Books and Authors

The Road to Zanskar

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:12:00 -0000

"Even in winter, twice a month, the first postmen in Zanskar in the 1980s climbed rock faces and crossed frozen rivers -- if you fell in, you could die -- in a journey that took three days, to deliver the post. Then, there's the first allopathic nurse in the region, who once walked without stopping through deep snow for three nights to save a woman in labour. What extreme tourists do today for fun, these people did as part of their regular lives. I had to put down their stories before they were forgotten"
- April Fonti, author, The Story Keepers; Voices from a Changing Zanskar, talks to Manjula Narayan about the many strong personalities in the region and their almost superhuman talents, faith and conflict, how modernity has both improved lives and changed the quality of intergenerational relationships, and how local people are adapting to climate change.

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Slow and steady wins the race

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:54:00 -0000

"The fossil fuel age gave us speed. This, on the one hand, allows us to think, 'I'm going faster', but it never defines 'faster to where, and to what?' You become a victim of speed -- always trying to catch up with yourself. The climate crisis is a result of chasing speed mindlessly, endlessly. Slow living is mindful; it's caring of the earth and of community. Healing our relationship with the Earth is the most urgent matter of our times. We need to learn from the Earth how to be an intelligent species." - Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and food sovereignty advocate, talks to Manjula Narayan about her latest book, Slow Living; What You Can Do About Climate Change

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The quiet pull of the Pune police procedural

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:03:00 -0000

"The way I look at it, whydunnit is actually more important than whodunnit. There are only so many permutations and combinations you can think of in terms of whodunnit. It's finite whereas whydunnit is extremely important because what drives the person? I read a lot of news and I really wonder about the depths to which people can fall"
- Salil Desai, author, 206 Bones; An Inspector Saralkar Mystery talks to Manjula Narayan about writing successful murder mysteries set in Pune, the biting wit of his main character, using parallel tracks in storytelling and the exacting nature of crime fiction fans

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A return to the land

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 04:30:00 -0000

"We went in with urban confidence and rural reality hit us in the face at every turn! Establishing a farm is probably the most difficult thing I've done. I think everybody should do it."
- Arti Dwarkadas, author, Two Bandra Girls Buy a Farm, talks to me about growing varieties of rice, mangoes, tomatoes and more on the patch of land in rural Maharashtra that she and her friend Suzann have been nurturing for the last five years, their Adivasi neighbours' encyclopedic knowledge of plants, the agricultural uses of Google Lens, the wild boar attack that destroyed a whole banana patch, why the future of small farm holdings looks increasingly bleak, and winning friends and influencing people with mithai diplomacy,

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Using stick figures to demolish dubious politics, doublespeak and more

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 02:00:00 -0000

"You may try to believe that you are living in a First World country and that your reality differs from that of a poor person in your vicinity. But, at the end of the day, you will face the same existential threats that they do. Through my comics and the essays in this book, I'm trying to reach people who have the same privileges as I do; those who tend to ignore politics because it benefits them. I also wanted to make this book accessible to younger people and engage them in politics" - Rachita Taneja, author, Touching Grass; A Book of Comics, talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about exposing Indian social hypocrisy, unmanning the manosphere, fighting the unscientific temperament, infiltrating incel groups on the Internet, and striving to find community IRL

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A fight against forgetting

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:30:00 -0000

"Comics and literature allow us to enter worlds through our imagination; it is a medium of not-saying. We read because we want to get into the interior worlds of say, a family living in a room in Algiers. Cinema does not give that because the director decides, though TV sometimes does give that. But through comics and literature we get into the extraordinariness of the interior world." - Sarnath Banerjee, author,

Absolute Jafar, on writing a Gen X visual history, the changing nature of fatherhood, searching for jinns in Delhi, wandering the streets of Karachi, and sketching in the parks of Berlin

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A people willing to sacrifice their lives to save nature

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:20:00 -0000

"The Salman Khan story reached the headlines and people thought, well, if the Bishnois can go for him so effectively, it's not safe to poach there. It has actually reduced poaching. So many Bishnoi die protecting nature; they will go unarmed against poachers. The Bishnois all share the horror of what Salman Khan did but the Lawrence Bishnoi method is completely the opposite of what the community believes should happen; they don't kill, shoot or cause threat in that way."- Martin Goodman, author, My Head for a Tree; The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, the World's First Eco-Warriors talks to Manjula Narayan about the community whose belief system has nature conservation at its core

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Jewellery: Of ornamentation and adornment

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 04:30:00 -0000

"I don't think you will find anyone in India who doesn't wear a piece of jewellery [of some sort]. The Amrapali Collection is a pan Indian one. The jewels in this book are worn by pastoralists, the agricultural communities, the villagers of our country. I look at jewellery as works of art. Our villagers are no longer what they were. So it was important for me to document this art form before it vanishes and the memories of it vanishes. I think every piece of jewellery has a soul and right from birth to death, it is very much a part of our living heritage."

- Usha R Balakrishnan, author, Silver & Gold; Visions of Arcadia, talks to me about the general Indian love for noble metals like gold and silver, our long traditions of finely crafted jewellery, how techniques like granulation and filigree came with the Greeks and minakari with the Portuguese, the belief that gemstones ward off malevolent planetary influences and "nazar", and how class, caste, ethnicity and marital status and more are conveyed through jewellery

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Tatti tales: The things you can learn from animal poop

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:23:00 -0000

"Poop acts like social media for many herbivores. Besides, the droppings of whales tackle climate change, while elephant waste helps regrow forests. Wild animal poop is helping science and conservation and is also used in zootherapy" - Shweta Taneja, author, The Big Book of Wild Poop, talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from the finicky housekeeping habits of ants and how some DNA researchers who collect tiger poop say it smells like Basmati rice (!) to the cuboid droppings of wombats, the mosquito repelling properties of cow dung, and how manatee farts keep them afloat!

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From poffertjes to perad and pepper water

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:30:00 -0000

"I used to be very possessive of my recipes. I didn't want to give them away until a senior chef told me, "Listen, even if you give the recipe, everybody's hand is different; it will not be the same." Then, as time went on, I said, actually, some of these recipes should be preserved and if my children are not going to carry it on then at least other people in the community should know about them. Some of the things that I ate as a child have been totally forgotten. That's when I decided to start writing this book" - Crescentia Scolt Fernandes, author, Tale of Two Kitchens,

Talks to Manjula Narayan about the similarities between the Cochin Anglo Indian food of her family and the Goan food of her husband's, the Dutch, Portuguese and, of course, Malayali influences on the food she ate as a child, memories of Vypin island in the mid-20th century, the lost Creole that her parents spoke, and how she and her husband ran the highly successful Bernardo's, the only authentic Goan restaurant in the National Capital Region.

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Reading, writing, rocking

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 07:03:00 -0000

"The thing about being a writer is that we write from a sensitive, empathetic place but we are also ruthless in that when we are grieving, we take notes of our grief. Ruskin Bond told me that the best way to write about people is just to live long enough that they all die before you. It succeeded with him; hopefully, it will succeed with me!"
- Twinkle Khanna, author,

Mrs. Funny bones Returns, talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about everything from her father's eclectic reading habits and her own love of sci-fi to her dissertation on Alice Munro, how she sometimes wishes she were right wing, and why she doesn't care too much about what people think of her.

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On journeying through life

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 10:57:00 -0000

"To be alive is, in many ways, to travel; it's to journey through time. We tend to think of travelling as something that involves space or place or geography; moving from one place to another. But the other aspect of travel is just journeying through time; every human being alive journeys through it. I write about journeying through language, grief, parenting...These are universal milestones. I look at them like I look at travel. Trying to be a good traveller can be applied to these other kinds of inner landscapes too. I've travelled so much and I've lived repeatedly in different cities So developing different lenses and multiple perspectives through which to view things just happens unconsciously. As you go to more and more places, you develop more implicit norms. It's an agglomerative, expansive process where you are becoming more and more capacious and more and more able to see things from an insider-outsider perspective; but it's not just one insider and one outsider but multiple insiders and multiple outsiders" - Pallavi Aiyar, author,

Travels in the Other Place talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about everything from the Japanese idea of mono no aware and attempting to be a Tiger Mom to the parallels between pregnancy and cancer, the power of hair, and the brevity and beauty of life.

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Space operas, dystopias, and the perfect worlds of the far future

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 04:34:00 -0000

"Science and speculative fiction has always been about responding to the preoccupations of the time. I was attracted to the genre by the imaginative possibilities it offers by allowing the creation of a different world that then lets you shine a light back onto our world. While putting this anthology together we were looking for anything that could broadly fall under the category of spec fic. If could be sci-fi, magical realism, even horror. Indian readers and writers are in a dystopic frame of mind right now. There are specific forms of caste and patriarchy that show up in Indian speculative fiction that makes it different from what's written in the West. Anthologies create a culture where there is space for both readers and writers to explore the genre. It's also a great way of platforming new writers"- Gautam Bhatia, editor, Between Worlds; The IF Anthology of New Indian SFF Vol 1

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Train through India

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:05:00 -0000

"Trains in India are public sites and they are sites for social exchange and its a collective identity but what the smartphone has introduced is not only the private sphere into the public one, but also a flagrant abuse of the public sphere by making it totally private! This includes the watching of shows at a loud volume and having conversations like that too."
- Amitava Kumar, author, The Social Life of Indian Trains, talks to me on the Books & Authors podcast about how train travel has changed, the people he met on his journey from Kashmir to Kanyakumari on the Himsagar Express, memories of earlier train journeys in childhood, lost loves, how caste plays out in our lax attitude to the disposal of waste, the famous train scene in Satyajit Rai's Pather Panchali, and how the vast mass of Indians who are not affluent are subdising luxury train travel for the few.

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Irony, 'influenza', and Internet mythology in contemporary India

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:26:00 -0000

"I don't take the usual dystopian view of the Internet. I see it as a unit of society and use it to understand the self, the nation and politics. So, I didn't want to look at caste from the usual Dalit-Savarna perspective - a different kind of system is playing out on the Internet. Many middle castes are anxious to move up the ladder. No one can become a Brahmin but the Kshatriya space is open so many communities can claim they are Kshatriyas -- that is happening all over north India. And it's amazing how they are doing it by creating their own digital mythologies through songs and reels."
- Anurag Minus Verma, author, The Great Indian Brain Rot, talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from the profitable conspiracy theory industry that grew around the Sushant Singh Rathod episode, the weird seduction of cringe content and Puneet Superstar to Emraanism, the ineffable charm of Rakhi Sawant, influencers and mental health, and his own enduring interest in "misfits, lovers and losers".

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Jagat Murari & the FTII: art, argument and institution building in young India

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 11:50:00 -0000

"In my father's view, the making of a filmmaker wasn't just about teaching the art, craft, and science [of filmmaking], but also about allowing the filmmaker to find their own unique voice and have the confidence to be their authentic self." - Radha Chadha, author, The Maker of Filmmakers talks to Manjula Narayan about Jagat Murari, who played a key role in the emergence of the FTII, the conflicts that effected the DNA of the institution, Indian New Wave cinema of the 1970s, the tussles between proponents of arthouse and commercial films, and the many debates about the kind of films that India needed to make in the post-independence period.

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On the multi-storeyed tower with no staircase and no entrance

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 07:30:00 -0000

"What I wanted to say about the global dimension of caste was to look at it from the subjectivity of its victim. So Dalit as a subject takes a central place in this text, and this Dalit subjectivity travels to nearly 15 countries with us [the diaspora]. These constituents are similar but the geographical,political and local [elements] that interact with it give a new dimension to caste. Though it is a global story, it is also a very particularly localised form of caste that we see operating in different parts of the world. So, there's no blanket statement that caste the way it operates in India operates the same way in Trinidad, US, UK... Every situation is different."

- Suraj Milind Yengde, author, Caste; A Global Story talks to Manjula Narayan about Dalit activism abroad, how the first celebration of Ambedkar Jayanti in the US was held at the historically Black college of Howard, the Punjabi Buddhists of UK, the idea of 'Brahmin by boat' among Indians in the Caribbean, the othering of Dalits within Indian organisations even at elite universities in the US, the triple diasporas of Fijian Dalits, and more.

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Things that go bump...

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 05:00:00 -0000

"Some call them ghosts but I look at them more as energies that coexist with us. In many ways, like the Buddhist and other Indian philosophies say, we are on a continuum of Time and many souls can go back and forth, in some sense. While you never really get used to it (ghosts and supernatural elements), you get used to the fact that not everything is ordinary. I have very acute hearing and maybe that's why I am able to hear a frequency that's somewhat different from everyone else. It's more animal-like, perhaps. Places absorb energies at different points and then it's a question of how do you deal with it? Do you deal with it by getting an exorcist and thinking this is not right or do you deal with it by thinking that they are there and we are here and we all coexist and it's okay - that's a liberal sensibility. We may not understand it as we don't understand other dimensions but it's not that they don't exist because we can't scientifically prove it. You can make much drama or you can accept it and say we don't know everything about the way the world works, which we don't."
- Sanjoy K Roy, author, There's a Ghost in my Room; Living with the Supernatural talks to Manjula Narayan about encountering disembodied spirits and ectoplasm and experiencing ESP and paranormal activity in places as far apart as Spain, Delhi, Jerusalem and New York.

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Going with the mighty flow

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 12:08:00 -0000

"We travel on the river but the real traveller is the river, and to understand it one has to make a substantial effort" - Sanjoy Hazarika, author, River Traveller; Journeys on the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra from Tibet to the Bay of Bengal talks to Manjula Narayan about his earliest memory of seeing dolphins dance in the river in Guwahati, following the great stream through Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Bangladesh and the people he met along the way, the Chinese government's plans to build the massive Medog dam that will destroy Tibet's permafrost and its ecological wonders and have a devastating effect on the whole stretch right down to the Bay of Bengal, being chased by pirates, the Ahom kings and their search for the perfect place to grow wet rice, the need for a migration law in South Asia, and the boat clinics that treat people living on the chars of the Brahmaputra

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Fraud, fear and loathing from Jamtara to Sihanoukville

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:58:00 -0000

"I wanted to use fraud as a way to look at our society today. We have a fraud underworld industry that employs multitudes. If you have such a large number of people who will readily go over to the ethically grey zone -- they join to help family and then they find there's no coming back -- they are an incredible asset not just for someone running a scam in India but anyone anywhere in the world who is trying to target any demographic. The story of fraud is the story of globalisation and to my mind, more vice versa. It's a workforce that has also come to the attention of these very sophisticated transnational scam cartels, proper cyber crime mafias from China. They can see that people can be very easily lured into migrating to some of the scam cities being set up in South East Asia where there is very little regulation and the political class is complicit. Those who are lured, some younger than 20, are kept in closed compounds and they could lose their lives if they refuse to scam. In India, decades of inequality has pushed some people to the point where they feel they have nothing to lose. It is a matter of survival. The human trafficking part of this is grisly and the truth is it's continuing at a very large scale."
- Snigdha Poonam, author, Scamlands; Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud that Preys on the World talks to Manjula Narayan about the scam ecosystem powered by a transnational workforce from low income countries that's leaving a trail of devastation from Delhi to Manchester, Texas and Melbourne.

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The ache of a phantom limb

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 08:30:00 -0000

"I have my own history. I was evicted from Kashmir like many thousands of others. But when I went to Bastar and when I looked at other conflicts and what it was doing to other people, my own misery faded in comparison; because even in the worst of my situation, I had not touched the kind of pain and marginalisation I touched while travelling in the hinterland of India"
- Rahul Pandita, author, Our Friends In Good Houses, talks to Manjula Narayan about drawing from his journalistic work in his first novel, points of similarity with Neel, the book's protagonist, the vibrance of his female characters including the Maoist guerilla Gurupriya, who stays with the reader long after the book is put away, and how, besides being a study of one man's search for home, this is also a snapshot of contemporary India with its great dreams and unfulfilled yearnings.

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Grip of a godman

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 07:09:00 -0000

"In India, we don't use the word 'cult' but the photo of a godman hangs in every other home and it's all placed under the umbrella of culture. Cults go after the most vulnerable, those who are not thinking with their rational mind. That's exactly what happened with my parents. When they saw death, they gravitated towards what gave them most certainty. The majority of people going to such gurus are going for something related to their health; they are going in the hope of getting better. It could be related to disease, addiction or poverty. When you don't get answers from anywhere, you go to someone who gives answers as the guru did in my parents' case. People won't get healed but they are hooked by the continuous promise that if they sustain on this path, things will change.

When you become part of a cult, there is manipulation, fear and guilt. In my case, everything got attached to my mother's wellbeing; that if you don't follow the rules, she will lose her life. You start getting manipulated because you don't want her to die. I see my parents as victims too. Within the cult, you are only allowed to do certain things like watch the guru's sermons or listen to his mantras. After a while, from disuse, your brain starts to atrophy and you lose critical thinking because you are not allowed to question anything, These cults may be born from any religion; the thing is they distort the teachings of that religion to suit their own narrative.

This is possibly the first book by an Indian about being influenced by a cult. I'm trying to create awareness so people can spot when this happens. You need mental health professionals to deprogram victims because indoctrination changes your brain wiring. There has to be a larger systemic change with the creation of proper programmes so victims can be led back into their lives."- Priyamvada Mehra, author, The Cost of a Promised Afterlife, talks about how her family was drawn into the fold of godman Rampal after her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour, the blind belief that led to the deterioration of her condition, the proliferation of religious charlatans who prey on those who have lost hope, and the mental abuse that being part of a cult entails

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Stories from the Seven Sisters+1

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:02:00 -0000

"Life is uncertain, which many of us tend to forget, and there are many things we can't explain; for those things that are inexplicable, we have stories. I was born into conflict, and growing up in Shillong in the 1990s, literature was a lifeline. It allowed us to see that, whatever the past we had inherited, there were other possibilities. Literature gives clarity to the messy parts of life, even if it doesn't have all the answers. Stories tell us to not let life wear us down. A lot of the creative nuances of the storytelling from the northeast come from the oral context, things that are not readily available in print. It influences style and gives the sense that the narrator is talking to you, the reader. Oral traditions have a way, especially with storytelling, of not being fixed, of being fluid. They can move from context to context and generate a new meaning from each of these contexts. This is because they take the reader into account in terms of delivery and register. In the stories from the northeast, orality and print play off each other and what emerges is a hybridised writing where you have both traditions feeding into the new writing. I wanted to represent diverse perspectives; so representation was one of the things that drove me to these stories."

- Jobeth Ann Warjri, editor, The Greatest Stories from the Northeast Ever Told, talks to me about the black humour of people from conflict zones, the rich oral traditions of storytelling being threatened by globalisation, and the task of putting together a volume of stories from an area as diverse as the northeast of India,

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On the record

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 05:59:00 -0000

"I was picked to cover Punjab in 1984 and that's how my journey began. After that, I was sucked into the lives of people living with everyday violence. For me, it was about being a storyteller and about the sociology and the psychology of violence and why it had taken root in the different conflict zones that I've mapped.

