Gajra was born in Delhi and educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary and Lady Sri Ram College. She topped the post-graduate course in Journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, in 1988, and worked briefly as a journalist, at The Statesman in Delhi and later at the Magna group. She contributed to several of the country’s newspapers and magazines and also wrote on developmental and women’s issues for CHOICES, the magazine of the United Nations Development Program.
An award-winning script writer and author, Gajra Kottary is the daughter of the famous classical musician and guru, the late Pandit Amarnath of the Indore gharana.
Gajra debuted as an author in early 1996 with her first collection of women-centric short stories titled Fragile Victories, followed by another compendium, The Last Laugh. Her debut novel Broken Melodies was published by HarperCollins India in 2011, simultaneously with its Hindi translation Bikhre Sur. Gajra subsequently co-authored her first original Hindi novel, Kora Kaagaz.
Gajra’s second novel Once upon a Star was released in December 2014 and the third, Girls Don’t Cry was released in June 2017 by HarperCollins India. The last two have also been released as audio books by the well-known agency Storytel. She has also written two audio books for Storytel, The Perfect Switch which released in March 2019 and #Couple Goals, voiced by Soha Ali Khan, released in February 2020. A 10-episode Hindi audio series is also slated for release soon by Storytel.
Gajra’s next was a non-fiction book Healing at the Movies released in early 2021, published by Hay House, followed by the e-book Not Woman Enough published by Juggernaut on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2021.
Gajra stepped into the audio-visual world in the year 1999, by being script associate with Mahesh Bhatt on a film Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar and then entered the world of television when she wrote the story and screenplay of the serial Hamare Tumhare for Vishesh Films, telecast on Zee TV. This was followed by another weekly serial Panaah on DD 1, and then was her first long running daily of 668 episodes — the award-winning Astitva – Ek Prem Kahani, telecast on Zee TV from 2002-2005.
Her next major writing assignment was to develop the story of what eventually became the nation’s most popular and acclaimed daily television serial Balika Vadhu on Colors, from 2008. She completed writing 2,167 episodes on April 12th 2016. The serial was listed as the longest running Hindi soap on Indian television in the Limca Book of Records 2016. It is a serial that highlighted, and took a clear stand against, many social evils existent in Indian society starting with child marriage.
Gajra has also written the story for the 55-episode mega historical television serial Buddha telecast on Zee TV in 2013, currently available on Netflix, produced by Buddha Pictures. She has written many other critically acclaimed shows including Jyoti, Godh Bharai, Ghar Ek Sapna, Ek Veer ki Ardaas – Veera, Satrangi Sasuraal etc. In 2022 Gajra wrote the popular show Na Umra Ki Seema Ho, and also a Hindi audiobook for Storytel Ishq Nautanki. Gajra’s latest endeavour is Autumn Blossoms, a collection of 50 women-centric short stories which has attracted much critical acclaim.
Gajra has won all the major writing awards for television, multiple times, including the Indian Television Academy Award, RAPA Award, Indian Telly Award, Apsara Award and the Global Indian Television’s Best Writer Award.