François Gautier

Francois Gautier
Born	July 26, 1959 (1959-07-26) Fontenay-sous-Bois, Paris
Occupation	Journalism
Spouse(s)	Namrita Bindra Gautier
www.francoisgautier.com

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François Gautier, born 1959 in Paris, is a writer and journalist based in India. He came to India at the age of 19 and spent his first eight years in the "international city" of Auroville [1] India at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. He has been living in India since the 1970s and is married to an Indian. Gautier is one of the few westeners actively defending the hindutva movement.

Childhood

Francois Joseph Georges Gautier was born on 26 July 1959 at Fontenay-sous-Bois near Paris to Jacques Gautier [2], an artist in France and Andree Gautier. His uncle was Father Guy Gautier, the parish head of the beautiful Saint Jean de Montmartre church in Paris. He was brought up in a traditional Christian family. He had a strict upper-class Catholic education, but never really fitted in the system. He revolted against it quite early. He was sent to many famous boarding schools all over Europe. His family wanted him to be a businessman. He attended an American business school in Paris called IDRAC, but his interest was in writing. He quit to work in a small newspaper, which quickly folded. He tried his hand at script-writing and wrote the script for a film for a friend whose father, a famous film director, had given him 30,000 francs. The film was never released and soon after, he left for India when he just turned 19.

He has lived in India since 1971, and has been associated with Auroville in Pondicherry.

Career

He wrote for a national daily based in Paris. Thereafter after living for a few years in the ashram at Pondicherry, he resumed writing for various national and international papers but this time about Indian affairs.

In 1982, at the occasion of the Asian Games in Delhi, He chanced upon an article (on the Asian Games) in a French newspaper. It had all the usual clichés on India: poverty, fakirs, Mother Teresa. So he wrote a letter of correction to the editor; and the editor offered Francois to write an article. That was his [beginning in Journalism][3].

Gautier writes to the online website Rediff.com, The New Indian Express, Dainik Bhaskar, Sahara Samay, Outlook and The Sunday Indian. His columns for the "The Ferengi’s Column" in The Indian Express and "The French Connection" column in the The Pioneer and in Rediff were some of the most waited and most read.

Among his books are Un autre Regard sur l'Inde (Editions du Tricorne, Geneva-Paris); Arise O India (Har Anand 1999), Cry O my beloved India A Western journalist on India (Har-Anand 2001), India's Self Denial (Editions Auroville Press, 2001) and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a guru of Joy (India Today Book Club, 2002).

Books in English

• Arise O India, Har anand, 2000. ISBN 8124105189
• India's Self Denial Auroville Press, 2001
• A Western Journalist on India: The Ferengi's Columns, Har Anand, 2001. ISBN 8124107955
• The Guru of Joy: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living, India Today Book Club, 2002. ISBN 8190565591
• Rewriting Indian History, India Research Press, 2003 ISBN 8187943270
• A New History of India, Har Anand, 2008 ISBN 9788124114308

Books in French

• Un autre regard sur l'Inde, éditions du Tricorne, 2001. ISBN 2829301897
• Swami, PDG et moine hindou, éditions J.-P. Delville, juin 2003. ISBN 2848980036
• La caravane intérieure, les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2005 ISBN 2251720006
• Femmes en Inde, Albin Michel, à paraître, 2004 ISBN 2226142266

See also

• David Frawley
• Koenraad Elst
• Michel Danino
• Alain Danielou
• Girilal Jain
• Stephen Knapp
• Arun Shourie
• Swapan Dasgupta
• Claude Arpi

External links

• Francois Gautier Blog
• Another noble efforts by Francois Gautier
• Interview to Tribune India
• Youtube video on FACTINDIA
• francois gautier's French articles
• Francois Gautier's homepage
• Rewriting Indian history Online Book
• India's self denial by F. Gautier
• Francois Gautier at rediff.com
• A sampling of Francois Gautier's experiences in india
• FACT homepage
• Art of Living