Early Life and Education Born: Kolkata, India (1956) as Chitralekha Banerjee Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an acclaimed Indian-American author, poet, activist, and professor. She received her B.A. from the University of Calcutta in 1976. Subsequently, she pursued a Master’s degree from Wright State University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley (her dissertation focused on Christopher Ma…