On the evening of 21 October 2026, Lakshmi Kaul stepped onto the stage at The Bhavan in London for a double first: her debut as a live storyteller and the Little Divine Ones book launch. The occasion was a joint presentation by Grin Media and Inspiring Indian Women (IIW), who chose the evening to celebrate IIW’s 10th anniversary under the theme “Pass the Story Forward”. We were in the audience, and this is our account of a warm, music-filled evening that celebrated women, family and the stories that carry a culture across generations.

Lakshmi Kaul reading from Little Divine Ones on stage at The Bhavan in London, with a musician playing guitar behind her
Lakshmi Kaul reading from Little Divine Ones on stage at The Bhavan, with a guitarist alongside.

The Little Divine Ones Book Launch at a Glance

DetailInformation
EventPass the Story Forward: Women Inspiring Women, Stories Inspiring Generations
Date and timeWednesday 21 October 2026, 6.00pm to 9.00pm
VenueBharatiya Vidya Bhavan (The Bhavan), 4A Castletown Road, London W14 9HE
Presented byGrin Media and Inspiring Indian Women (IIW)
Occasion10th anniversary of IIW; book launch and storytelling debut of Lakshmi Kaul
BookLittle Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children by Lakshmi Kaul, priced at £16
ProgrammeStorytelling performance, music and dance, awards and recognition, inspirational speeches
EntryFree, registration required (see the Bhavan event page)

An Evening of Storytelling at The Bhavan

The first half of the programme was a beautifully curated storytelling performance, curated and performed by Lakshmi Kaul. Rather than a conventional reading, it brought together artistes from across the performing traditions of modern India: musicians, dancers, puppeteers and katha vachan (traditional narration). The Bhavan’s listing described the artistes as specialising in saxophone, Bharatanatyam, rock music, Kathak, singing, puppetry and narration, all coming together to portray age-old storytelling traditions before a London audience.

Performances came from Usha Raghavan & Crew, Neetu Jalali and the duo Compound Radius (Aditi & Arnab), and the published line-up also included Vihaan Singla and puppeteer Neelima. A musician with a guitar shared the stage with Lakshmi, so the tales of young gods and goddesses felt less like a recital and more like a family gathering around a storyteller, which is exactly the spirit the evening set out to capture.

The evening also included awards and recognition and inspirational speeches, and some celebrated chief guests joined the community in marking the milestone.

Inspiring Indian Women Celebrates a Decade

Inspiring Indian Women (IIW) used the evening to mark ten years of its work. The chosen theme was a fitting one: women are the anchors of family traditions, ethos and value systems, and for generations they have passed these on, often through stories told at bedtime, over meals and during festivals. Pairing a 10th-anniversary celebration with a storytelling performance turned that idea into a living experience for the audience rather than a slogan on a banner.

The collaboration between Grin Media, Lakshmi’s own company, and IIW also gave the book a natural home on its launch night: a community of women celebrating women, in a venue devoted to Indian art and culture in the heart of West London.

About the Book: Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children

Cover of Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children by Lakshmi Kaul, showing the child Krishna playing his flute by a river of floating lamps
The cover of Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children, showing the young Krishna with his flute by a river of floating lamps.

Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children collects stories of Hindu gods and goddesses as children, inspired by traditional Indian leelas (divine plays) and by the oral traditions shared by grandparents, temple lore and the Puranas. It is written to be read as a family unit, something to share with children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren, and a way to help them connect to their Indic roots.

The book is inspired by the spirit of storytelling in Bharatiya traditions, where grandparents would share the many leelas of the gods and goddesses. The stories have been retold from a vast and living body of written and oral tradition: the Puranas, the epics, regional folktales, temple lore, and the versions passed down by grandparents and storytellers across many generations and many parts of India.

  • Who it is for: parents, grandparents and children reading together.
  • What it contains: childhood stories of Hindu gods and goddesses drawn from the Puranas, epics, folktales and temple lore.
  • Why it matters: it keeps the oral tradition of family storytelling alive for children growing up in the diaspora.
  • Price: £16, and we were glad to take home a signed copy.
Lakshmi Kaul signing copies of Little Divine Ones at the book signing table after the event at The Bhavan, London
Lakshmi Kaul signing copies of Little Divine Ones at the book-signing table after the performance.