I'm talking about conflicts that are still relevant. I've tried to trace them from where they started, how they started, and why it's still so easy, four decades later, to stoke the embers. What makes young men turn their bodies into missiles? This has kept me going for 41 years. I've never been pulled by the force of religion. I don't question other people's faith but I've seen religion play a part in fuelling violence. I've never wanted my face to be my calling card. So, except for two years when I worked with TV, I've always been a print journalist. I enjoy the anonymity of print. All I've ever tried to do is be an archive. This book is part of that archive. Along the way, I've learnt it isn't just conflict which is murky; politics makes it murkier."

- Harinder Baweja, senior journalist and author, 'They Will Shoot You, Madam' talks to Manjula Narayan about the conflicts she's covered including Punjab, Kashmir, the Mumbai attacks and Afghanistan, the people she's encountered from Chhota Rajan and KPS Gill to Yasin Malik, and about the fascinating and still unknown backstories that set her book apart.

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A desi love story: adventures with Indies

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 05:30:00 -0000

"I love travelling and I was sad to leave my dogs all the time. I had to find a way of travelling with them so Indian Railways came into the picture. Our first journey was from Nizamuddin in Delhi to Madgaon in Goa and the dogs were really well behaved. They really took to it. Tigress fell in love with the pantry! Since then we've done over 75 train journeys across India and by the end of it there was me and my husband and son and three dogs! When you travel with your dogs, you have to chart your own course, make your own map and do it at your own pace and you can really do that in India on the railways. Also, Indies are so much fun and so intelligent, I really hope more people rescue and adopt them. We live in a very hypocritical society. If a pandit says feed a dog or a cow to get something, only then will people do it because it means they will gain somehow! Otherwise, we don't care about anything beyond our own unit; we don't care about the immediate surroundings, the trees, the garbage... These animals too are invisible to most people and many view them as a nuisance. To change this we have to raise kind kids. I hope this book will change the way people view Indian dogs. I wanted to write a very positive, very funny book about them." - Divya Dugar, author, Chaos in a Coupe talks to Manjula Narayan about the great joys of rattling around the country with her family, the magic of Indian railways and slow travel, and the unconditional love of canine companions

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Of birds, bees and educated fleas

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 05:33:00 -0000

"Humans don't really know what we are doing. Mostly, we are blundering along. A lot of animals that were once looked upon favourably and bred - like the pigeon for sending messages - are now considered as pests. It is really because of human intervention that many of these animals and birds have become abundant"- Deepa Padmanaban, author, Invisible Housemates, talks to Manjula Narayan about familiar creatures found in and around our homes like geckos, rats and ants, stuffing her book with amazing factoids about everything from incest-averseness among cockroaches to how India once exported rhesus macaques for scientific research, and how the elimination of sparrows in China was one of the factors that led to the Great Famine

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Hymn to Hanuman

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 12:30:00 -0000

"As a child I lived in a hostel away from my parents and I was always scared so my parents told me to recite the Hanuman Chalisa. That's how the text entered my life. Recently, I met a delegation from Trinidad and Tobago who said that the one thing they desperately needed was a singable translation of Indian spiritual texts as they can no longer read the original Awadhi or Hindi. So then I decided to do a translation that was not only literary but could also be sung with music. The Hanuman Chalisa teaches us ultimate humility; to approach everything with the notion that you do not know anything. Everytime I read it, it has a fresh angle. That's the beauty of Tulsidas' work. It's a tool for mindfulness and focus and it's also a text of diplomacy. It is amazingly condensed and layered and I'd like people to explore it not only as a spiritual text but also as an introduction to Indian sutra traditions."
- Abhay K, poet, diplomat, translator of The Hanuman Chalisa

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Following her own beat

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 12:30:00 -0000

"When we write about music history, we are mostly talking about artists. There are also fewer biographies, autobiographies and memoirs by instrumentalists. But can the instrument itself become the protagonist to tell us our story? This has been one of my concerns as a practitioner. The ghatam is present in music across the country. It is an instrument with personality and has a central role in folk music. But, in classical music, it takes a back seat. My quest was to foreground a lot of things that are not spoken about in writing about music. This is an attempt to make visible things that are not visible to readers and listeners. These microstories would be good for people to know. This book also comes from a strong conviction that women need to write their own stories; otherwise they don't get written. Difficult things come back to you while writing a memoir but you also make many beautiful discoveries on the way. For me, my ghatam embodies everything that has gone before. My entire life is held in the pot now; it holds my singing as well. All the things I used to express a singer, I now express on the matka," says Sumana Chandrashekar, author, Song of the Clay Pot; My Journey With the Ghatam, Here, she talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from her relationships with her guru Sukanya Ramgopal, her guru's guru Vikku Vinayakram, and master ghatam maker Meenakshi Amma to how appearance plays a big role in the image of a performing artist, misogyny in Carnatic music circles, and the effect of unplanned urbanisation on instrument making.

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Brayed of tongue

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:30:00 -0000

"Generally in India, the moment you see deviant behaviour, you immediately label the person 'mad'. But at least now, in some circles, the attitude towards seeking psychological help is changing. Some of these stories show how women with mental health issues become especially vulnerable. We see this so often in news articles. So these stories are right out of the society we live in." - Nabanita Sengupta and Nishi Pulugurtha, editors, Bandaged Moments; Stories of Mental Health by Women Writers from Indian Languages, talk to Manjula Narayan about putting together this collection of 26 stories from 17 Indian languages, what's lost and found in the process of translation, and about presenting in English the accurate cultural nuances of such varied tongues as Telegu, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and Tamil and dialects like Magahi, Bhojpuri and Silchar Bangla.

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Of public chaos and amateur Indians stranded on islands of privilege

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 13:23:00 -0000

"I feel India's politics is the revenge of the poor; it's why things are the way they are. They might not look at it as a violent act but it emerges from some kind of violence against us, the middle class. Whatever politicians do, usually there is local support. So it's a peep into human nature. We were always paying a price to escape India. Now, it costs a lot of money to fully escape. Now, it seems even if you pay 200 crores for a flat, you can't escape the air! We look much poorer than we are while most nations look much richer than they are. Unconsciously, India has developed an optical device to comfort the poor to whom public places belong. If there's too much order in India it would upset the poor. India's public chaos is the only thing going for them; it kind of resembles their lives. What the elite wants is some kind of aesthetics, which they are unable to persuade the political class to execute" - Manu Joseph, author, Why The Poor Don't Kill Us; The Psychology of Indians talks to Manjula Narayan about urban chaos, poverty being relative, and why intellectuals are invariably wrong

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Of Hawa Hawai and writing for his life

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0000

"People know about what sometimes happens to girls growing up in the kotha; but no one knows what happens to boys. Nobody's written about it as such so I thought I might as well do it. A kotha for tawaifs is not a place for sex work. There aren't really any pimps. If they turn up at the gates in the evening it's to usher in patrons for the song and dance, the entertainment, not for soliciting sex. The kotha is run entirely by women. As they know the world outside, they know how to protect their young ones. It is a protective bubble. But then, you grow up and see that the world is not as kind as your mother who is doing so much to keep you away from those elements. My mother would not dance in front of me because she did not want me to be influenced by her art. She wanted me to focus on my studies. So I used Sridevi on television to be my role model, to teach me the dance that my mother was denying me because she wanted a better life for me. Whether it was being the naagin from Nagina or thunder thighs in Tohfa, back then, Sridevi was everywhere. I looked at her and said she's my guru, my masterni, my mother! Even now, there isn't a day when I don't think of Sridevi. The tawaifs enjoyed my performances and clapped when I danced but it was different at boarding school, being a queer schoolboy. But education gave me the voice of privilege that I didn't have. Now, I'm lucky that my profession became my therapy. Writing healed me"- Manish Gaekwad, author, Nautch Boy; A Memoir of My Life in the Kothas, talks to Manjula Narayan about growing up surrounded by courtesans, unlearning the false sense of privilege he picked up at boarding school, and the power of writing

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Homage to the fruit of the gods

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 07:53:00 -0000

"In India, in the Philippines, and in the Caribbean, in places where the mango grows, it's viewed with universal adoration. We Americans are good at thinking that we have the best of everything; but not mangoes! We get these mangoes that look really good but they're more like an apple! It was a real aha! moment when we realised that we don't have the best mangoes!"

Constance L Kirker and Mary Newman, authors, Mango; A Global History talk to Manjula Narayan about everything from Harappan mango curry and the fantastically expensive Miyazaki mangoes of Japan to the Gujarati dentist who ships Alphonso mangoes out to the Indian diaspora in the US, and how Americans generally think that unless mangoes are red, they aren't ripe enough to be eaten!

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Awe-inspiring ophiolatry

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 12:34:00 -0000

"If you look at primordial deities, they are serpents, eggs, the sun and the moon - early humans associated divinity with these things that they could see. So, serpent worship existed everywhere across the world. In India, you see a common pattern whether it's in the south, or in Uttarakhand and Kashmir and even further north in Tibet - there are elements and iconography that's similar. Scholars believe serpent worship was the original form of worship, that it was pre-Dravidian, and that the Nagas themselves were pre Aryan and pre Dravidian people. We can only speculate. Perhaps what it tells us is that gods fade but whatever culture is preserved will remain. As with all kinds of belief and faith, there's no way to "prove" anything, and it's easy to disprove" -- K Hari Kumar, author, Naaga; Discovering the Extraordinary World of Serpent Worship talks to Manjula Narayan about ophiolatry in general, Naaga iconography in Indic religions, the figure of the naagin, stories of Ulupi and Iravan in myth and folk belief, the sacred serpent groves of Tulunad and Kerala, vyalimukhams across the country, and the challenges that emerge while documenting folklore.

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The Hymn to Nikkal, Einstein's violin, musical space odysseys and beyond

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 13:18:00 -0000

"Music connects us with something deeper. We know there's stuff around us that science cannot explain. Consciousness, for example, is hard to explain through science alone. Music seems to connect you somehow with what this other thing is. The emotional impact that music has and how it connects people together is also very profound. Music was absolutely central to Einstein too and if he got stuck in something when he was theorising, he would go away and play his violin and that would transport him into a different world and give him ideas. He likened music to science and scientific discovery. Musicians, he believed, didn't create music; they received it. I believe that as well. The music is out there and you act as an aerial/valve/funnel. Einstein believed that about scientific discovery too -- it's not like you create these theories; you receive them. So, by playing music by composers he loved -- like Bach -- who he believed received music, it put him in that frame of mind for discovery. Other great scientists like Max Planck, who were also good musicians, have said that as well. Science, music and mathematics have been woven throughout history. It's natural because, what is music? It is sound. Sound is a physical phenomenon and it's got mathematical rules. There is something unique about music, something different from anything else, and that's' what makes it so fascinating!" -- David Darling, author, A Perfect Harmony; Music, Mathematics and Science talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from Mesopotamian music from 1400 BCE, the Bull-Headed Lyre of Ur, and the compositions of the Abbess Hildegard of Bingen to dementia choirs and the tannerin used by the Beach Boys

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Of promises broken over centuries

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 08:26:00 -0000

Pastoral and indigenous communities in Nagarhole, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal, and the Van Gujjars in Uttarakhand are the ones who are protecting forests. They have a relationship with it. It's a sense of ecology that has to be looked at for solutions to the many big questions that we are grappling with at the moment. Since colonialism, the agenda has been to keep these people from being the righful owners of the land or to have a voice. Much of urban India is not in touch with the reality of the country. But people like the Van Gujjars and Taungyas are clearer and sharper about what's going on. Indian comics are very good at voicing what mainstream art and culture may not have space for. I love it when I can create comics that give me a sense of the story but also makes readers join the dots."- Ita Mehrotra, author, Uprooted; A Graphic Account of the Struggle for Forest Rights, talks to Manjula Narayan about the struggles of communities displaced from the forests that have always been their home, life in resettlement colonies, the increasingly precarious existence of semi nomadic pastoralists, their relationship with their buffaloes and about being influenced by Joe Sacco, Orijit Sen and comics like Rachita Taneja's Sanitary Panels

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Of anda halwa, taar gosht and more

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:27:00 -0000

"Being able to experience the love of a grandparent is one of the most special things I've had in my life. It's the only selfless love you'll ever experience. Food was my Ammi's love language and my family formed a special relationship with food because of her. My grandmother passed away in her 90s in 2019 and one of my biggest regrets is not releasing this book in her lifetime - because she deserved that. The recipes in this book are our family recipes that we still cook to this day. We've put in the most popular dishes and the ones that are most symbolic of Rampur. Rampur has influences from UP and Awadhi cuisine but at the same time, because Rampur was a princely state, there were a lot of people passing through, and there are Afghani and Persian influences in the food as well. The cuisine has taken a few things from a few places and it's become its own kind of unique offering. There's a big difference between Mughalai and Awadhi food and Rampuri food. Unlike with those cuisines, here the flavours, textures and richness is not really dependent on cream and fat. With this book I almost feel like I'm becoming the brand ambassador of Rampur! I think Ammi would be proud"- Pernia Qureshi, author, Ammi's Kitchen; Heirloom Recipes from Rampur talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from anda halwa, taar gosht and kathal kababs to outdoor cooking, what her family typically serves at formal dinners, the difference between khichdi and khichda, and her grandmother's busy dalan in Rampur.

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Only connect

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:46:00 -0000

"I wanted to make the case that here is a system that we all created together that allows for our exploitation through the prism of services that we actually do get some benefit from. Everybody involved in the system gets some benefit from it - the CEOs of these companies and also us as users. I wanted to investigate that complicity" - Vauhini Vara, author, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age talks to Manjula Narayan about her book that uses her Google searches dating back to the early aughts, Amazon reviews, long conversations with AI, memories of her sister who died of cancer in her teens and insights gleaned during her years as a technology journalist to understand how tech has become so enmeshed in our lives, and grasp the sinister aspects of that while also understanding that no single trajectory is inevitable.

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Much food for thought

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:52:00 -0000

"Our food has completely changed in the last 30 years. This has totally changed our gut physiology, our gut microbiome, and has caused silent inflammation in the gut. Issues like reflux and bloating are caused by a gut that isn't functioning well. Also, if you don't eat the right type of food, your body is incapable of making the neurological chemicals called neurotransmitters that are required for stable mental health. That correlation is not discussed in modern medicine though it is the cause, many times, of these mental health issues. Adding a drug is just symptomatically managing it. Instead of just depending on drugs and therapy, people can go back and connect it to what is wrong with what they are eating. When you trade nourishing food for, say, burgers and junk food and even things that aren't considered junk like white rice and wheat, you are nutritionally depleted. That's why people are unable to have robust systems physically and psychologically. The reason we are now seeing so many autoimmune diseases is because 70 percent of the immune system sits in the gut. If you're eating the wrong food, you're telling the immune system to keep its guns always at the ready. And so, the poor guy is always hyperactive and always creating a reaction instead of only being activated when there's a fungal or a bacterial infection. Food has a real connection to conditions like ADHD, Alzhiemers and bipolar disorders. All forms of mental health conditions are dependent on what you're eating. There is absolutely no denying that correlation." - Manjari Chandra, author, Brainwashed by your Gut talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from mindful eating and toxic foods to the uptick in PCOS among Indian women and the urgent need for the nation to fight conditions like diabetes and cancer.

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The original mother of many tongues

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 09:00:00 -0000

"One thing that's become abundantly clear from the ancient DNA revolution of the last 10 years is how important migration has been in the history of our species. So, of course, there has been hybridisation, cultural, genetic, linguistic. There is no such thing as a pure people, pure culture, pure language. Genes, culture and language do not map neatly onto each other. This book was a huge amount of work because the only way you can tell the story of Proto Indo European [the ancestor of Latin and Sanskrit and their daughter languages including English, German, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi and many, many others] is by combing the fields of linguistics, archeology and genetics. It's very fast moving and the point of writing the story now is that it's had this huge impetus from genetics" - Laura Spinney, author, Proto; How One Ancient Language Went Global talks to Manjula Narayan about the ancestor of the Indo European family of languages, the Yamnayas, the birth and death of languages, the great migrations out of the Steppes, the Harappan script, multiethnolects and why AI might be great for predicting language change

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Of raab, kadhi and more

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:25:00 -0000

"Food is not just for nutrition but also for the soul" - @neelakaushik and Shibani Sethi, editors, 'Flavours of India talk to @utterflea abt the 40k strong Gurgaon Moms community that's contributed the family memories and recipes in this book

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Of unforgettable soundtracks and an emotional core

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:30:00 -0000

"In Raj Khosla's films, songs were storytelling devices. They didn't just push the narrative forward; they were also narratives by themselves. They had a beginning, a middle and an end, and the way they were shot, the way relationships were portrayed, and the way situations were brought in... It is an art that Guru Dutt taught Raj Khosla and which he then brought out in a way that really connected with the crowd." - Amborish Roychoudhury, author, 'Raj Khosla; The Authorized Biography' talks to Manjula Narayan about the life and art of the maker of such commercially successful and vastly different popular Hindi films as CID (1956), Do Raaste (1969), Main Tulsi Teri Aangan Ki (1978) and Dostana (1980).

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Greed, greenwashing, and the perils of convenience

Fri, 30 May 2025 10:30:00 -0000

"All materials come with an environmental impact but plastics are worth singling out as they have turbocharged our desire to consume and our reliance on disposability. Consumer goods companies are the ones we should be looking at. They make decisions about what we see on supermarket shelves, what we see in our homes. I hope this book makes people feel that we do have the power to change things because these companies want us to like them. They are very sensitive to how their reputations play out among consumers. Scientists have been sharing concerns that endocrine disrupting chemicals found in plastics could be impacting everything from our ability to procreate to mental health. Ultimately, it also comes down to policy, to pressing companies to pay to manage the waste created by their packaging. If a big consumer goods company is choosing to use a sachet, they should be paying a commensurate amount to find a way for those sachets to all be picked up even if it costs billions of rupees, and if they are selling a product that is difficult to recycle, they should be paying an environmental tax that reflects the cost of what they are putting out there."

Saabira Chaudhuri, author, 'Consumed; How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from overconsumption, the harmful chemicals that leach out of packaging, and microplastics that are hazardous to all life to being a more mindful consumer and why there is still hope

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Remembering not to forget

Fri, 23 May 2025 11:08:00 -0000

"I'd never attempted a memoir. For me, writing something so personal and putting it out there for the world to see was difficult because I was reliving those days. But that's when I realised, I don't want to forget those days. A lot of people want to move past grief. You want things to be normal. But there is no normal after this. This is the new normal and I have to learn to live with it. My husband and my mother in law became statistics of the COVID wave but they were so much more. Like love, grief is universal and everyone experiences it in some form or the other. I wanted to make the book a medium for me to put down my grief for myself and my children but also for those who want to be able to look at their own grief too. I felt that I could articulate my grief so I should. Those who cannot articulate their grief feel like they have found a voice through this book" - Andaleeb Wajid, author, 'Learning to Make Tea for One' talks to Manjula Narayan about survivor's guilt, family ties, the exhaustion that comes with writing a memoir about loss, and how different it is from writing fiction for young adults

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Of trances, theta states, and shamans

Sat, 17 May 2025 05:44:00 -0000

"Every part of India has shamans; you could say its part of folk culture. They call Himachal Dev Bhoomi because every village is home to several deities. Every village also has its main deity and a shaman, who is the medium of that deity. He can communicate with that deity when he goes into a divine possession trance that is ritually invoked. The villagers communicate with their devis and devtas for everything and in pooch sessions, the shaman or goor will answer questions as the deity. To a westernised mindset, this sounds like superstition. But you cannot ignore the lived experience of millions of people across centuries and say 'Yeh bakwas hai; this is nonsense!' Scholars like Sudhir Kakkar and Oliver Sacks accepted that the sacred healing rituals of shamans are far more effective than modern psychotherapy because they take the whole field of the person - family community mythology - into consideration" - Documentary film maker and author of 'Shamans of the Himalayas', Anu Malhotra talks to Manjula Narayan about the strong connection that villagers in Himachal have with their local deities, divination, altered states of consciousness of shamans, and how the belief system persists despite the onslaught of modernity and migration.

