Born in Dahanu in Palghar district of Maharashtra, Gokhale's family moved to Shivaji Park neighbourhood in Mumbai in 1941 when her father, GG Gokahle, joined a newspaper, Searchlight.

[2][3] Shanta Gokhale has previously worked as a part-time teacher at Elphinstone College,[4] and as a public relations executive at Glaxo Laboratories.

[6] She wrote the book while she still worked at Glaxo, formulating the ideas during her bus journeys and writing during her lunch breaks.

[8][9] In 2018, she released an anthology of her writings over the decades, titled The Engaged Observer, which was edited by her close friend, Jerry Pinto.

She wrote the screenplay for the Hindi film, Haathi Ka Anda (2002) directed by Arun Khopkar for whom she has written many documentary scripts.

She wrote the screenplay for the 2011 Marathi film, Ti Ani Itar, adapted from Manjula Padmanabhan’s 1986 play, Lights Out.

[6] She has previously been a columnist for newspapers like The Sunday Times of India and The Independent, for tabloids like Mid-Day and Mumbai Mirror and for websites like Scroll.in.

She would attend his theatre rehearsals and observe him directing plays, some of which were written by fresh new writers like Girish Karnad.

[7] Later, she started writing plays like Avinash in 1988 (which was directed by Dubey),[4] Dip and Dop and Rosemary for Remembrance (which was premiered at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in 2016).

She currently lives in Lalit Estate, Shivaji Park, Mumbai, with her two helpers, Alka Dhulap and Sanjay Pashte, and is neighbours with Jerry Pinto.