Who Is Lakshmi Kaul?

Lakshmi Kaul is the CEO of Grin Media and a contributing editor and correspondent at Global Order, the website and YouTube channel where she is also one of the hosts of the Common Ground series, which explores relations between the UK and India. Her LinkedIn profile describes her as a passionate change-maker, a people’s person and a compassionate leader.

Her career spans more than two decades across public policy, development communications, market facilitation, trade policy, political campaigns, events, education, micro-finance and organisational development. She was formerly Senior Vice President at Mott MacDonald and the former UK Head of the Confederation of Indian Industry, roles in which she built partnerships and community networks and ran focused campaigns promoting the interests of India in the UK and vice versa.

  • Today: CEO, Grin Media; Contributing Editor and correspondent, Global Order; host on the Common Ground series.
  • Before: SVP at Mott MacDonald; UK Head of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
  • Interests: AI governance and corporate ethics, compassionate leadership for organisational resilience, and active lifestyles for health and well-being.
  • Causes: an allergy safety champion, raising awareness of food allergies and their management for young parents.
  • First love: writing, travel and people stories, with “a book, or a few” still brewing in the background.

Little Divine Ones brings those skills together in print, and the launch evening showed how naturally her experience as a communicator and community-builder translates into storytelling.

A Book Dedicated to Nainika

Lakshmi has dedicated Little Divine Ones to her daughter, Nainika, who passed away in 2017. As reported by The Independent at the time, Nainika was nine years old and died after a severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) at the family’s home in Harrow, north-west London, despite immediate treatment at home and the arrival of paramedics within minutes.

In the years since, Lakshmi has turned her loss into purpose. She has campaigned to raise awareness of allergic reactions, supported efforts to fund allergy research, and continues to speak up for allergy safety, especially for young parents learning to manage their children’s food allergies. A book about the childhoods of the gods, shared across generations of a family, carries an especially moving dedication in that light.

Meet Lakshmi Kaul at Diwali on the Square on 25 October

Readers in London can meet Lakshmi again this Sunday. She will be at the Mayor of London‘s annual Diwali on the Square celebration in Trafalgar Square, where the Culture Zone will host a session titled Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children.

DetailInformation
EventDiwali on the Square 2026 (the Mayor of London’s annual Diwali celebration)
DateSunday 25 October 2026, 1pm to 7pm; free, no ticket needed
VenueTrafalgar Square, Westminster, London WC2N 5DN
Lakshmi Kaul’s sessionLittle Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children, Culture Zone, 1:45pm to 2:05pm
2026 chair organisationNational Hindu Students’ Forum (UK) (NHSF UK)
Getting thereCharing Cross station is about a three-minute walk; Westminster station about ten minutes; public transport is recommended

The festival is family-friendly, with children’s activities, puppet shows, dance workshops and performances. It is an ideal setting for a storyteller whose book is meant to be shared by families, and it is a chance to pick up a copy and hear a few of the little divine ones’ stories first-hand.

Why Evenings Like This Matter

For families in the UK diaspora, the stories once told by grandparents in the next room can feel a long way off. Evenings like this one at The Bhavan, and books like Little Divine Ones, bridge that distance by making the stories easy to share, performed with music, dance and puppetry, and rooted in the many regional versions of the same tales. It is also a reminder that community organisations such as IIW and cultural centres such as The Bhavan give those traditions a place to be celebrated in public.

Key Takeaways

  • Lakshmi Kaul launched Little Divine Ones: When Gods Were Children and debuted as a storyteller at The Bhavan, London, on 21 October 2026.
  • The evening was a Grin Media and Inspiring Indian Women collaboration celebrating IIW’s 10th anniversary under the theme “Pass the Story Forward”.
  • The book retells childhood stories of Hindu gods and goddesses from the Puranas, epics, folktales and temple lore, for families to read together (£16).
  • It is dedicated to Lakshmi’s daughter Nainika, who passed away in 2017.
  • Lakshmi will be at Diwali on the Square in Trafalgar Square on 25 October 2026, with a Culture Zone session from 1:45pm to 2:05pm.

References and Further Reading

Photographs taken by That Is News at The Bhavan on 21 October 2026. The book cover image is shown for editorial purposes.

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