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Of spiritual churning and identity umbrellas

Fri, 09 May 2025 10:50:00 -0000

"Any place where a guru goes and spends time becomes a dera; it gets a sacred connotation. Deras are reflective of our larger tradition of argumentation, philosophy and contestation. In India, there is nothing singular about our world; everything is very plural. So, any sort of broad brushing or monolithic thinking about deras is unhelpful. All deras are not Dalit. But I was surprised to see Gail Omvedt's Seeking Begumpura at one. Some are doing very much for Ambedkarite thought. They have a lot of Ambedkar in their libraries and their sanctum sanctorums too have big portraits of Ambedkar alongside their religious iconography. Ravidassias constantly tell me that Sant Ravidas is their spiritual guru but Ambedkar is their political one. All this made me take deras very seriously. " - Santosh K Singh, author, The Deras; Culture, Diversity and Politics talks to Manjula Narayan about the varied character and caste and class affiliations of the deras of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal, the Ad-Dharmis, the Ravidassia deras of Punjab and the grand Ravidas temple in Banaras, the connections between the local and the global, and also the great need for sociologists to get their ideas out into the wider world beyond the Academy.

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Company Painting: A transformative moment in Indian art

Fri, 02 May 2025 09:58:00 -0000

"To earlier academics, it seemed like Company Painting was not really to be taken seriously. The Modernists didn't look at it because it's too early and the Court Painting specialists didn't look at it because it was too late. It just sort of fell in the gap. Perhaps people were less inclined to rescue it from that gap because they had difficulty in coming to terms with its hybrid colonial status. You cannot get away from it being a product of Empire. But rather than telling the story of the patrons' perspective, you have to look at how Indian artists respond. This is a historical moment where artists trained in the Indian court ateliers realised that there is this alternative source of patronage with a completely different set of demands. And when they made the transition from Court to Company, they transformed themselves and they transformed Indian art. With artists like Sewak Ram, we've got a wholly new approach. It is exciting to see the artist as much an agent as the patron in creating the hybrid form. The book and the show at DAG attempts to cover the whole spectrum of Company Painting and its trajectory in the very brief period from the 1770s to its fizzling out by 1850"
- Giles Tillotson, editor, 'A Treasury of Life; Indian Company Paintings c 1790-1835' talks to Manjula Narayan about the works of outstanding artists like Mihr Chand, Sita Ram and Ram Das, the depiction of different communities in work by Tanjore artists, Louisa Appleby's album commissioned in the vanished settlement of Maidapur, and his hope that more albums with named artists will soon come to light

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Sojourn in South Korea: In the land of the morning calm

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 12:38:00 -0000

"South Korea is strategizing its soft power through K-Drama, K-Beauty, K-Pop and now K-Cuisine. There was a conscious strategy from the government of the country and the private sector. So the craze for Korea that we see today is no accident."

Vasudev Tumbe and Sudha Huzurbazar Tumbe, authors, 'Seoulmates; Korea Through Indian Eyes', talk to Manjula Narayan about their six-year stay in South Korea, its punishing work culture, beautiful public places, numerous fantastic public toilets, contradictions in terms of being safe for women but having very few women in senior positions in the work place, and how Koreans save very little money and as a result, often can't afford to retire.

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Of Bakharwals, Jonangis and more

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 09:35:00 -0000

"How to keep kids engaged through the book is the most important job of the illustrator. Every page was approached through that angle. That's why I've included as many dynamic poses of dogs as possible — running, jumping out of the page almost!" says Chandrima Chatterjee, illustrator, 'The Little Book of Indian Dogs'.

"I've always been aware of Indian dog breeds but I wanted to introduce my daughter to them and there was absolutely nothing out there that one could read out to a toddler. So I thought let's do it. I wrote it and then I found Chandrima," says Anusha Ramanathan, writer of the book that weaves wonderful factoids — did you know Indian dogs don't drool? - about a range of breeds like the Chippiparai, Rajapalayam, the Kombai and the ever popular Indian pariah around a simple story that both children and adults who read out this book to them will enjoy.

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Intrepid Americans in India

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:04:00 -0000

"I thought it would be interesting to write about early Americans in India because, at that time, there were no border controls, no surveillance, no way of monitoring people who crossed borders. The Americans were not conscious state actors unlike the British, French, Dutch or even the Danes, who were all supported by their respective governments. I was interested in these brave individuals from a faraway land who just marched into a new life. My curiosity about them got me going. And because these people were outsiders and did not come with institutional backing, apart from the missionaries, they were able to see the problems in Indian society, the divisions and the hierarchy, far more quickly"

- Anuradha Kumar, author, 'Wanderers, Adventurers, Missionaries; Early Americans In India' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about Ira Scudder who set up the Christian Medical College, Vellore, the Alters of Landour who have contributed in many ways to India, Satyanand Stokes who introduced apple cultivation to Himachal Pradesh, and Black soldier Herman Perry, who worked on the Stillwell Road, among many others.

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Delhi underbelly

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:24:00 -0000

"The system of policing in India has so many constraints that unless the person has a special kind of inner motivation to pursue something, it's going to be very hard to get results. Inspector Prashant Kumar has that. He is an amalgamation of a real person and some fictional tropes. I've had the desire to write crime fiction for a very long time and as a journalist, I got to hang out with a lot of Delhi cops over a period of about two years. The police have miserable lives, most of them. Their work involves constantly seeing the worst side of humanity; they see the worst tragedies, death. There's also work pressure and the work load. It is extremely stressful and it leaves most officers with absolutely no time for family. All of this has its personal cost and I wanted to bring it all in. Now, I think twice before judging the police. A lot of them try very hard to make things work, to be fair, to complete investigations, to respond to emergencies, and some are very heroic too"

— Rudraneil Sengupta, author, 'The Beast Within', talks to Manjula Narayan about his police procedural set in Delhi that zooms into the mansions of the rich and the abject slums of the poor, looks at the workings of child traffickers, and examines the edge of violence amid the rapid change in the capital's ever-receding rural fringe

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Barking up the right tree

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 07:22:00 -0000

"I've shot almost 10,000 pictures of dogs across the world over the last four years. But the pictures in this book were all shot on the beaches of Goa in the monsoon. I began shooting them during the pandemic. A deep grey sky is like a photographer's ideal studio. The atmosphere and the subdued palette came because of the season. The whole intent of this book was to create awareness about dogs in an oblique way. Somebody like me who's spent his life bullying people to do his bidding, whether it's the PM or Jeff Bezos, was now suddenly confronted by these stray dogs who don't listen to you for anything in the world! So these images are the result of serendipity; they are a happy accident. About the poems and short pieces in the book, I chose them because I wanted unpretentious voices"

- Rohit Chawla, author, 'Rain Dogs', talks to Manjula Narayan about the magnificent Indian street dog, how the world has almost forgotten the pandemic, the need to alleviate the suffering of dogs, cattle, donkeys, camels and elephants on the streets of India, Ratan Tata's legacy, the return of the physical magazine, and AI in photography, among other things on the Books & Authors podcast

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Delhi; tales of a city with multiple pasts

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:35:00 -0000

There are stories in every nook and cranny of Delhi and rightly so because this is the 11th or 12th city built one on top of the other; sometimes cannibalizing one city to make the other. So, there are stories of the city's multiple pasts and of the people who have lived here. Heterogenous in every sense of the word, it is a melting pot. So many places in the city have witnessed history in the making. The title brings together multiple strands about the city': Basti' means 'habitation' and this has been a continuously inhabited city for centuries; 'Darbar' because Delhi remains a politically important city"

- Rakhshanda Jalil, editor, 'Basti & Darbar, Delhi-New Delhi; A City in Stories' talks to Manjula Narayan about an anthology of short fiction about the capital that includes pieces about the old city, the early days of building New Delhi, its caste and class snobberies, student life, gay scene, political elite, the vast armies from the hinterland who built it and continue to expand it, its scavengers, and its sarkari workers too.

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A sampling of some of the best Indian short fiction

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 13:00:00 -0000

The span of the book is so wide that we had to leave out some great people. The book gives you a sampling of some of the best writing. My favourite is the first story, Rebati by Fakir Mohan Senapati, translated by KK Mohapatra. In the stories written in English, Ruskin Bond's The Prospect of Flowers is so poignant. It has been difficult to get good translations from languages like Nepali, Dogri, Bodo and Santhali. Also, in certain languages there are no real translators into English. When it comes to translations, any translator who is capable and confident is half the author of the story. We are fortunate to be able to use the English language. Even now, after 230 years, there are people who say it is a foreign language. Now, it's part of your life, country, ethos!"

AJ Thomas, editor, 100 Indian Stories, talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about short fiction in Indian languages, the key role of translation, Indian after-modernism, and the future literatures of emerging languages

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The incredible story of the most successful escape of WW2

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 10:30:00 -0000

"When you look at history across the world and across centuries, there are some things that are well remembered and there are many things that are forgotten. In some way, it's interesting to ask, 'What is remembered and why?' and then maybe take that further and ask, 'by whom?' It's really interesting for me as a historian to ask why is it that this particular event, this particular escape and the camp itself and the thousands of Indians who were there... Why has it been pretty much forgotten until now? It's fascinating that these guys were so resourceful. They were looking after each other and some were helping the French too in that critical time. 100s of them got to Switzerland and that was a triumph of resilience, really!"

- Ghee Bowman, author, 'The Great Epinal Escape; Indian Prisoners of War in German Hands' talks to Manjula Narayan about the most successful escape of the Second World War, and the forgotten story of the hundreds of soldiers of the British Indian Army from all across the subcontinent, who broke out of the prison camp in the French town of Epinal and hid from the German army as they trudged across 100 km to freedom in Switzerland, with some like Jai Lall from Rohtak even joining and fighting alongside the French Resistance.

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Exploring the multiple layers of truth

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 14:41:40 -0000

In terms of photography, this is not a book about Banaras or the Himalayas or very specific things; a name-place-animal-thing kind of book. In terms of narrative, of visuals that follow the structure of a novel or something in that space, we are yet to broaden our reach and scope, especially in India" - Ritesh Uttamchandani, author, 'Where Are You', talks to Manjula Narayan about his photobook of pictures clicked in Manchester, UK, that touches on everything from ways of being in public to Partition, memory, othering, family and love.

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The power of absence to shape the world

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:32:59 -0000

"You find fasting in every culture, across the millennia. We carry within us the ability to hold back. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Judeaism vary in specifics about fasting but the idea is the same. You step back from something that you normally enjoy - it doesn't have to be a luxury - and then you hold off partaking of it. That holding back is, for me, at the heart of fasting. It is such a powerful realization that this power of absence is real, that we can shape our world by stepping back, by refraining from doing things. Then, in the 20th century and earlier too this manifested itself politically in the form of boycotts and hunger strikes. In many ways fasting is close to meditation. You pull yourself out of the daily stream of things, you step aside, you contemplate how you have been living, and then you go back into it"

- John Oakes, author, 'The Fast; The History, Science , Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without talks to Manjula Narayan about the spiritual aspects of fasting, its use as an effective form of protest by the disenfranchised, the great role it played in the independence struggles of Ireland and India, political prisoners fasting in imperial Russia, its darker side seen in anorexia nervosa, and how fasting can perhaps contribute to well-being and longevity in intensely consumerist societies.

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Breaking up is hard to do

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 06:58:24 -0000

"On the one hand we are proud of the fact that India has one of the lowest rates of divorce, globally. It's about 1.1 percent annually. However, UN reports indicate that the number of divorces has multiplied twofold since the advent of the millennium. Why is this happening? The answers are many and this was the premise for writing this book.

This book has taught me that education, class, financial independence and status are not necessarily protection against domination and toxic equations. I have tried not to demonise either of the sexes because men and women are not each other's enemies. As the saying goes, a generation was spent empowering women to lead their lives with as much independence and dignity as they could muster. Sadly, we forgot to teach men how to live with these empowered women. It's not as if these men did not wish to do better or did not wish to do right by the women. They did not know how; they did not have the role models. I do have some sympathy for that. Indian women's expectations and aspirations have changed and it's genuinely puzzling to quite a few men.

Some women do misuse the law but in percentage terms, they are very few. Atrocities against women, cases of violence and dowry continue to be far higher.

We need to have more conversations on marriage. It's a very private business which affects society at large. Abroad, the top reasons for divorce are finances and infidelity. Here, the top reasons are finances and parental expectations and interference. This book is meant to be a relationship guide with the law as the cornerstone" - Kalyani Sardesai, author, 'When Love is Lost' talks to Manjula Narayan about divorce in contemporary India.

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Breaking up is hard to do

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 11:57:00 -0000

On the one hand we are proud of the fact that India has one of the lowest rates of divorce, globally. It's about 1.1 percent annually. However, UN reports indicate that the number of divorces has multiplied twofold since the advent of the millennium. Why is this happening? The answers are many and this was the premise for writing this book.

Some women do misuse the law but in percentage terms, they are very few. Atrocities against women, cases of violence and dowry continue to be far higher.

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The power and the glory

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 08:05:34 -0000

"Because of the wealth of inscriptions that they have left behind, it is really possible to understand the Cholas as political figures. Not only are they masters of media strategy, they are brilliantly charismatic. They are innovators capable of mobilising vaster armies than ever before . They are capable of thinking out of the box about bureaucracy, administration, diplomacy, and logistics in ways that had not been seen in medieval India. But the reason the Cholas were able to strike with such speed at such distance [as they did in their campaign to Bengal and in South East Asia] is because of the partnership they had with Tamil merchant corporations. The merchants of medieval Tamil Nadu were some of the most remarkable commercial minds of South Asia. There is mention of these merchants in Thailand around the 9th century. When the Chola state was emerging, these merchants were already trading at the other side of the Indian ocean." - Anirudh Kanisetti, author, 'Lords of Earth and Sea' talks to Manjula Narayan about the vast Chola empire based in coastal south India that was the dominant power in the subcontinent in the early medieval period, about it's great monarchs like Rajaraja Chola, the dowager queen Sembian Mahadevi and the part she played in fashioning the dynasty as the foremost devotees of Shiva, the most popular of Tamil gods, and the many little people who played a part in the Chola story.

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Battling alternate reality

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 04:30:00 -0000

"Savarkar was a great rationalist. The surprising thing is how such a rationalist went completely off the rails in regard to other matters. His writing is full of villains and among the villains are the Buddha, all Buddhists, whom he considered hereditary traitors, Ashoka, Akbar, Tipu Sultan, and then Gandhiji. On the question of Godse and Apte there was no doubt that they were his acolytes, they were his worshippers. Sardar Patel said the problem was that once you create an atmosphere then you don't have to tell anybody to go and assassinate; he reads your lips. You just have to see the publications Savarkar was patronizing... They were only penning hatred and it was all centered on one man -- Gandhiji. Savarkar felt that the Marathas were the real legatees of the Mughal empire and then the damn outsiders, the British, slyly took over. The same thing happens in his own life . He thinks he is the heir to Lokmanya Tilak and then this outsider Gujrati comes and takes the whole prize away. This great disappointment in his life gets centered on one man and becomes hatred. Today, Gandhiji is a great inconvenience because he embodies Hinduism, the collective memory of our people. If Savarkar's line is pursued, then India will become a dismembered nation like Pakistan; society will be riven by hate. This eternal search for purity always ends in that. The difference between Indic religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism from Semitic religions is that ours is an inner-directed search. Everything - pilgrimages, idol worship, mantras etc. is to aid this inner search. When you marry it to the State, religion becomes an instrument of the State. You only have to look at the Jewish religion when Gaza is to be bombed - it just becomes an instrument. Secularism is a way of keeping the purity of religion. It's not anti-religion. Keep religion and the State separate. That is why my book ends with this appeal - Save Hinduism from Hindutva" - Arun Shourie, author, 'The New Icon; Savarkar and the Facts' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Of flying yoginis, Trojan elephants, and kings who ghost their girlfriends

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 05:30:00 -0000

"I do believe that literature is a very important source of knowledge complementary to history, epigraphy and archaeology. It is not easy to read drama at the best of times. It is even more difficult to read Sanskrit drama because it is quite out of the ordinary! But there is a lot of timelessness in these plays, however strange they may seem with their tigers, elephants and tantriks! The human elements are the ones we still completely recognize - love, jealousy and ambition. We haven't changed; we are laughing at the same things that people 2000 years ago were laughing at! One of the criteria for choosing the plays was that all the great playwrights had to be represented. And I didn't want to use plays based on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata because we already know those stories. This is a book about introducing different narratives to a lay public. Also, I wanted people to be aware that the millennium of classical Sanskrit drama does not come out of a Hindu universe alone. It comes out of a universe of political diversity, cultural diversity, religious diversity. But it's true that it is also a common universe however much people might have different ideologies and different religions; there are social mores that hold them all together" - Arshia Sattar, author, Vasanta; Stories from Sanskrit Plays talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about ancient plays like Shudraka's Mricchakatika ( The Little Clay Cart), Mahendravarman's The Holy Man and the Courtesan, and Harsha's Nagananda, among others, that continue to appeal to us

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Tibetans: From Lhasa to Dharamsala and the wider world

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:30:00 -0000

"Somehow, miraculously, Tibetans have managed to preserve their identity. They have actually transplanted the Tibet they left behind and have created a whole new little Tibet in India. This is a huge success story, which should be celebrated. Now we are in the third generation and Tibetan culture is very much alive" - Tsering Namgyal Khortsa, author, 'Little Lhasa; Reflections in Exiled Tibet' talks to Manjula Narayan about the vibrant arts and cultural scene of Dharamsala, which is the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, the pull of Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama to a range of seekers from across the world, and the exiled people's shift to becoming a diasporic community.

