Nalini Chandran
Nalini Chandran is a teacher, dancer, and writer from Kerala. She founded Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi School in 1983.
She was born in Kannambra, Palakkad, Kerala. She studied in Mumbai at Cathedral & John Connon Girls’ School and Elphinstone College. She is a trained dancer, choreographer, dramatist, and writer of children’s stories.
Nalini is married to Lt. Col. Chandran and they have three daughters: Deepti Menon, Neema Varma, and Bhavna Nair. She lives in Thrissur, Kerala.
As an army wife, she worked in several schools and at Army Welfare centres across India. She taught English and history in different schools.
In 1983, after her husband retired from the Indian Army, she started the Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi School, which is affiliated to the ICSE-ISC board. The next year, her husband died of a cardiac arrest.
Nalini has served as principal of her school from 1983 to 1995 and again from 1999 to 2000. Today she is the Director of Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi School. She is also the honorary director of Sandeepani Vidya Nikethan in Thrissur and the president of Thalam, a cultural trust in Kerala.
She has received many awards, including the Rangojwala Award (2005) and the Guruvar Award for Teaching Excellence (2009). She won the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Award in 2013 for choreography, and she has received the Charter of Honour from the Indian Medical Association in Thrissur and The Manorama-Air India BOLT Award. She was the first Keralite to win the Derozio Award.
The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations has created an award for exemplary service to school education and human enrichment.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:59 (CET).