Chaitali "Chika" Gujarathi was born and raised in Ahmedabad, India where she learned English, Gujarati, and Hindi starting at a young age. At 16, she immigrated to the United States with her family and settled in Charlotte, North Carolina where the most common question she received was, "did you know "Chika" means a girl in Spanish?".

After graduating from University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, career and travels took Chika all over the world, before she finally settled in Chicago, IL with her husband. In all these years of assimilation she never realized how lucky she was to be able read and write in her native languages, until of course, when she became pregnant with her first child. The never ending cravings for Dosa (a South Indian food speciality) forced her to frequently Chicago's Little India on Devon Street and brought back fond memories of what it meant to be Indian, and how her child would grow up in a world that was so vastly different than her own childhood. In many ways, this is also the conception of the idea that eventually became the Hello Namaste! books.

Now, back in the Tar Heel state, with three kids, and a career as a writer and children's book author, Chika is living the American Dream that goes beyond her wildest expectations. You can find Chika's stories on motherhood, travel, books, and everything in between in several national and local publications. You can follow her adventures at www.TheAntibland.com and @theantibland on Instagram.