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In the land of the lotus eaters

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 08:02:24 -0000

Bhang has been mentioned in the Vedas; the use of cannabis as a medicinal boon has been mentioned in a lot of Indian scriptures for thousands of years, and it has been used in Ayurveda. During the British era, the colonisers looked down upon cannabis usage among Indians. They were familiar with alcohol but not with ganja and they considered it beneath them. So, it is the recent history of cannabis in India that has made it taboo. But it is still the most used "illicit" narcotic in the country. In India, with even something that's illegal, if it's culturally appropriate, a lot of people will tun a blind eye. This is so especially in the north of the country. India is very complex and its perspectives towards this plant are also very complex and divisive. In places like Uttarakhand and Himachal, the attitude to cannabis is different; in the south, in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, even openly talking about using it is a big no-no" Karan Madhok, author, 'Ananda; An Exploration of Cannabis in India' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from Lord Shiva and the availability of bhang in Banaras, Manipur's Satjal and Kawariyas to the immense economic potential of the plant, its medicinal uses, the movement for its decriminalization, and the road ahead for this ancient Indian weed

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Cosy Delhi crime

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 08:34:14 -0000

"I'm a big fan of a very specific genre of crime novels, which is the Golden Age novels, the Agatha Christies and the GK Chestertons, the novels of the 1940s and '50s. I don't get to read those types of books any more, where at the heart of the book is a very classic murder mystery, a whodunnit. You're not really that concerned about realism; it's not very gritty; there's not a lot of murders that are very unpleasant. Someone just drops dead and everyone's concerned about who's done it. I wanted to write a book like that. These days, the kind of crime that's being written — there's a lot of police procedurals; there's a lot of realistic crime. I wanted to veer away from all of that. There's so much going on that's unpleasant that people really like to have a break from all of that. You know, it's nice to worry about something as frothy as a murder mystery that you can curl up with over a cup of coffee!" - Samyukta Bhowmick, author, A Fatal Distraction, talks to Manjula Narayan about her cosy crime novel set in Delhi.

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Cuba: Will the revolution endure?

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:30:00 -0000

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was seen as the last outpost of communism. China went a different way and is now essentially a capitalist society where the communist party is in power. In Kerala, Cuba was seen by those people who were ideologically committed to communism as something sacred. That kind of ideological affinity might have come down but there is still an attraction to Cuba as a country that has miraculously withstood 64 years of extreme American sanctions" - Ullekh NP, author, 'Mad About Cuba; A Malayali Revisits the Revolution' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from the flight of bright young Cubans from the country, the little known visionary side of Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro's introduction of Indian moringa to the Caribbean nation, to the dynamic women who head Cuba's exceptional health initiatives, why a taxi driver now earns more than a doctor there, and how the book might help readers understand both Cubans and Malayalis better!

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Indian ink

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 11:26:21 -0000

A lot of our ancestors had tattoos and that's quite surprising. People don't really know what the tattoos on their grandparents mean. A number of archivists have come up in India in the last 10 years who have felt the need to document this, question their grandparents, and also to look into their communities' histories through the tattoos that they no longer have. Here is a tradition that we have lost but it's something that we now consider so trendy." Naman P Ahuja, editor, 'Indian Tattoos; Only Skin Deep?' talks to Manjula Narayan about traditional Indian tattoos from communities as varied as the Baigas, Pashtuns, Todas and the Nagas, the vanished south Indian tattoos recorded by LK Ananthakrishna Iyer in the 1930s, why people yearn to mark their lover's name on their body, tattoos as talisman, caste markers and adornments in this world and the next, the colonial encounter and the disappearance of traditional tattoos among many groups, and why it's harder to reconstruct a history of Indian men's tattoos

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Identity, consumerism and the Indian middle class

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 07:13:00 -0000

The Indian middle class comprises many groups and they are not able to come together. For any group to become powerful, they have to be united. But the interests of each of these groups within the Indian middle class - upper caste Hindus, Dalits, Muslims, OBCs - clash with each other. Today, caste and religious identity is more important to the individual than national identity. Perhaps this is because everything we do today revolves around money. Money is power and even if a person feels that certain things are wrong, he will not raise his voice because his interests might be compromised. In a consumerist, neo capitalist society, everything comes down to economics" - Manisha Pande, author, 'Middle Class India; Driving Change in the 21st Century' talks to Manjula Narayan about the middle class in ancient and medieval India, the vast changes that have occurred since Liberalization in the early 1990s, the status of middle and upper class Indian women as being more shackled and conformist than their working class peers, the shift in the attitude towards the country's population growth and the demographic dividend that heralds good things for the future of the nation

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The man who thought with his eyes

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:59:36 -0000

"I've done three books and a documentary on Guru Dutt and he is always viewed as someone rather morose and internal and a sad man. And yet, there were moments of great joy. You see it in his films. Why did he always include Johnny Walker? Because he had a sense of humour and a sense of fun and his films like Mr and Mrs 55 and Aar Paar are really wonderfully funny. This diary was to emphasize the lighter side of Guru Dutt. So there are various anecdotes from people who remembered that side of him" - Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, 'The Legacy of Guru Dutt; 2025 Diary' talks to Manjula Narayan about bringing out this diary to mark the film maker's centenary next year, the fantastic Hindi-Urdu writing of the 1950s, Guru Dutt's many extraordinarily productive working relationships with Abrar Alvi, Raj Khosla, Johnny Walker, VK Murthy and others, the self indulgence of Kagaz ke Phool, how his training in dance and choreography at the Uday Shankar Academy showed up in the kinetic movement of the camera in films like Pyaasa, the reproduction of some early letters to Geeta Dutt, and the aptness of Kaifi Azmi's statement that Guru Dutt thought with his eyes.

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A taste of heaven on the street

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 07:50:30 -0000

"The taste and quality of the ingredients that some street vendors use can rival that of Michelin star restaurants. And that they make it all available at this price point is just shocking. Street vendors also have no qualms about feeding the food that they make to their own families. They don't store their food or refrigerate and reuse, all ingredients are fresh every day, there are no secrets, its made out in the open in front of the customer. Those are the big differences with the large chains. After doing this book, we've realised that we are much better off eating from the street than eating packaged food or even from fancy places" - Priya Bala and Jayanth Narayanan, authors, 'Bazaar Bites; Tales and Tastes of India's Street Foods' talks to Manjula Narayan about the fantastic sweets and savouries on offer on our streets including in tier 2 cities like Indore, Nagpur, Bhopal, Puri, Srinagar and Allahabad, among others, specialities like the hing kachori of Varanasi, the karela chaat of Gwalior, the ghirmit of Hubli Dharwad, the samosas of Bata Mangala in Odisha, the litti chokhas of Patna and the dosa diversity of Karnataka, and how street food needs to be properly recognised as an integral part of India's culinary heritage.

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Recipes from Jahangir and Nur Jahan's kitchen

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 11:30:00 -0000

"While I was translating this manuscript from Persian I realised that the food mentioned is very different from what's sold now as Mughal food. They had four masalas only. We have now laced the mutton, chicken and fish with spices so that the real taste has disappeared. In those days, you could taste the meat. The food eaten by Jahangir and Nur Jahan was very different and I wanted people to know that what we are eating in the name of Mughal food is not really Mughal food" - Salma Yusuf Husain, translator, 'Alwan-e-Nemat; A Journey Through Jahangir's Kitchen' talks to Manjula Narayan about featured recipes that combine unlikely ingredients like the fish and banana curry, Mughal emperor Jahangir's love for Gujarati khichdi and rohu, his queen Nur Jahan's many culinary innovations including the creation of fruit yogurts and vibrantly coloured dishes, how Indian cooks in the imperial kitchen took Iranian and Central Asian recipes and completely transformed them, how they turned pulao into biryani by layering and roasting it, her own surprise on encountering the utterly rice-less biryani Isfahani during a visit to Iran, and why the vegetable biryani cannot be called a biryani at all.

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Speaking in many tongues

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"Those who don't have a university or a high school for their languages are the ones who don't have economic resources. The poorest among the poor are linguistically deprived and also economically deprived. People say, 'What is the harm if many languages go and only some remain?' These are questions raised out of ignorance. Every language is a unique world view. The way every language defines space and time is unique. When languages die, we are denying ourselves the benefit of the diversity of unique world views. Diversity is necessary for the evolutionary process. By denying diversity, we are reducing our ability to go forward and meet new challenges" - GN Devy, author, 'India; A Linguistic Civilization' talks to Manjula Narayan about the emergence of a rich literature in many Adivasi languages in the 21st century, his work with the Linguistic Survey of India, language aphasia, the rise of Sanskrit, why the Harappan script still hasn't been deciphered, the tragedy of gadgets replacing parental interactions with children, and dyslexia and dysgraphia as conditions that indicate a step in the evolutionary process, among other things.

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Terrorists, tawaifs and secret superstars

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"In the 1970s, Muslim characters in films were very different. In the 1990s, Roja opened the floodgates for films representing Muslims as terrorists. It was the first film which looked at the identity of the enemy. Then, especially after the attacks of 9/11, there was a big change in the representation of Muslims in Hindi films. As for women, in many films, Muslim women are reduced to being victims of oppression always. Now, whatever is happening in the current sociopolitical scene is directly reflected on screen. I have tried to connect the politics of representation in Hindi films with contemporary politics. So my book isn't just film studies, it is also a political text" — Nadira Khatun, author, 'Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from Pran in Zanjeer to the saviour syndrome in Gully Boy, the Brahmanical stance of films like Secret Superstar and Lipstick Under my Burqa, the absence of films made by subaltern Muslims, the vanished Muslim Social of the 1970s and 80s, and much more.

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Theyyam: Parapsychology, Paradox and Folk Belief

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:27:44 -0000

"The parapsychological element is very strong in Theyyam, which is an example of Indian shamanism. When you worship a Theyyam, you don't need an intermediary, a priest, like you do in a temple; here you can go into a direct dialogue with the Theyyam. 90 percent of the Theyyams are mother goddesses performed by men. And though a Theyyam performance is highly caste oriented, it can only be a success if every community of a particular area gives their support. So everybody joins together for it and if they have disputes, it is all settled before the Theyyam, during the performance" - KK Gopalakrishnan, author, 'Theyyam; Indian Folk Ritual Theatre' talks to Manjula Narayan about this living tradition of Kerala, the touching stories that are narrated, elements of ancestor and nature worship that are central to the pre-Brahmanical folk form, the paradox of it flourishing in northern Kerala where communism first sprouted in the state, the Muslim Theyyams of Malabar, the spectacle of the performances, and how it is, in a sense, a repository of the race memory of the people of the region.

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An extraordinary intellect

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 07:40:17 -0000

"She was my grandmother so I could have wanted to create a portrait of a person who was very fantastic and - she was fantastic and wonderful - but I didn't want to do anything that wasn't factual that tried to whitewash anything she did - there ware controversial things about her and her academic life and how she went about things. I knew this from my own mother 's view of her. One of the reasons Thiago and I did get along was because we were very clear that we weren't going to do a hagiography" -- Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa, co-authors of 'Iru; the Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve' talk to Manjula Narayan about the pioneering Indian anthropologist, her time in 1920s Berlin where she did her PhD under racist anthropologist Eugin Fischer, her use of the Mahabharata and other ancient Indian texts to help her interpret contemporary questions about language, culture and religion in Indian society, Yugant, their own use of critical fabulation in the writing of this book, and the strange similarity between the sarcasm and dourness of the people of Berlin and of Karve's hometown, Pune!

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Video Ga Ga: Excavating a forgotten cultural moment

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"In the West and in privileged pockets of India that have access to technology, we think technology is linear — first film, then TV, then video... But actually in India and in most of the countries that form the global majority, obsolescence structures this. It is not like there is a linear progression of technology for everyone. A lot of people have access to tech which might not be current or new for a certain privileged class. One of my research sites was the Malegaon film industry. This was a DIY filmmaking culture where they made their own films, which had social messaging and were spoofs of Bollywood or Hollywood films. Analog video tech was the base infrastructure of this film industry. They used analog video to shoot and edit these films. It was really interesting that analog video, which was supposed to be very 1980s, 20 years later becomes the base for the industry in Malegaon. I saw this industry, as I was tracking it, changing from analog to digital and thought there seems to be a connection between the two. How can we understand digital culture through a historical perspective? I thought video might offer me clues to make sense of the present" - Ishita Tiwary, author, 'Video Culture in India; The Analog Era' talks to Manjula Narayan about her book that excavates an entirely forgotten cultural moment with its wedding videos, video libraries, godmen like Rajneesh who used the technology to gain an international following, video news magazines like Newstrack that documented everything from Mandal and Masjid to the militarization of Kashmir, and the video films featuring, among others, Aditya Pancholi and a pre-Rangeela Urmila Matondkar, that emerged from media magnate Nari Hira's company, Hiba.

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The Less Remembered Bits of Modern India’s Origin Story

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"British India was what had been annexed before 1857. The rest of it was princely India, which formed 45 percent of the subcontinent, almost half. At school, we learn about what happened in British India but most of us don't know about what happened in the part ruled by rajas and nawabs even though it formed such a big part of the independence movement and transfer of power and so on. It's a key element of the story of independence but somehow, it doesn't figure in textbooks. The general idea we have is that the princely kingdoms were all backward and feudal. All of them were not like that. In fact, the first constitution in India was in a princely kingdom -- Baroda. Many princes were forward thinking — there was the Maharaja's temple entry proclamation in Travancore, some states like Mysore were industrialising... The idea that all of them were backward is not true. I have tried not to pass judgement. I have tried to humanise these people and see them from different perspectives...Nehru and Patel had nothing but disdain for the royal class but Patel was a practical person. He knew he had to get them on board to sigh their own death warrants. This book is a bit of history and geography. Had it not been for these events, the map of India would be very different. I have tried to not make it like reading a record but like watching a movie" - Mallika Ravikumar, author, '565; The Dramatic Story of Unifying India' talks to Manjula Narayan about how Sardar Patel, VP Menon and the hurriedly formed States Department managed to coax and, in some cases, force princely states like Tripura, Bikaner, Travancore, Bhopal, Jammu and Kashmir, Patiala and Hyderabad, among others, to join the Indian union in 1947.

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Fan Favourite | Medieval Dynasties of Southern India

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 10:30:00 -0000

As HT Smartcast completes 5 amazing years, we are re-releasing the most loved episode from this podcast. "People who are powerful and wealthy are always complex and layered characters," says Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan, in this Books & Authors' episode with Manjula Narayan, about the ambitious, adventurous, charismatic and bloodthirsty medieval dynasties of southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas.

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Of belief and belonging

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 06:25:59 -0000

"If you think about it deeply, everybody makes their own faith. No matter what faith they are from, everyone finds their own journey, their own truth, and they may mix and match things from different elements of different faiths and see what is true to them. Hinduism and Buddhism tend to be away from any springboard of certitude. They are more amorphous; you can make God whatever you want. A lot of people would say that the beauty of Hinduism is that it is not overly prescriptive. It is a different matter that some are trying to change that now. Still, its an organic religion. I wanted to contrast the various shades of it through the people that I interviewed and through the culture in which I had grown up. Even if you are non religious, religion and faith encumber everything in our country. It's not just politics but also in everyday things like going out for a meal and asking a vegetarian friend if it's ok that you eat meat, in how ritual ties into caste and how caste ties into identity. All of this we know but I wanted to go into it in a granular way and so this became a big book in the end! 'Tripping down the Ganga' is about the nature of everyday Hindu faith. It is a memoir; it is my journey and you can't separate the observer from what he or she observes. It is a subjective journey, in that sense" — Siddharth Kapila, author, Tripping Down the Ganga, talks to Manjula Narayan about going on yaatras with his mother to pilgrimage spots along the great river from Gaumukh to Ganga Sagar, the believers he met along the way, the experience as a liberal, city bred Hindu Indian of being both an insider and an outsider, the faultlines of caste and gender, and the sense of ecological doom that now hangs over many sacred spots in the Himalayas that are key to Hinduism.

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Inspirational flashback to the golden era of Hindi cinema

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 06:04:06 -0000

"I don't think Dev Sahab and Goldie ever pretended they were making art but the artistry was inherent in what they were doing. 'Guide' (1965) is the daddy of all films. In it, Dev Anand's character just wanted to escape his past; he is not in search of the meaning of life. The meaning of life is thrust upon him. He's really the unwilling messiah. Goldie Sahab told me the story is a different beast from the screenplay. At that time, I shook my head as if I understood what he was saying. But it's only now that I am a practitioner that I realise, 'Oh, it was a mantra he was transmitting to me'. The screenplay and story are not the same. That's is why RK Narayan cribbed so much about 'Guide'. Watch the English 'Guide' [which was a flop] - that was the book. Watch the Hindi 'Guide'. It was different." - Tanuja Chaturvedi, author, 'Hum Dono; the Dev and Goldie Story' talks to Manjula Narayan about her book that touches on the professional collaboration of the Anand brothers, Dev and Goldie Anand, who, together, made some of the most memorable commercial Hindi films of the 1950s and 1960s, the power of vintage Hindi film music, and her experience of working at their production company, Navketan Films, as a young graduate fresh out of FTII.

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All about the sumptuous Onam sadhya

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 12:32:39 -0000

"It struck me when I was doing the book that people preparing an Onam sadhya were putting together 25-30 dishes that were all gluten free and mostly vegan too. In fact, a sadhya can be fully vegan. The payasam can use almond or oats milk instead of regular cow's milk. Coconut yogurt will, of course, be the best substitute as it fits the flavour profile of the food. Ghee is perhaps the only thing that you will have to give up on. Unlike the old days, now people, even in Kerala, rarely cook the sadhya at home. They order it. I hope that my book will act as a trigger to get people to actually cook a sadhya. Because the process is engaging. There is a pattern to it. The way you cook it, the way you serve it... It's not like any other meal. It's almost like a ritual. There's also a lot of discipline that comes with serving a sadhya. You will find Ayurveda reflected quite elaborately in it. It is not about just shoving some food onto a banana leaf." - Arun Kumar TR, author, Feast on a Leaf; The Onam Sadhya Cookbook, talks to Manjula Narayan about the many delicious dishes that are part of an Onam celebration, the legend of Mahabali, his own childhood memories of the festival at his ancestral home that form the base of this book, and the imaginative use of yams, jackfruit and banana in Kerala sadhya cuisine.

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Of insiders, outsiders, and insiders outside!

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 11:30:00 -0000

"The earliest record of Northeast India is in the writing of Huen Tsang in the 7th century. So people have been going there for many centuries. The notion that people of only one ethnicity have lived in one place is really not true. Closer examination blows up this idea. It is an idea that has come with modernity. Modern identity and the modern idea of the nation state and the following nationalisms have been problematic in places that have deep and intertwined diversity like the Indian subcontinent. Maybe it made sense in a specific part of Europe in a specific time but the idea has been devastating for us. It led to the Partition but it did not end there. We have had insurgency after insurgency. Pakistan too has had the same challenge. Bangladesh is perhaps the only country that comes closest to that original idea. Northeast India has a history of separatist insurgencies that spring from the history of the place. The issue of identity, of belonging, is very complex. As a Bengali growing up in Shillong it was a very difficult topic of conversation. In fact, there was no conversation. The first book, 'Insider, Outsider; Tales of Belonging and Unbelonging in India's North East set it in motion. That concentrated more on Assam as the largest state in the region. This book focuses on the other states too. When putting this book together, we were not looking for atrocity propaganda. The intention was to encourage an internal dialogue within the different communities of the northeast. Hopefully, people read these pieces and understand others' histories and look at their own histories too" - Samrat Choudhury, co-editor, 'But I Am One of You; Northeast India and the Struggle to Belong' talks to Manjula Narayan about the many perspectives on a range of issues presented in this book including the decommissioning of the Gumti dam to aid ethnic reconciliation in Tripura, the Meitei Pangals or Meitei Muslims from Manipur, the Northeastern experience of being othered in New Delhi, Marwaris in Shillong during a dangerous time, and the Nepali speaking people of the different states of the Northeast, among others.

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Fantastic tales about trees

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 12:30:00 -0000

"Most people seem to think that if they cut 10 trees and then plant 100 trees they have atoned for their sins but ecologically that doesn't make sense. The best thing to do is to protect what we already have. There is a pushback from nature and we are all seeing the effects. When you cut old growth trees, it is going to be that much tougher to deal with climate change because these trees store enormous quantities of carbon. Even if you planted 100 other trees, by the time those grow, where will we be? The oldest tree in the world is more than 5000 years old and the oldest tree in India is about 2031 years old. Trees grow continuously until they die. They are a lesson to all of us -- that we need to keep ourselves intellectually and physically fit until we die or we will become obsolete and irrelevant. I want this book to make people relate to trees in a much bigger way than before. Western countries have their champion/heritage/iconic tree registers and there is a lot of public participation in updating them. We too must make our own tree registers at the village, district, state and finally, the national level. We must have a heritage tree register of India that's updated from time to time" – S Natesh, author, 'Iconic Trees of India' talks to Manjula Narayan about the country's many old and wonderful trees with their own fantastic history including the mother tree of the Dussehri mango in UP, the sacred rayan tree of Ranakpur, the coronation cypress of Norbugang in Sikkim, and the Mahabodhi tree in Bodhgaya under which Buddha attained enlightenment, among others.

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The Millennial Hero Complex and other stories

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 11:21:50 -0000

"Millennials are unique in that every conflict or political situation that we see feels like it is at the same distance from us. So Manipur or the riots in Delhi feel at the same distance, which may or may not be great for political action. We were convinced that we could do things that were much more meaningful than any generation before us because of the tools that we had -- the Internet and the ability to share things with a billion people at once. That deluded us into thinking that we could actually change things! Millennials do have an inflated idea of their ability to change things and that drives a lot of anxiety because then we realise that we are powerless against most things. The millennial hero complex looked at from the outside can be cringe worthy" - AM Gautam, author, 'Indian Millennials; Who Are They Really' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from The Kashmir Files and grief at ecological deterioration to political action, free floating anxiety and the reaction to the Sushant Singh Rajput case.

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Of khichdi, kheer and khayali pulao: Tales of Indian food

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 05:32:59 -0000

"There is no reference to the biryani in the popular domain earlier than 125 years ago. Biryani was just one of the many varieties of pulao. One text tells us that no civilised gourmet in Lucknow touched biryani. They only ate yakhni pulao. So how has biryani become so important? Because if you are a show off and nouveau riche, you could show that, look, I've cooked something so expensive and exotic for my guests! Yes, the Nizams of Hyderabad, with the Hyderabadi dum ki biryani, did cultivate it into a very good art form. But the Nizams rose only after the decline of the Mughals so the biryani came from the Nizam who was experimenting with Turkish and Persian food. The food was from different directions. The biryani has been mythologised and mystified as an exotic dish so it has become aspirational. But a pulao is a pulao is a pulao and, with all due respect to biryani lovers, a biryani is a bit of a con! The biryani rose after 1857 to please the British. People wanted to go outside the pulao route and make it so complicated that it was like a jigsaw puzzle for them to unravel - ki kha kya rahe hai!" - Pushpesh Pant, author, 'Lazzatnama; Recipes of India' talks to Manjula Narayan about biryanis and pulaos, recipes of the Mahabharata, prawn poha, Kayasth mock meat dishes, North Eastern cuisine, kheers and khichdis, and how the modern kitchen has taken the drudgery out of cooking, among many other interesting things.

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The Great Nicobar Island Project: Staring at Certain Disaster

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 09:55:48 -0000

"The Great Nicobar Island Project will cause huge devastation in the landscape. Just 20 years ago, this was the epicentre of the earthquake and tsunami of December 2004. With this project, we are putting the island, the people and the ecology back in harm's way. These islands experience an earthquake a week. In 2004, precisely the spot where this port is coming up has seen a permanent subsidence of 15 feet. The lighthouse at Indira Point, which was in the forest is now surrounded by the sea. Even if we forget the indigenous people this will effect and the loss of 1 million trees that will be cut down for the project – though there is no reason to forget about them – if there's another tsunami, or another two feet of subsidence, the investment of Rs 72,000 crores will be completely lost." - @pankajsekh, editor, 'The Great Nicobar Betrayal' talks to @utterflea about the recklessness of the planned Great Nicobar Island project which will lead to the loss of primitive forests, undocumented biodiversity, ways of life of the Great Nicobarese and Shompen tribes, and of a huge chunk of public money.

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Finding Moments of Tenderness in a Conflicted City

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 05:18:21 -0000

"For people who grew up in the 1990s in Srinagar, the undercurrent of tension has always been our lived reality. This book is about how everyday normal lives also exist in Kashmir and how people navigate around the violence. It is about finding the tender moments in a city that is not 'normal'. The kind of pain that different people have felt in Kashmir has been different but the intensity of it is not something that you want pitched each against the other. Some people say Pandits had it worse because they had to leave. Others say Muslims had it worse because they had to stay and witness what happened over the last 30 years. But it's not a competition of who had it worse. It is horrible what happened to both communities. We have to move forward" - Sadaf Wani, author, 'City As Memory; A Short Biography of Srinagar' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about life in a city that's seen much conflict, about marginalised sections of the populace, caste and class discrimination, the self surveillance of Kashmiri women, PTSD, the ongoing drug epidemic, the slow decline of the Kashmiri language, and collective and individual trauma.

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Mango Nation; On India's Favorite Fruit

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 07:39:20 -0000

"The mango truly is a natural obsession, like cricket or Bollywood or politics. Every Indian is an expert on the mango. Perhaps there's no other country in the world which has a comparable relationship with a fruit. But the excitement of the mango doesn't come from the fruit. It's an ancient thing and the reason the mango is so central to all matters of culture is because settlements across most of India had mango groves close by. They were not planted just for fruit. Fruit was one of the benefits. Primarily, the mango grove was infrastructure. It was where all manner of communal activities happened. That's the reason the mango was central. In India's many calendars, spring was the beginning of the new year and the mango was central to all spring festivals too. That's the reason it is so deeply enmeshed in our psyche. Because we've become deracinated and lost connection with all that, now the only discussion is about the fruit" - Sopan Joshi, author, Mangifera Indica; A Biography of the Mango talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from the loss of mango groves to creating flour from mango kernels, and Jesuit and Mughal experiments in horticulture.

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Crossing Borders

Fri, 12 Jul 2024 08:51:19 -0000

"In the Indian-Chinese context, food is one of the battlegrounds. It's often the first thing that triggers parents of the couple. Both Indian and Chinese societies are patriarchal so the girl is considered as property and she is the one who has to face the most difficulties. However, in general, perhaps because of the single-child policy, women in China are quite empowered and their participation in the workforce is much higher than that for women in India. Much as we would like to think that these kinds of relationships break cultural barriers, break stereotypes, new types of stereotypes may also be formed. In the end, though, so much of our differences are individual and not attributable to stereotypes" - Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu, co-authors of 'Rebels, Traitors, Peacemakers' talk to Manjula Narayan about love and conflict within Indian-Chinese marriages.

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Of Jaws 3, Rat Curry and Diamonds on Snake Heads

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 10:26:46 -0000

"Last year, when Anita Mani of Indian Pitta Books contacted me and asked if we could update Snakeman (1989), which was about Rom Whitaker and his exploits with reptiles and about our life after we got married, I had to laugh a little bit. I said, "You know, it's a bit odd for a divorced wife to be singing the praises of her ex husband even though we continue to be colleagues and work very closely together because we are both committed to the projects that we started". Rom said there is a lot to write about and we have done a lot together after the divorce so why don't you write about all that. So the idea was to rewrite parts of Snakeman and then add the diaries of the years after that and up to the present. It's a valuable account of the conservation projects we've been involved with in the last 20 years. It was difficult on many levels. When you've lived with someone and been their wife for 20 years and then you are something else, there's a constant renegotiation of the tone. I was very happy when a friend said you've got the tone right. I still admire Rom - he's done so much for conservation in this country. I felt the follow up should also be written from my perspective. It's probably the most difficult writing I've ever done" - Zai Whitaker, author, Scaling Up talks to Manjula Narayan about her life at Chennai's Crocodile Bank, a crocodile called Jaws III, the Irular tribe, why snakes are important, and the many projects she is juggling at the moment.

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Masala Chai Magic and More

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"The history of drinking spices is older than the history of drinking tea, which is more recent in India. Drinking spices in hot water and in milk comes from the Ayurveda. As to when the marriage of these two happened, that's lost in history somewhere. In the West, people's palates are getting more accustomed to spices so there are more chai spice brands coming about and a lot of the blends are getting richer in spice. About the recipes, I really wanted to come up with ones that were simple to make, simple to bake. The idea was to put spices in everything. When you spice up cakes, they taste amazing to then why not put in the whole concoction of the tea? Masala chai cake makes so much sense," says Mira Manek, author, The Book of Chai that includes a history of chai drinking in India, stories of her own family's migrations from Gujarat to East Africa and the UK, and a range of recipes of regular Indian teatime favourites like chilli cheese toast and bhajias as well as fusion treats like Parle G cheesecake, chai fudge, and of course, Masala chai cake.

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Women, Dalits and Contextualizing the Manusmriti

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 07:05:16 -0000

"The general greater acceptance of reservations in India as compared to the US comes from the acceptance of a karmic world view, the principle that you can't escape the consequences of your actions. Therefore, if your actions have been evil, then it is better to own up and do something to correct it and make amends. You find this idea of the karmic in the Manusmriti too. Yes, there's also a lot in the Manusmriti about jatis and marriage and caste, which is not appealing to a modern mind. But at least 40 smritis have been known to exist. The Manusmriti was just the one chosen by the British when they were looking at Hindu law. The smritis were a way of updating legislature, as it were, with changing times. It wasn't set in stone and there's an awareness within the tradition about this. In the end, we have to apply our judgement to both tradition and modernity." Arvind Sharma, author, From Fire to Light; Rereading the Manusmrti talks to Manjula Narayan about the amorphousness of religion in India, Ambedkar and Buddhism, the text's pronouncements about women and oppressed castes, and the context in which the Manusmriti was written.

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The social and cultural evolution of the Indian Foreign Service

Fri, 14 Jun 2024 07:46:53 -0000

"The problem of studying history is that we often think of history from today's point of view. When we look at history we must always look at the physical reality that existed at that particular time. The main reality of Nehru's time wasn't the threat from Pakistan or China or India's relations with the Soviet Union or the US. The biggest physical reality was hunger. Food is a strategic commodity as we see even now in Gaza and Ukraine. The Indian people did not create the Indian food crisis. It was a creation of the Allied war effort. Food had to be acquired. Nehru tried very hard to deal with the food security issue and reached out to many countries. India's first diplomats were actually food diplomats. This was the reality of that time" - Kallol Bhattacherjee, author, 'Nehru's First Recruits; The Diplomats Who Built Independent India's Foreign Policy' talks to Manjula Narayan about his compelling study of the Indian Foreign Service, the many individuals from varied backgrounds who formed part of it in the immediate post Independence period, the first evacuation of Indians during an international crisis, the evolution of the idea of Panchsheel, the 1962 war with China and the birth of Indian realism, the role of stenographers in the IFS, the battle of Surabaya that could have had an impact on Indian independence, and the many dynamics that were crashing against each other in the early days of the Indian republic.

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Of guilt lit and suffocation by morality

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 11:30:00 -0000

"It's very easy to criticise the BJP government or the Mamta government for censorship. What we don't realise is we are doing the same thing on social media without allowing a certain kind of freedom of speech that is in disagreement with what we feel. But it is disagreement that produces culture! Amartya Sen said we are argumentative Indians. In the India we are in now, we are supposed to be agreementative Indians. We have to always agree with each other. And we have forgotten that consensus will never produce any philosophy." - Sumana Roy, author, 'Provincials; Postcards from the Peripheries' talks to Manjula Narayan about being a proud provincial, the difficulty of swimming against the current, bricolage as a literary device, the use of ossified jargon in academia, English literature departments forsaking beauty for the sociological approach, and the reductionism inherent in labelling writing.

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Not a fraction but a whole

Thu, 30 May 2024 08:48:31 -0000

"The book is about my story as somebody of mixed heritage. In many ways it's just the story of somebody trying to figure out who they are in a world that likes to separate and divide. the story of the book is about how, through discovering the origins of ideas, through discovering history, I discover a new way of thinking. So then it became easy for me to reconcile my mixed identity with my Englishness. Because actually, to be English is to be mixed. Then suddenly, it made sense. Identity is constantly in flux; it's an process to be engaged with constantly" - Jassa Ahluwalia, author, Both Not Half talks to Manjula Narayan about the experience of being both Punjabi and English in the UK, not changing his name when he became an actor, the many instances of mixed race actors passing for white in old Hollywood, Sikhism, nationalism, feeling a sense of kinship with transpeople, and being determined to change how the entertainment industry in the West represents people of mixed heritage.

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Of rose beds and avenues lined with amaltas

Thu, 23 May 2024 09:19:20 -0000

"If you look at late 19th century photographs or sketches of Delhi, it is empty and treeless. It's a historical fact that the city's greenery has come with the development of urban settlements... My favourite Delhi garden is Sundar Nursery because there are always new trees to discover there" – Swapna Liddle and Madhulika Liddle, co-authors of Gardens of Delhi talk to Manjula Narayan about the capital's wonderful green oases from Lodhi Garden and Qudsia Bagh to Buddha Jayanti Park and The Garden of Five Senses, among many others.

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Magnetic women, Oxbeas accents, and 1980s Bombay and Delhi

Thu, 16 May 2024 10:34:08 -0000

"Social comedy usually has a very short span because it gets dated. For people to laugh at the same silly jokes, for social comedy to survive means that it's hit some enduring spot. I was trying to write a literary novel. It was a take on the Gothic novel and was about the relationship between Paro and Priya. In a way, Paro was Rebecca (in the eponymous novel by Daphe du Maurier), the beautiful and ruthless woman, and Priya was the archetypal counterpart, the woman who is more discreet and strategic perhaps, one who is more cunning and at the same time entranced by the freedom that someone like Paro represents. When it first came out, it got great reviews outside India but the Indian literary establishment spat at it. It took me by surprise how much they hated the book. I realise now that they hated it because it did not fit their idea of the exalted role of English literature. This was not the language of the rulers; it was the language of the users, the people who use English every day. They just didn't get it." - Namita Gokhale talks to Manjula Narayan about her first novel, Paro; Dreams of Passion, that's just been issued as a Penguin Modern Classic

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A promoter and a patron

Thu, 09 May 2024 15:35:13 -0000

"As a writer and art critic Rudolf von Leyden was able to mentor artists in a certain capacity but for artists to live, to sustain a life as an artist, they need to sell their work. They need patrons. Because of his corporate job, Rudi was able to support the work of the artists he liked – Ara, Husain, Hebber, Souza, Raza of the Progressive Artists Group" - Reema Desai Gehi, author, 'The Catalyst; Rudolf Von Leyden and India's Artistic Awakening' talks to Manjula Narayan about the man who promoted some of India's most eminent artists of the post Independence era, helped them through tough times and ensured they continued to produce great art.

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The story of a family; the story of a nation

Fri, 03 May 2024 04:40:44 -0000

"You can't leave caste behind but you can change religion so why won't you get attracted to another religion for whatever reasons? We are now paying too much attention to religious conversions. There are so many histories which run parallel within this one big history of the country and that's what makes the nation" - Nusrat F Jafri, author, 'This Land We Call Home' weaves the history of her family – her Bhantu maternal great grandparents who became Methodists, her grandparents who were Catholic, and her Shia Muslim parents – with that of India during the colonial period, the post Independence era and right down to the present, to present a view of a nation in flux.

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Of rasa, Raja Ravi Varma, and Raza

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 10:30:00 -0000

"In 2010, I totally got wedded to Indian aesthetics. I decided to view art through the lens of the rasa theory. I went back to the Natya Shastra because that is where it all starts. When I look at art, I find a sense of immediacy, through emotion, through rasa. When you look at the work of Manjit Bawa or Swaminathan or Raza, our great modernists, why are they all still so relevant? Raza's way of looking at abstraction came from very Indic principles. From Raja Ravi Varma and Amrita Sher Gill to contemporary artists, there is an unbroken tradition. You see it even in our digital art. In India, the parallel trajectories of tradition, modernity and the contemporary are still continuing. We can't have a break with the past. Our traditions and roots are still present" - Alka Pande, author, '108 Portraits of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about being rooted in Indian aesthetics, new developments in Indian art, the role of the artist as a catalyst and a conscience keeper, museums as the new patrons and more

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Different stories about India

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 14:22:18 -0000

"The mytho-epic imagination is an integral part of the structure of our culture. The religious character of the mytho-epic imagination in the Indian subcontinent provides a shared collective unconscious," Manoj Kumar Jena, editor, 'Ways of Being Indian; Essays on Religion, Gender and Culture' talks to Manjula Narayan about the country's cultural diversity, death rituals, ways of mourning and the shift to public and shared mourning online, changes in matriliny among the Khasis, ideas of masculinity and the male sex worker, the African diaspora in India, and discrimination against queer individuals despite the recognition of other genders in ancient texts among other fascinating subjects that form the focus of this book.

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Of passportism and pseudiscovery

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 06:02:02 -0000

"The history of tourism is intricately connected to colonialism. Travel writing is a direct descendent of colonial exploratory writing and even today, modern tourism has that DNA. Modern tourism, in its internal logic, has a colonial gaze. This idea of "discovering" other places is built into the idea of why we travel" - Shahnaz Habib, author, 'Airplane Mode; A Passive Aggressive History of Travel' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from wanderlust as consumerism in another form, vacations and the history of work, and medieval Ethiopia to former colonisers sheltering their citizens from their own history of violence and plunder, and how travel is now about the Fear of Missing Out

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Refreshing retellings of traditional tales

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 10:43:05 -0000

"Stories leave a deep impact on how our thinking is shaped. These stories are challenging some very traditional ideas that still exist heavily in society. There is a power in terrible representations. Somehow, we have representations where the disabled woman is a burden to family, to society, and to her partner. As a teenager you think, "Oh, somebody will have to sacrifice a lot to fall in love with me". Then, the more you grow and learn about yourself, you're like, 'What are these ridiculous representations?' It's almost like how we do funny representations of aliens!" - Nidhi Ashok Goyal, editor, 'And They Lived...Ever After; Disabled Women Retell Fairy Tales' talks to Manjula Narayan about the discrimination and simultaneous ungendering that disabled women face, being infantalised, the fatigue of sensitisation, the neglect and isolation that are often everyday experiences, and the great power of stories to change how people think about themselves and others.

