+Literary+Forum+Society+Award
  87. The Financial Express — https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/indian-author-nikhil-chandwani-wins-american-literary-forum-society-award/1277134/
  88. Multi-talented star Nikhil Chandwani, ETV — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEIfDiX1NHU
  89. What is imposter syndrome? Ted-ed — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo

Gaurav Ojha

Written by

Free Thinker | Debunking myths, one at a time

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade