Meet Chetan Mahajan

​Chetan is a full-time author, writing coach and Himalayan resident. He is the founder of the Himalayan Writing Retreat. This retreat helps aspiring writers and published authors too. It offers the tools, support and inspiration required for writers to realize their dreams. He is also the co-founder of Indian Mountain Foods, a social enterprise. Indian Mountain makes natural, organic cheese from locally sourced milk. The enterprise trains villagers in cheese making and employs them.

Chetan has had an interesting journey, and has faced his share of challenges and setbacks. He found ways to turn each setback into a triumph. Chetan holds an MBA from Kellogg and had a successful corporate career across the USA and India. On Christmas of 2012 Chetan was unexpectedly arrested and jailed as the fall guy for his then employer, Everonn. In jail for a month, he started a new vocation – writing. After his release and acquittal, Penguin published his book, “The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail”. The book received critical acclaim. Mint called it “quite a page-turner.”

His name cleared, Chetan joined HCL Learning Ltd. as President. Unfortunately, Delhi’s toxic air quality proved harmful for his son. He realised then that the prison spell had changed him. Even though HCL was great, he decided a job wasn’t as important as the wellbeing of his son. He relocated to the mountains with his family, and founded the Himalayan Writing Retreat. It was another example of emerging strong from a setback. Along the way, he had converted a hobby into a profession.

People’s ability to bounce back from difficult situations intrigues Chetan. He has researched people who survived major calamities and bounced back. Their stories and his personal experience made him realize the power of resilience and how to build it.  He centres his talks around inspiring stories of resilience and creativity. He also loves to talk about writing and communication. He has given talks at Bajaj Capital, IIM Udaipur, Fractal Analytics, IIM Kashipur, SOIL, the Noir Literature Festival, HCL and many others. Chetan is currently working on his next book.

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Speaking Topics

• Bouncing back with Creativity
• Power of Resilience
• Why is effective writing so hard?
• Writing – a workshop