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On the complex Indian village

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:13:11 -0000

"Villages are complicated entities. There's always a power game. Now, money values have come in and villages are also changing. The lives between the village and the city are starting to merge. I don't know what that means for the country. Villages and cities are both equally important for us. Some kind of continuity is what the village offers. People who live in villages and don't want to move or change may have something to tell us in the long run" - Mamang Dai, author, 'In Search of the Indian Village', talks to Manjula Narayan about the powerful stories of OV Vijayan and Mahashweta Devi, the writings of Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar on rural settlements, and the place of the village in the Indian imagination on the Books & Authors podcast.

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No last words in history

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 12:07:12 -0000

"While we must read histories produced by historians who have different perspectives on the past, it is very important not to get trapped in any particular ideological framework. For me, it is important to move beyond them" - Upinder Singh, author, 'A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India', talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast on everything from the implausibility of the Aryan invasion theory and the place of forests and their inhabitants in the political history of ancient India to the Harappan script, war elephants, the faulty periodization of Indian history and more.

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A word to the wise

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 15:30:31 -0000

"Strangers matter online. We tend to put a lot of weight on reviews. But it is difficult to tell which ones are fake and which are not. Computer scientists are still working on it. But they have figured out certain characteristics of fake reviews – like the use of lots of exclamation marks and quotation marks" - Abhishek Borah, author, Mine Your Language, talks to Manjula Narayan about the influence of language on business, how to tell if an individual is a potential loan defaulter just from the words he uses, the communication patterns of charismatic leaders, how corporates should deal with social media firestorms, and the surprising impact of expletives in online reviews, among other interesting things!

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Of carpets and memories

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 07:12:38 -0000

I'm not an expert but I am a connoisseur and most of the carpets in this book are part of my collection. Carpets harbour a lot of stories but we seldom read about them because books on carpets usually focus on things like the knots used and how they were made. My idea was to keep the stories" - Jon Westborg, author, 'Of Carpets and Carpetwallahs' talks to Manjula Narayan about talims and carpet designs, the history of carpet weaving in the subcontinent, which, apparently, stretches back to 2C BCE, jail carpets in the colonial period, the carpet of a Norwegian who served as a policeman in Belgaum in colonial India, and the genius Kashmiri carpetwallah, the late Sayeed Ali, who could tell the age and province of origin just by looking at a Persian carpet

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Sex and the Indian woman: It's complicated

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 04:03:07 -0000

"Every culture's sexual values get imbued into all parts of their thinking, not just into how they think about the bedroom. Under patriarchy, mothers are given this special role of restricting their daughters as sexuality is tied up with the sense of social pride or izzat – the mother's value as a mother, within the family, is partly judged on her daughter's gender performance. I don't blame mothers for doing this because, in their minds, their sense of identity is dependent on their daughters' behaviour. So they groom their daughters accordingly. There is also envy between women of different generations." -Amrita Narayanan, psychoanalyst and author, 'Women's Sexuality and Modern India; In a Rapture of Distress' talks to Manjula Narayan about rejecting victimhood, the universal nature of women's sexual oppression, the difficulty in understanding different sexual tastes, endurance as a virtue, and identifying with myths, among other things

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Big tech, profit, loss, and AI

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 07:36:24 -0000

"AI doesn't create; it reproduces. AI doesn't know what is good or bad; even in art, it doesn't know. People want to know whether we'll reach a level where AI is as smart as we are. The kids are always asking me that. We won't reach that level the way we 're going because the intuition is just not there" - Appupen, co-author of the graphic novel, 'Dream Machine; AI and the REAL World' talks to Manjula Narayan about collaborating on this book with French scientist and CEO of an AI start-up, Laurent Daudet, AI's huge energy needs, how, since all the big tech is owned by corporates instead of colleges, labs or government set-ups, the focus is just about making profit and not scientific advancement, and how vast quantities of our information is going towards training AI.

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Detective fiction and the search for justice

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 04:37:30 -0000

Crime fiction seems to have a steady presence because of the way in which it is able to address contemporary issues of law and order relating also to the absence of justice, which is a key problem we all face. The attempt is to make amends, sometimes even outside the system, and to deliver justice. That's why, perhaps, the figure of the detective continues to fascinate" - Tarun K Saint, editor, 'The Hachette Book of Indian Detective Fiction Vols 1 & 2' talks to Manjula Narayan about curating anthologies, the emergence of detective fiction informed by feminist consciousness, how writers from the Indian subcontinent contextualise the methods of the classic whodunit and take it beyond the formulaic.

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By hook or by book

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 09:59:49 -0000

"The thrill of the hunt is what fuels all collecting probably and it's certainly so for book collecting. But here the interest is bibliographical so there's a scholarly component to it as well. It's a very thrilling experience to see that you are a part of a long tradition of book collecting and of a tradition of transactions between dealers and collectors that's been going on for three or four centuries." - Pradeep Sebastian, author, An Inky Parade; Tales for Bibliophiles, talks to Manjula Narayan about his passion for collecting antiquarian books, the passions that drive the international trade, and the great collectors and their obsessions

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A Himalayan feast

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 18:26:07 -0000

Like the pizza, momos are traditional, ethnic, and are loved worldwide" - Rohini Rana, author, 'The Nepal Cookbook; 108 Regional Recipes', talks to Manjula Narayan about the magic of eating with your fingers, the humble potato, magical momos in their many avatars, the flavours of fermentation and smoking, and the subtility and great range of Nepal's cuisine.

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Birds, bees, blinding fog and scorching sunshine

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 17:49:58 -0000

"Dr Salim Ali told me, if you're not a scientist, don't show off your secondhand scientific knowledge. Just write simply and share that. So that's what I've done" - Bulbul Sharma, author, 'Sunbirds in the Morning, Grey Hornbills at Dusk' talks to Manjula Narayan about the variety of birds and trees and the dramatic change of the seasons in the capital city.

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Journey to the End of the Empire

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 13:35:13 -0000

"I've heard its changed but when I was first in Tibetan regions, it was illegal to have a photo of the Dalai Lama. There's a lot of propaganda against the Dalai Lama and other lamas in China and I've actually heard Tibetan people there parroting that propaganda. There's also tremendous ecological damage through mining, the building of large dams and other forms of destructive resource extraction. It's not happening only in Tibet. I am trying to communicate a template of what we seem to be witnessing all across the world. I did feel at times that I was physically being pummeled by what I was observing" - Scott Ezell, author, 'Journey to the End of the Empire; In China Along the Edge of Tibet' talks to Manjula Narayan about travelling through Tibet, the vast changes taking place there, the world's move towards uniformity and extreme ecological degradation in the Anthropocene and how we are all implicated.

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Keepers of the sacred fire

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 17:12:14 -0000

"The community of corpse burners or Doms take pride in their ability to give moksh but it's also a way of justifying their place in a society that otherwise shuns them, humiliates them and treats them as untouchables. They believe they have religious capital. But at the end of the day, there are no privileged caste people who want to do this job. That's why the Doms are continuing to do this job and that's why they are not able to break through the caste barrier" - Radhika Iyengar, author, Fire on the Ganges talks to Manjula Narayan about her book that documents the customs, harrowing work and lives of the keepers of the sacred fire, the Doms of Varanasi

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The mad genius within the flawed cop

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 10:11:08 -0000

I keep thinking of all the other writers who also have these sorts of protagonists. The cops of Karen Slaughter, Ian Rankin and Peter James are not exactly happy guys who are at peace with the world; their relationships are in shambles; they are eccentric. It's probably like taking the mad genius idea and remoulding it to fit the flawed cop. I know this character, Borei Gowda, so well; I know what he can do and what he can't do. His own flaws allow him to see the world with a certain cynicism. But then every cynic is maybe also a naive idealist. In many ways, Bangalore and Gowda are synonymous with each other" - Anita Nair, author, Hot Stage, talks to Manjula Narayan about writing a police procedural series, how personal agendas often drive even political crimes, and creating believable characters with familiar tics and hypocrisies

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The good poets society

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 10:40:46 -0000

"Poetry is not instant coffee; that is undrinkable. What is slow brewed coffee or a tea ceremony? Everything is slow, which means you can appreciate the nuances of the sounds, the cadence of the language, the content of the poems. The good young poets and the good older poets are not very dissimilar. That's because the focus of these poets is grounded on the same things and measured on the same framework: originality of thought, width of creativity, good grammar and a cogent argument. These are the elements that make good writing." - Sudeep Sen, editor, 'Converse; Contemporary English Poetry by Indians' talks to Manjula Narayan about writing in English, poetry as a tough space, attempting to build a community of poets, and the effort that goes into putting together a good anthology.

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Lessons from Rajasthan's camel herders

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 07:57:06 -0000

"Within Rajasthan's Raika culture, camels are raised in a system that's cruelty free - the calves are not separated from their mothers, camels walk around and choose their own diets and have a close relationship with humans. It's an alternative model of livestock and food production that has great value. The Raika demonstrate a way of keeping animals that's in tune with the environment and has high animal welfare standards. It should be a model for the rest of the world. Slowly, we are getting to the stage where people are recognising this. Modern India's thinking about livestock needs to be decolonised because India's traditional livestock keeping systems are a treasure. There's enormous heritage value in them and this intangible heritage also creates wealth and has a lot of commercial potential. What's missing is an appreciation of the value of this heritage. I don't regret that I've been here for the last 30 years." - Ilse Kohler-Rollefson, author, Camel Karma talks to Manjula Narayan about her work with the camel herders of Rajasthan, the great health benefits of milk from free-range camels, and why sustainable methods of livestock farming make more sense.

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The trajectories of Buddhism in modern India

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 06:54:57 -0000

"Nehru and Ambedkar represented two very different visions of the way Buddhism could be imagined. Buddhism is a full-fledged revolution for Ambedkar and Nehru's government was not comfortable with that sort of vision of Buddhism. [Similarly] there is a fracture between the Ambedkarite vision of Buddhism and SN Goenka's vision, in which you can be a Hindu or Christian and still practise Vipassana. It unfolds in a wider ecumenical, secularised idea of what a modern India could be like, and I think those two trajectories are really difficult to reconcile. In its totality, what I really wanted to do was paint a picture of all walks of Buddhist life -- the lives of labourers who were inspired to convert to Buddhism, of intellectuals, of both Sanatan Hindus, who had a certain vision of Buddhism, as well as liberal, more secular-minded Hindus, of progressives, Leftists and Right Wing figures... I wanted to understand the whole composite picture of what Buddhism looked like during this broader period of time."

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The stuff of food fantasies

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:06:40 -0000

"In our family, whenever anyone goes out, they don't ask him, 'What did you see?' The first question is 'What did you eat?' So, food is paramount. In my childhood, if ever I wanted to have good food at home, I'd ask my father for it. Funnily enough, it was the men in the family who took on that role. My father is a very passionate cook. I felt that there should be some place where his recipes are documented because everyone in the family has memories associated with his food" - Shreeparna Khaitan, author, 'Bapu's Curries' talks about her father lawyer Umesh Khaitan's culinary repertoire that includes traditional Marwari dishes and fantastic fusion ideas even as co-author Surbhi Anand reveals plans to bring out another volume for the many great dishes that didn't make it to this one. From Rajasthani ker sangri ka saag to delicious santare ka jhol (soupy orange curry) and gucchi biryani (biryani with Kashmiri morels), the food ideas in this volume are both delightful and surprising.

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The battle for your mind

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:58:53 -0000

"Hindutva pop stars are trying to make hate entertaining and so normalized that people don't realise they are consuming propaganda. They are changing your life through their work and yet most know very little about them" - Kunal Purohit, author, 'H-Pop; The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars' follows a singer, a poet and a journalist-spiritual coach to understand polarisation, points of radicalisation, the Hindutva plus bloc, and why it's necessary to understand the dominant political ideology

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14 Historic Walks of Delhi

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 12:05:47 -0000

The idea of the old and the new has always had an interesting relationship with the city of Delhi; the name 'Delhi' has been shifting from site to site. I'd say the Qutub Minar and the Meherauli Archeological Park are the most important sites. If you look at the Qutub Minar complex you can understand a lot about the evolution of architecture and culture in Delhi, and also about Indian history and the historical underpinnings of what we call our composite culture" - Swapna Liddle, author, 14 Historic Walks of Delhi, talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the new and updated edition of her very popular book, the history of Delhi's many cities, Metcalfe's bizarre holiday home, Nizamuddin Auliya's pronouncements, the jugaad in the false arches of the Qutub Minar, and about successfully bridging the gap between serious academic history and the general public.

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The West, Indian gurus and the search for Enlightenment

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 08:17:59 -0000

For women of a certain class, there was a tremendous romance attached to Indian swamis and gurus. That's perhaps because gurus of that time presented themselves as an antidote to the very stiff, rigid idea of manhood that prevailed in Victorian and Edwardian society. What could be more romantic than this figure talking about liberation and enlightenment experiences? For these people it was as if Jesus was walking on the earth again. That had an attraction to women who were educated but were not able to pursue careers and do the things that women take for granted today. Yoga is probably the longest lasting legacy of what happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Minds in the West were considerably broadened by the sense of spiritual enquiry and that was a tremendous benefit to people." - Mick Brown, author, The Nirvana Express talks to Manjula Narayan about Indian gurus and the West's search for enlightenment

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A glimpse of the world behind bars

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 13:00:51 -0000

Ever since my release, I've been thinking of what can be done to improve the situation in prisons. One of the byproducts of people like us going to jail is that we get a glimpse into the world behind bars. If we are able to do even a little bit to help that, this book would be very much worth it" - Sudha Bharadwaj, author, 'From Phansi Yard; My Year With the Women of Yerawada' talks to Manjula Narayan about the need to improve the quality and accountability of legal aid, to make psychological counselling available in prisons, the collectivising of housework, keeping her sense of humour alive in trying times, the tragic consequences of girls being brought up to make relationships the centre of their lives, the police habit of holding female family members hostage for the crimes of absconding gangsters, how her book could serve as a manual to improve Indian jails, and much more.

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Doing heuristics & showing chutzpah

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 15:29:07 -0000

"What we assume is gut instinct when it comes to the cooking of our mothers and grandmothers is actually hours and hours of practice. They didn't have much choice, they had to cook. So, just by dint of spending 10,000 hours on something, you become good at it. Really, someone who develops a recipe is a scientist and someone who cooks at home and makes delicious food is a chemical engineer" - Krish Ashok, author, 'Masala Lab; The Science of Indian Cooking' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from the influence of flavour memories and the wisdom of Ratatouille to electronic pressure cookers, instant food and how his strategic laziness as a software engineer helped him write this book.

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A taste of heaven on the street

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:13:18 -0000

"There is so much diversity in one plate of a chaat dish and there is so much diversity from one end of the country to the other. In a plate of chaat, there are differences in texture, temperature, colour, spices and condiments. Chaat, for me, is an ideal representation of what Indian food stands for" - Sonal Ved, author, 'India Local; Classic Street Food Recipes' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from pani puri, ragda patties and lal aloo Wai Wai to jinni dosa, phaley, kathi rolls and other fantastic street foods from across the nation and her own amazing street-inspired recipes too

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Cutting for stone; the jali in India

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:44:17 -0000

"Stone carving is really one of the great accomplishments of India's architecture. The jali is part of that larger rock cutting and carving tradition. It has a special place because it wasn't just a decorative feature. It filtered light onto the most sacred spots around the graves and shrines of saints and created a kind of metaphorical language which involved the interaction of light and shadow in the creation of spaces and in the experience of space for the people who visit these shrines. The jali, for me, also becomes a kind of key to the way the mind thinks in India -- not always directly approaching things but through layers, filters and frameworks that exist" - Navina Najat Haider, author, 'Jali; Lattice of Divine Light in Mughal Architecture' talks to Manjula Narayan about palaces, Sufi shrines, contemporary jalis, the traditional craftsmen whose skills continue to be passed down through generations, and more

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Scents and sensibility

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:50:55 -0000

"Incense was the original perfume. There was the belief that if you burnt it, the smoke was able to transcend the barrier between the worlds. Things like sandalwood may have remained in the realm of worship but once the kings and the nobles began smearing it on their bodies, it became popular with everybody. Technically, you can have your incense smell of anything just like you can have your perfume smell of anything but the connotations remain and they are very strong" - Divrina Dhingra, author, The Perfume Project talks to Manjula Narayan about the wonderful fragrances of sandalwood and vetiver, rose, jasmine and saffron, how towns like Kannauj and Madurai continue to be important centres of the creation and trade in specific perfumes, the complexities of Kashmiri saffron, the skilled craftsmen at the centre of it all, the impact of climate change and changing land use, and the personal associations that make individuals prefer specific scents

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On women who have broadened our understanding of the natural world

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 05:23:50 -0000

"There's an upsurge of interest in natural history at every level and that's a positive sign. The diversity of work by these biologists is a reflection of that interest. There are people working at various levels to bring about change and conserve species. I wanted to write about women who had substantially impacted landscapes and ecosystems, who had changed the direction of conservation outcomes. That was the framework within which this book was planned. I also wanted to focus on the journeys of these women and not just the outcomes, which is why the long form essay was the perfect form in which to do this book" - Anita Mani, editor, Women in the Wild; Stories of India's Most Brilliant Women Wildlife Biologists talks to Manjula Narayan on The Books & Authors podcast.

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Change and fluidity in rural India

Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:06:13 -0000

We need to recognise that the rural has always been a fluid place and it continues to be a fluid place. At the same time, in the case of India, it is not dying, it is not even shrinking. The absolute size of the rural is also expanding. We think in linear terms. We think that there is a process of urbanisation and that there's an inevitability of urbanisation. What happened during the pandemic will have interesting spatial consequences. The manner in which New Media has integrated all kinds of settlements, there is a tendency for smaller level settlements to persist for much longer. There might even be a reverse trend. We are now living in a new tech age which might produce new kinds of settlement patterns" - Surinder S Jodhka, author, The Indian Village; Rural Lives in the 21st Century, talks to Manjula Narayan about how the idea of the Indian village as a never changing space was a colonial one, the great changes happening in the country's villages, patterns of migration, and the persistence, even expansion, of the rural in contemporary India.

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Wounded by the Word

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 17:30:11 -0000

"The structure of religious division may keep changing; the structure of political oppression may keep changing; the details may keep changing, but the Reality that Kabir evokes beyond this is timeless. So, his words are also timeless. Social activists use Kabir for their own agenda. They say Kabir is about Hindu-Muslim unity. That's not really true. He is lambasting both Hindus and Muslims. All he says is there is only 1 truth and there is only one reality and what is the point of these useless and stupid arguments and fights? In that way, he is unifying, but he isn't interested in social brotherhood or harmony. He talks about something much higher than that. So, everyone uses Kabir for their own agenda. And that is OK" - Vipul Rikhi, author, 'Drunk on Love; The Life, Vision and Songs of Kabir' talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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On the cusp of change

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 08:54:59 -0000

"Today, the internet makes it possible for us to get into multiple businesses; there's a convergence of technologies which opens up new opportunities. We are at a real cusp. In all my 40 years of working, I have never seen a technology with such a wide sweeping impact as Generative AI. But you can't stop technology, you have to keep moving with it." - Ashok Soota, co-author, 'Busted; Debunking Management Myths with Logic, Experience and Curiosity' talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from multitasking and toxic managers to risk management and anticipating the future.

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On chanelling Anandibai

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 08:48:03 -0000

"Many of the challenges that Anandibai faced are universal - whether it's childbirth or trying to please everybody - but she had a strong sense of self so she was constantly trying to juggle, and that's something that women today face too. In many ways, I feel like I was able to examine my own voice, my own experiences through writing about her. It was very liberating to be able to take someone else's story and translate that and hopefully, give that story back to her" - Shikha Malaviya, author, 'Anandibai Joshee; A Life in Poems' talks about giving a voice to India's first woman doctor through her poetry.

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The secular fundamentalist

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 05:41:47 -0000

"Today, the reason I've been completely marginalised is that the leadership of my party regards me as a loose cannon. My commitment to secular fundamentalism is of such a basic character that pragmatic people in the Congress party think I'm being too extreme" - Mani Shankar Aiyar, politician and author, 'Memoirs of a Maverick' talks to Manjula Narayan about the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva, being brought up as a "coconut", Rajiv Gandhi as India's most misunderstood PM, standing up for Nehruvian values, the need to talk to Pakistan, and why he will never stop speaking his mind

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Shaping India's Leadership

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 07:52:48 -0000

"Prime ministership is a continuum. If VP Singh had not done Mandal to empower the OBCs, the story for Mr Modi might have been very different. He is today an OBC PM and he's talking about taking power to the most backward, the Mahadalits, the Pasmanda Muslims; those who have been on the peripheries of power are to be given a stake. If VP Singh hadn't done as he did, maybe the BJP would have continued as a Brahmin-Bania party, which it used to be known as" - Neerja Chowdhury, author, 'How Prime Ministers Decide', talks to Manjula Narayan about Indira Gandhi's religiosity, the central issues that each Indian PM has grappled with, Manmohan Singh and the Indo-US Nuclear deal, the friendship between Vajpayee and PV Narasimha Rao, Sonia Gandhi asking VP Singh and Vajpayee for advice and much more.

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Borders of Diversity

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 04:58:23 -0000

"The issues of citizenship and identity become very mixed up in the case of cross border communities like Bengalis and Nepalis. And that is something one is seeing now happening with Kukis as well in Manipur, where there is widespread suspicion that a lot of them have come from Myanmar" - Samrat Choudhury, author, 'Northeast India; A Political History' talks to Manjula Narayan about the complex cultural, linguistic, religious and political histories of each of the states of northeast India, how the region became a part of India as a result of the Anglo-Burmese wars, the genesis of the idea of India itself, the ignored history of slavery in the subcontinent, and the need to avoid airbrushing the past.

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The unflinching gaze

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 13:48:45 -0000

"Our writers have never divorced themselves from social reality. They have not really gone as much into individual lives without taking into account the social space in which those lives are lived. Almost all these stories are written in a down-to-earth mode. The attempt is largely to depict the real world and not the world of the intellectual imagination or fantasy. There's too much reality to get away from. Writers in our country have taken that reality head on and grappled with it, and have never flinched or looked away. These are the stories that continue to tell you the things that matter" - Arunava Sinha, editor, The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told, talks to Manjula Narayan about translation, pan Indianism, literature from different parts of the country, and how editing a volume of short fiction like this one is an intense experience.

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Change starts with mothers

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 16:28:26 -0000

"Even women who says they are feminist, within the family, they put out messages that they have internalised. Both daughters and sons notice it and the sons profit from it. But in fact, the mother's spoiling of her son is a negative gift because the world outside is not a cuddly place. As a result, it becomes difficult for him to handle that world. If we want to look at the future, we first have to be aware of our past. We need to look at the oral traditions we have inserted in our lives and think, "Is this the way?" We can create a new world of solidarity without competition as men against women." - Mineke Schipper, author, Hills of Paradise, which looks at power, powerlessness and the female body, talks about sexist proverbs from Europe, China, Africa and India, the power of ancient myth in modern life, and the way towards a more equal world.

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Much food for thought

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 05:23:03 -0000

"Our food memories are hardwired in our brain. I tell parents about the importance of giving your child healthy comfort food so that they return to those foods as adults in times of happiness and stress. If junk food is their comfort food as children, they will return to it as adults, and we know that those foods actually cause depression. Food has a lot of effect on your hormones. When you eat a healthy food that makes you feel good inside, you are cutting down stress right away" - Kavita Devgan, author, '500 Recipes; Simple Tricks for Stress-Free Cooking' talks to Manjula Narayan about food memories, the pluses of including mushrooms and buckwheat in your diet, giving in to occasional cravings for sabudana, and opting for variety on your plate

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"Koi hai? Who's there?"

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 10:41:57 -0000

"There are no ghosts, but ghostliness does exist" - Riksunder Banerjee, author, 'Haunted Places of India' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan about the paranormal, horror stories from different parts of the country, and avenging ghost mothers.

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Dancing for her life

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 09:04:51 -0000

"The things she'd seen of the world made her cautious of men in general. So, she never allowed herself to be dictated to by a man. Also, she understood, from the other tawaifs, that it was important to give your child an education, which she hadn't had herself. I was sent to boarding school. I never really faced any discrimination because, the minute I opened my mouth, somehow, people think I come from an affluent background. They just assume you are well off because you are fluent in English. Nobody asks you about your background." - Manish Gaekwad, author, The Last Courtesan, talks to Manjula Narayan about his mother, who was trafficked as a child and her subsequent life as an entertainer in Calcutta and at Foras Road in 1990s Bombay, and about writing a memoir about her life.

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Seaweed as humanity's saviour

Fri, 23 Jun 2023 05:27:12 -0000

"Seaweed is packed with iron, zinc, Omega 3, protein and Vitamin B12 and is especially important for countries with a large vegetarian population like India, where it can provide a lot of the nutritional intake. India also has a huge potential for seaweed farming. It has a 17000-kilometre coastline and 700 types of seaweed but you don't yet know how to cultivate it so there's a lot of research to be done" - Vincent Doumeizel, author, The Seaweed Revolution, talks to Manjula Narayan about the many applications of seaweed including in promoting food security, improving health, in the creation of environmentally friendly clothing, in building materials and in combating pollution, among other things.

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From the tiny shrew to the giant elephant

Fri, 16 Jun 2023 10:32:35 -0000

"We thought that, when it came to mammals, we knew it all. But we've just discovered two new macaques and a new barking deer in Arunachal Pradesh. We now know that we have more than 440 mammals in India. And there must be more. We need many more Indians working on many more discrete taxa. If they do that then we'll have a truer picture. We work with an encyclopaedia of ignorance to guide us. Nature has so many things and we are only scraping the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we see." - Vivek Menon, author, 'Indian Mammals; A Field Guide' talks to Manjula Narayan about the wild asses of Kutch, bats as great pollinators, India having the largest squirrels in the world, and about putting together this impressive volume that includes in depth information about every known mammal in the country from the tiny shrew to the large elephant.

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Of mistaken identity and police excess

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 06:54:49 -0000

"If the police accuses someone, unless it's proved in court, don't believe them," says Shevlin Sebastian, co-author, The Stolen Necklace, which examines the case of VK Thajudheen, whose safe middle class existence was shattered when he was imprisoned for a petty crime he did not commit. A true story of police excess in a small town in north Kerala, it takes readers into the milieu of the Muslim community of the area, offers glimpses of life in a mofussil prison, and underlines the fragility and randomness of life.

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The great contributions of tawaifs and devdasis

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 07:20:22 -0000

"Every courtesan from Amrapali to Hazrat Mahal has had an impact on the sociopolitical environment," says Madhur Gupta whose 'Courting Hindustan' presents a rich portrait of the legendary performers who enriched Indian culture

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Swede dreams of masala dosa and wada sambar

Thu, 25 May 2023 13:40:43 -0000

"Other people do adventure sports and break their legs; I go and eat and break my tummy" - Zac O'Yeah, author, 'Digesting India' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan about eating fresh mussels in Thalassery, exploring Ahmedabad's flea market, munching on Russian salad in Prayagraj, and more

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Why cheetahs aren't exotic aliens - The Story of India's Cheetahs

Sat, 20 May 2023 09:22:56 -0000

"The cheetah is the only mammal to have become extinct after independence. Today we are an aspirational country. Why can't we restore a species that we lost? I'm asking this from a purely nationalist point of view" - Divyabhanusinh, author, The Story of India's Cheetahs talks to Manjula Narayan about the long history of the cat in India and the many expected benefits to the ecosystem of its reintroduction.Books & Authors podcast with Divyabhanusinh, author, The Story of India's Cheetahs

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Even Google maps can't beat this 1847 map of Shahjahanabad!

Fri, 12 May 2023 09:02:18 -0000

"This map of Shahjahanabad, what's now Old Delhi, was made in 1847. After the revolt of 1857 was suppressed by the British, large parts of the city were demolished. So much changed that this map is an invaluable look at that city as it was before the destruction of 1857" - Swapna Liddle, author, 'Shahjahanabad; Mapping a Mughal City' talks to Manjula Narayan about the exquisite administrative map of the city that's now in the British Museum and what it tells us about the old walled city, its neighbourhoods, its social life and individual citizens both aristocratic and ordinary.

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Aasheesh Pittie talk about the pleasures of birds and birdwatching

Fri, 05 May 2023 07:47:49 -0000

"Birdwatching is a hobby whose time has come in India today. That's why we're seeing such an explosion of interest" - Aasheesh Pittie, author, The Living Air talks to @utterflea about imitative drongos, the impact of the loss of vultures, and why we love birds

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"The Panchatantra's animals are actually humans wearing animal masks" - Meena Arora Nayak

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 11:50:56 -0000

"The Panchatantra is an allegory of humanness. Its animals are not zoomorphic; they are actually humans wearing the mask of animals. The Panchatantra is not at all concerned with morality. It doesn't say that something is right or wrong. None of the stories are judgemental. They don't tell you how to behave; they show you what behaviour is like. It's a mirror held up to humanness. That's one of the Panchatantra's biggest selling points" - Meena Arora Nayak, author of a new retelling of The Panchatantra of Vishnusharma talks to Manjula Narayan about this wonderful collection of stories first compiled around 300BCE, and how they are essentially about the human quest for happiness

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Charmaine O'Brien - "Women have been maintaining India's food culture forever!"

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 06:28:38 -0000

"Women have been the maintainers of India's food culture forever. Then, they were empowered by technology and took to blogging about food, and it's grown from there. Most of the really good deep-dive food writing in India now is largely being done by women" - Charmaine O'Brien, author, Eating the Present Tasting the Future talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from India's post-Liberalisation transformation from being a resource-conservative country to a resource-consumptive one, the great influence of Masterchef Australia, the evolution of India's wines and cheeses, the role of food apps, and the great change that's happening with Indians discovering the country's varied regional cuisines.

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Books & Authors podcast with Ashok Gopal, author, 'A Part Apart; The Life and Thought of BR Ambedkar'

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 13:14:48 -0000

"The idea of a suitable religion for democracy strengthened Ambedkar's view of Buddhism. His conversion was not just intellectual but also emotional and spiritual" - Ashok Gopal, author, 'A Part Apart; The Life and Thought of BR Ambedkar', talks to Manjula Narayan about his mammoth work. Tune in to now!

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Books & Authors podcast with Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author, 'Basu Chatterji and Middle of the Road Cinema'

Thu, 06 Apr 2023 10:13:33 -0000

Listen to Manjula Narayan discuss with Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author, 'Basu Chatterji and Middle of the Road Cinema' about how this book tells us many inside stories about the ace director’s films. The anecdotes are not restricted to trivia and behind-the-scene occurrences, as films like Saara Aakash, Piya Ka Ghar, Rajnigandha, Chhoti Si Baat, Chitchor, Manzil, Khatta Meetha, Swami, Priyatama, Baton Baton Mein, Shaukeen and Chameli Ki Shaadi are analysed in detail, even with a mention of their flaws. His shift to television with Rajani, starring Priya Tendulkar, and his work in other Doordarshan serials such as like Ek Ruka Hua Faisla and Byomkesh Bakshi are deal with too. Tune in to know more!

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Books & Authors podcast with Avijit Ghosh, author, 'When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala'

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 11:53:42 -0000

Listen to Manjula Narayan discuss with Avijit Ghosh, author, 'When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala' about the 1980s in Hindi cinema, it was the decade of the dark and powerful police drama Ardh Satya. It was the decade of the kitschy excess of the action comedy Himmatwala. It was a decade of opposites. It was a time of furious change beyond the silver screen, video cassettes brought cinema to drawing rooms and bedrooms; television and one-day cricket emerged as fierce competition to films; piracy put movie theatres in crisis; film stars were elected to the Indian Parliament in surprising numbers.

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Books & Authors podcast with Aashima Dogra, co-author, Lab Hopping

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:55:28 -0000

Listen to Manjula Narayan discuss with the Aashima Dogra, co-author of Lab Hopping, how from Bhopal to Bhubaneswar, from Bangalore to Jammu, she and her co author Nandita Jayaraj engage in thought-provoking conversations with renowned scientists like Gagandeep Kang, Rohini Godbole, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Prajval Shastri, as well as researchers at earlier stages of their scientific careers.

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Books & Authors podcast with Sudeshna Guha, author, A History of India Through 75 Objects

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 10:43:32 -0000

“We can write on Ancient Indian History but that doesn't mean you are finished knowing all there was to know.“ The history of India through 75 objects is a curation of objects from the prehistoric ages through twenty-first century India, author Sudeshna Guha provides a panoramic view of the rich histories of the subcontinent to the host Manjula Narayan. The incisive essays in this collection detail not just the objects but the histories of their reception: examining how changing times and attitudes cast their shadow on the ways in which the past is interpreted and narrated. In doing so, A History of India through 75 Objects inspires us to interrogate our own notions of a knowable past and fixed national history. Teeming with thought-provoking insights and surprising anecdotes, the essays instill a sense of wonder about the continuous processes by which histories are constructed.

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Books & Authors podcast with Srinath Rao, author, Meow Meow; The Incredible True Story of Baby Patankar

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 07:31:27 -0000

"I've always been a crime beat reporter and I've met a lot of funny characters," says Srinath Rao, author, 'Meow Meow', which looks at the story of alleged drug dealer Baby Patankar, who dominated the news cycle in March 2015. He talks to Manjula Narayan about the blackly comic true crime story set in Mumbai that features drug dealers, crooked policemen, double crossed lovers and large hauls of Mephedrone that incredibly turn out to be Ajinomoto!

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Books & Authors podcast with Sam Miller, author, Migrants; The Story of Us All

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 07:37:04 -0000

"Stories about migration, some of which date back several thousands of years and some of which are much more current, still play a toxic role in the politics of South Asia. But every country has its really odd set of migration narratives. The modern narrative on migration is so messed up that it's impossible to attack it head-on. I've tried to do that by pulling back into history in which some of the absurdity shines through" - Sam Miller, author, Migrants; The Story of Us All talks to Manjula Narayan about his new book, that presents the historical movements of everyone from the Vikings, African Americans, and the Jews to the Yahgans, Pocahontas and the Chinese

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Books & Authors podcast with Rahaab Allana, editor, Unframed

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 07:21:04 -0000

"The whole history of photography from an archival point of view is not just the history of the nation or the world; it's also the history of the changing means of representation and the changing ways of producing images. We should not flatten visual history to a linear narrative. We have to think of it as multi-nodal and cross-pollinatory to a great extent," says Rahaab Allana, editor, 'Unframed; Discovering Image Practices in South Asia' that includes interviews with lens-based artists from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and varied pieces on the visual culture of South Asia by critics, curators and

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Books & Authors podcast with Swapna Liddle, author, The Broken Script; Delhi Under the East India Company

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:10:03 -0000

The period leading up to 1857 in Delhi is written about in very contradictory terms. Sometimes it is called the last flicker before the candle goes out. But this is the high point of Urdu literature and poetry; it is the lifetime of Ghalib, Momin, Zauq, Bahadur Shah, and of Delhi college. It is also the time of the total decline of the Mughal dynasty. There were so many interesting things happening yet it is talked about in cliches. Earlier colonial historians pushed the idea that the period was decadent because it served to then justify British rule and the belief that it was needed for India to progress.

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Books & Authors podcast with Umesh Gaur, whose art collection is the subject of Paper Trails

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 15:34:01 -0000

"India has taken off as a country in the last 30 years and as India continues to become a more significant force in world politics, the art follows through. We, as collectors, are enjoying the benefits of that. A lot of museums are now very interested in Indian art, which wasn't the case 20 years ago. I think the standing of the nation in the world is projected onto its art and culture." - Umesh Gaur, whose art collection is the subject of Paper Trails; Modern Indian Works on Paper

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Books and Authors podcast with Sara Rai, author, Raw Umber

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 01:30:00 -0000

"I wouldn't say that everything I've written in this memoir is true. Some of it has been added on, invented, embellished. It's been a long process of remembering and becoming as I remembered. This is why I talk about the boundary between memory and fiction being blurred; because while you are writing something, there is some other process that takes over." - Sara Rai, author, Raw Umber, talks to Manjula Narayan about her memoir that touches on growing up in Allahabad, her grandfather Premchand, the ordinariness of death, and drawing from a pool of languages in her writing.

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Books and Authors podcast with Pratibha Karan, author, The Book of Dals

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 02:30:00 -0000

"Dals have been a part of the human diet for centuries and they are a substitute for more expensive animal-based proteins, and they are also very diverse and versatile. Dals are actually used all over the world. After my book on biryanis, my family urged me to work on another book and we decided on this because dals are an intrinsic part of everyday cooking in every Indian home" - Pratibha Karan, author, The Book of Dals, talks to Manjula Narayan about everything from Telangana sambar and Maharashtrian amti to puran poli, papads, payasams, Kashmiri dals and rajma chawal, among many other fantastic preparations made from lentils.

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Books & Authors podcast with Colleen Taylor Sen, author, Ashoka and the Maurya Dynasty

Fri, 20 Jan 2023 10:56:25 -0000

"One of the principles of Ashoka's dhamma is tolerance and respect for all religions and that really impressed me. Also, the whole idea of inscribing messages on rocks may have come from the Middle East. The Persians did this, but when they did it, they were bragging. They said things like, 'I, Darius, conquered all these people; I slaughtered these people; I built these cities.' They were bragging about it but Asoka uses the same medium not to brag but to tell people to live better lives and he's kind of sad that they don't do so. He's really unique in history. I can't think of any other ruler who's done this," - Coleen Taylor Sen, author, Ashoka and the Maurya Dynasty talks to Manjula Narayan about Ashoka, his grandfather Chandragupta, the Arthashastra, the rock edicts, the figure of Ashoka in Buddhist texts, the colonial effort that reinstated him as a major figure in Indian history, and his significance and place in contemporary India.

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Books & Authors podcast with Ruth Harris, author, Guru to the World; the LIfe and Legacy of Vivekananda

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 10:13:27 -0000

"It's not the picture of Vivekananda that people have but he was extremely funny. He tried not to be too hard on the Americans so he did a lot with humour and teasing" - Ruth Harris, author, Guru to the World; The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda talks to Manjula Narayan about the connections Vivekananda forged in Europe and America, his guru Ramakrishna, the contribution of his disciple Sister Nivedita, and his own radicalism and rejection of orthodoxy.

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Books & Authors podcast with Annapurna Garimella, editor, The Long Arc of South Asian Art

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 12:13:49 -0000

"History has become a big bone of contention in our society. A lot of people are excited by chewing on that bone of contention and I'm very happy about that. People who are writing for serious general audiences are doing a great service but I think that those kinds of books also need to be reviewed very seriously by people who are familiar with those fields and are able to do some amount of public introspection on the art of writing history, on the method of interpretation, and the impact of certain ways of telling narratives on the current struggle over how we tell India's histories." - Annapurna Garimella, editor, The Long Arc of South Asian Art, talks to Manjula Narayan about the essays in the volume that touch on a wide range of subjects including 18th century Udaipur painting, the ancient St Thomas crosses of Kerala, the Shiva temple established by Tamil traders in China in the late 13th century, and Queen Victoria's picturesque Indian servants

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Books & Authors podcast with Andrew Quilty, author, August in Kabul

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 07:37:58 -0000

"The elite local forces that the CIA had established and operated with since the early years of the war in Afghanistan were both effective and very brutal, and were responsible for scores of civilian deaths" - Andrew Quilty, author, August in Kabul, talks to Manjula Narayan about the 10 years he spent covering the country, trying to presents facts so the reader can draw her own conclusions, death of Indian photographer Danish Siddiqui, the suicide bombing among the crowd at Kabul airport desperate to escape the Taliban, and the militia killings of Talibs in the chaos that accompanied the American withdrawal from the country.

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Books & Authors podcast with Nilosree Biswas, author, Calcutta On Your Plate

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 11:31:27 -0000

"I always try to bring in a people's history point-of-view into my work. So, in the telebhaja, sweets, and the dak bungalow sections, I have mentioned the people who created the dishes. I like to bring in their stories to make it more human. The lives of the makers are equally important to me," says Nilosree Biswas, author, Calcutta On Your Plate. She talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about everything from Bengali sweets, the history of cookbooks, the influence of Awadhi cuisine via Wajid Ali Shah on Bengali food and how the Victorian "good wife" code was transported to the bhadralok and the effect it had on the region's food culture. Tune in!

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Books & Authors podcast with Jitendra Dixit, author, Bombay After Ayodhya

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 12:12:05 -0000

"People come from all over the country to Mumbai and it is cosmopolitan. But if you look at the history of the city, there has been tremendous violence and communities have clashed every 10-15 years," says Jitendra Dixit, author, Bombay After Ayodhya, which chronicles events that affected the city over the last 30 years. The journalist who has experienced and covered many of the events that form part of the narrative of this book talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about the city's gang wars, communal riots, police encounters, the real estate boom and increased ghettoisation, natural disasters, and the unionisation of Bollywood that could push the industry out of the city.

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Books & Authors podcast with Abhay K, editor, The Book of Bihari Literature

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 09:52:39 -0000

"I took it as a mission to do this anthology because a lot of things are known about Bihar but literature is not one of them. This book is also an invitation to literary translators to explore the rich world of Bihari literature" - Abhay K, editor, The Book of Bihari Literature, talks to Manjula Narayan about the many languages of Bihar, its ancient history, the challenges of translation, and this anthology that includes a range of writing from poems in Pali by Buddhist nuns from 600BCE and pieces by 19th-century writers like Sake Dean Mahomed and Avadh Behari Lall to stories by such stalwarts as Phanishwar Nath Renu and contemporary figures like Abdus Samad and Anamika.

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Books & Authors podcast with Nandita Iyer, author, The Great Indian Thali

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 09:17:10 -0000

"Looking at a cookbook should take the reader down memory lane and inspire them to recreate the dishes," says Nandita Iyer, author, The Great Indian Thali, which features vegetarian dishes from across the country. She talks to Manjula Narayan about foraged foods, the great variety of vegetables and fruits in India, putting the spotlight on lesser known foods and such wonderful recipes as amrood sabzi, chenna poda, the cheesecake from Odisha, and Manipuri Chak Hao, among many others!

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Books & Authors podcast with Manohar Shetty, Editor, The Greatest Goan Stories Ever Told

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 10:54:56 -0000

"What's unique about this book is that it has stories originally written in English and ones translated from the Portuguese, Konkani and Marathi, but all of them are Goan." - Manohar Shetty, editor, 'The Greatest Goan Stories Ever told' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about the new anthology, which features the writing of a range of accomplished writers across generations including Damodar Mauzo, Augusto Do Rosario Rodrigues, Ramnath Gajanan Gawade, Savia Viegas, Selma Carvalho and Roanna Gonsalves, among others, and picks up where Shetty's earlier anthology of Goan writing, Ferry Crossings (1998), left off.

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Books & Authors podcast with Anirudha Bhattacharjee, coauthor Kishore Kumar; The Ultimate Biography

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 08:41:52 -0000

"Unless you are a good mimic, you cannot be a good playback singer and Kishore Kumar used to mimic voices left, right and centre. He was a very good actor himself and was also very observant. He observed heroes and internalized their characteristics. That's why he could sing differently for each of them. His songs will remain" - Anirudha Bhattacharjee, the co-author with Parthiv Dhar of 'Kishore Kumar; The Ultimate Biography' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about the legendary singer's childhood in Khandwa, rise to stardom in Bombay, his doomed marriage to Madhubala, his deep relationship with SD Burman, and his run-ins with the government during the Emergency.

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Books & Authors podcast with V Sudarshan, author, Tuticorin; Adventures in Tamil Nadu's Crime Capital

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 12:53:07 -0000

"The stories in the book are propelled by the character of retired DGP Anoop Jaiswal. They tell you how difficult it is to work within a system and what police jobs really are like. They straddle a grey area and you begin to wonder who the criminals are and who are the good people. Really, when you go a little deeper, a criminal no longer appears to be a criminal; he becomes a human being at some point." - V Sudarshan, author, 'Tuticorin; Adventures in Tamil Nadu's Crime Capital'. He talks to Manjula Narayan about the book based on the officer's recollection of his time policing a poverty-stricken district prone to caste conflict and high levels of often bizarre violence.

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Books & Authors podcast with Kavery Nambisan, author, Cherry Red Cherry Black; The Story of Coffee in India

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 12:28:24 -0000

"In the last decade there has been a greater stress on marketing. This is partly because of climate change, globalisation, and because other countries too produce coffee so there is competition. There is more focus now on how to sustain coffee growing as an industry," says Kavery Nambisan, author Cherry Red Cherry Black; The Story of Coffee in India, which traces the growth of the crop from the days of Baba Budan, who returned to Chikmagalur from the Haj with coffee seeds from Arabia, through the colonial period to the contemporary era. She talks to Manjula Narayan about the social changes that accompanied coffee drinking in India, the personalities who contributed to the growth of plantations in the country, expert contemporary coffee tasters, the challenges facing this labour-intensive industry in a time of climate change, and the deep satisfaction that comes with sipping on a good cup of coffee.

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Books & Authors podcast with Aparajita Datta, co editor, At the Feet of Living Things

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 13:00:22 -0000

"About the 'fortress approach' to conservation, many conservationists might feel that the end justifies the means because wildlife is so threatened and anyway most of the land is for people. But many species actually thrive outside protected areas and might also move outside and coexist with people. We have to share our space with nature and if you want wildlife to be saved, you need the support of local communities. The kind of tolerance that exists in India is very different from that seen in many Western countries when wild animals attack or steal livestock. So, while protected areas are needed, there is also a need to look at other models of governance of forest areas," says Aparajita Datta, co-editor, 'At the Feet of Living Things'. This collection of essays by scientists and conservationists that looks at some of the projects undertaken in the wild in India over the last 25 years by the Nature Conservation Foundation includes great pieces on nesting hornbills, regenerating rainforests, birding, preventing conflict between wild elephants and humans, and dugongs, among other wild and wonderful subjects

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Books & Authors podcast with Jubanashwa Mishra, author, 28 Jobs, 28 Weeks, 28 States

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 07:42:04 -0000

"In India when someone does a menial job, he isn't respected. But I'm so inspired by Jodie Underhill who founded Waste Warriors in Himachal Pradesh and is cleaning the mountains. We have to kill the ego to do such things. In all kinds of menial jobs, the caste system figures. I have always been fascinated by Varanasi but I have also always been afraid of dead bodies. It's almost impossible fora sane person to work at the cremation ghats burning 100 bodies in a day. You have to be high to forget what's happening around you; you need to be in a non-conscious state! I had the smell of burning flesh in my nostrils for a month after that," says Jubanashwa Mishra, author, 28 Jobs, 28 Weeks, 28 States, a fascinating memoir-travelogue. He talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about his adventures doing everything from selling condoms in rural Bihar to working on a houseboat in Kerala, assisting at a Bullet workshop in Aizawl, and burning bodies in Varanasi

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Books & Authors podcast with Nilakantan RS, author, South vs North; India's Great Divide

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 14:44:03 -0000

"India's southern states have diverged to an impossible extent compared to the rest of the country. The problem in health, for example, is that the union government wants to centralise much of its policy but it has within its borders one state which is like sub-Saharan Africa - MP's Infant mortality rate is comparable to Afghanistan's; and another that's like the United States - Kerala's IMR is comparable to the US. No reasonable person would argue for a single health policy for the US and Afghanistan. It is absurd, but more importantly, it is mathematically impossible to arrive at a single policy. And this is true for education, economy and population as well" - Nilakantan RS, author, 'South vs North; India's Great Divide' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Ravindra Rathee, author, True To Their Salt

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 17:32:24 -0000

"When the British decided to try the INA (Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army) soldiers at Lal Qila, it was the last nail in the coffin. Intelligence reports of the time are very clear that the Indian soldiers could not be relied on any more if there was a widespread insurrection. Then, the whole focus from February 1946 onwards after the Naval mutiny was how to ensure the safety of European life and limb in India. And that was why the British wanted to get out of India as quickly as possible. This is so obvious when you read the accounts but it is not what we've been told either in India or in the UK. Had the British had the confidence that they could use the Indian army to put down an insurrection, which they had until the late 1930s, they would have stayed on. They lost that confidence in 1945-46" - Ravindra Rathee, author, True to Their Salt talks to Manjula Narayan about the soldiers of the British Indian army on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Bibek Debroy, author Inked in India

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 11:14:38 -0000

"Most people who use fountain pens today use foreign ones because they are not even aware that Indian fountain pens are made. We have a serious marketing and distribution problem," says Bibek Debroy, author, 'Inked in India', which looks at the long history of the fountain pen in the country, points the reader to the best inks, and talks about the remarkable Dr Radhika Nath Saha, who obtained 14 patents on fountain and stylo pens between 1900 and 1927. In this conversation with Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast, he highlights such factoids as BR Ambedkar's fondness for Parker pens, MK Gandhi's belief that fountain pens were extravagant and unnecessary, and talks about his own extensive collection

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Books & Authors with Dr Ekta Chaudhary, author, Garden Up

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 09:52:45 -0000

"Gardening is not about spending lots of money. You can basically start from your kitchen, and that's what I've tried to convey in this book. And don't be scared. Even if you fail, it's ok; you can try again." - Dr Ekta Chaudhary, author, Garden Up, talks to Manjula Narayan about her handy guide to growing plants at home.

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Books & Authors with Renuka Narayanan, author, Learning from Loss

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:41:00 -0000

"The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Srimad Bhagavatam, and the Buddhist epics like the Manimekalai all recognise that it's a random universe and that anything can go wrong at any time. What can a frail human being do but control their own response to what has happened? I was trying to collect a bandwidth of responses to the inevitability of the human condition - things fall apart, we suffer, we grieve. But then what do we do? How do we pick up ourselves and go on? That really was the spine of this book." - Renuka Narayanan, author, 'Learning from Loss' which includes retellings of stories from Hindu and Buddhist texts talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Vaibhav Purandare, author, Shivaji, India's Great Warrior King

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 14:21:24 -0000

"What stood out for me about Shivaji is that a man who was believed to have no hope at all emerged as a giant killer. There are numerous instances when previous biographies have got it all wrong simply because they have not accessed Marathi documents. Also, Shivaji was traditionally disregarded by people who wrote Indian history. My book is part of the attempt to restore the balance." - Vaibhav Purandare, author, 'Shivaji; India's Great Warrior King' talks to Manjula Narayan about Shivaji's long tussle with Aurangzeb, his rise from minor nobility to sovereign of the Maratha empire, his dream of building a navy, and the sack of Surat.

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Books & Authors with Saaz Aggarwal, author, Losing Home; Finding Home

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 12:05:52 -0000

"The Sindhi language of the common people, which encompasses wonderful ways of thinking, is now lost. For Sindhis in India, the language is gone, the culture is gone, and the history is also gone. That's something that I realised only recently," says Saaz Aggarwal, author, 'Losing Home Finding Home', a collection of personal accounts of the Sindhi experience of Partition, life in the refugee camps, and the subsequent process of recovery and rebuilding.

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Books & Authors podcast with Pravin Sawhney, author, The Last War

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 12:40:52 -0000

"Since 2018, the Chinese have been preparing for an AI war. Today they are in the Tibet Autonomous Region and their robots also have real data sets which they have acquired from the operational area. They will leapfrog the US military, which is their peer competitor, by gaining first mover advantage in the new warfare." - Pravin Sawhney, author, The Last War; How AI Will Shape India's Final Showdown With China, talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Dr Pallavi Joshi, author, Fast but Lost; Overcoming Depression in City Life

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 09:47:06 -0000

"Being female puts you at a much higher risk of depression. Typically, the challenges that women face in each decade are really different - from puberty to childbearing and menopause. Now, for men, testosterone itself is a very potent antidepressant. But even if they do suffer from depression, in the Indian scenario, it is tough for them to admit it because men are expected to be strong." - Dr Pallavi Joshi, author, 'Fast but Lost; Overcoming Depression in City Life' talks to Manjula Narayan about virtual fatigue, avoiding negativity, the growing incidence of depression in India and ways to cope with the stress that could lead to it on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books and Authors podcast with Meeti Shroff-Shah, author, The Death of Kirti Kadakia

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 11:26:23 -0000

"Plotting is important in the murder mystery genre, but there have been times when my characters have done things I hadn't planned for them to do, and these have been the most rewarding moments in my writing" - Meeti Shroff-Shah, author, The Death of Kirti Kadakia.

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Books & Authors podcast with Kubbra Sait, author, Open Book

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 10:16:45 -0000

"I felt I had the courage to own up to who I am and to my truest authentic self. And that is a superpower." - Kubbra Sait, actor and author, 'Open Book; Not Quite a Memoir', talks to Manjula Narayan about playing Cuckoo in Sacred Games, overcoming being abused as a teen, and keeping calm in the competitive Bollywood #BooksAndAuthors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Rajeev Shukla, politician, journalist and author, Scars of 1947: Real Partition Stories

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 10:10:14 -0000

Scars of 1947 is a book based on the real stories of India's Independence and everything it costed to the people of both the sides. The fears, the cries of help and a lot more that has affected the lives of many. In the stories collected by Rajeev Shukla for his book "Scars of 1947" you will get to know about the deep grief of people who were affected by the Partition of India and also some great inspiring tales of love & the perseverance of the human spirit.

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Books & Authors podcast with Deepti Naval, actor and author, A Country Called Childhood; A Memoir

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 05:03:13 -0000

Growing up in Amritsar in the 1960s, watching jets flying overhead during the 1965 war, being struck by Hindi film lyrics, domestic tragedies, the contrasting milieu at home and at school, fighting street sexual harassment, and memories of school friends... Actor Deepti Naval talks to Manjula Narayan about her memoir A Country Called Childhood, which recreates a vanished time in India's recent history.

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Books & Authors podcast with Simon Lamouret, author, The Alcazar

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 12:27:53 -0000

"Construction workers are highly invisibilized. Their world is a small world within our world and at points, I thought of the construction site as a metaphor for a growing India with its linguistic, ethnic, and religious diversity. You find Hindus, Muslims and Christians on the site sharing and collaborating to an extent but also segregated in other aspects of their lives." - Simon Lamouret, author, The Alcazar, a graphic novel based on the lives of workers on a building site in Bengaluru talks to @utterflea about his friendship with the workers, being inspired by Herge's drawing style, and about all the things this project made him think about.

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Books&Authors podcast Anita Bhogle, author, Equal yet Different

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 09:43:03 -0000

"For women to stay the course, you need to have better infrastructure and better support systems because, really, that is the reason most women seem to not be able to manage. We need creches, homes for the elderly... Typically, it is (the absence of) these things that hold women back."

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Books&Authors podcast with Meena Arora Nayak, author, Adbhut; Marvellous Creatures of Indian Myth and Folklore

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 09:52:22 -0000

"Myth is not fictitious. It is actually truer than real life because it talks about an internal deep reality, which is truer than truth." - Meena Arora Nayak, author, Adbhut, Marvellous Creatures of Indian Myth and Folklore talks to Manjula Narayan about myth and meaning in the Books and Authors podcast.

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Books and Authors podcast with Vidya Krishnan, author, Phantom Plague

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 14:19:20 -0000

"Antibiotics don't work on Drug-Resistant TB, which should worry all of us. The post-antibiotic era is dawning on us." - Vidya Krishnan, author of Phantom Plague; How Tuberculosis Shaped History talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the persistence of TB that has evolved with humanity, about the abuse of antibiotics that has made it more virulent, and about the scientific racism that keeps Indian sufferers from getting the best new drugs.

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Books & Authors podcast with Nasreen Rehman, translator, The Collected Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto

Thu, 26 May 2022 14:30:00 -0000

"Manto is not just a witness to history in his stories; he is an active agent of history. He is the subject of history. It is very compelling" - Nasreen Rehman, the translator, of The Collected Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, talks to @utterflea about Manto's deep feelings for Bombay, his iconoclasm that made the Progressive Writers Group wary of him, and why his stories continue to move South Asians.

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Books& Authors podcast with Seema Chishti, author, Sumitra and Anees

Thu, 19 May 2022 14:33:29 -0000

"The personal is being made political in a very perverse way. My existence itself is anathema to a rising, sizeable force in Indian politics and that upsets me." - Seema Chishti, author of 'Sumitra and Anees' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about her mother's recipes, her parents' inter religious marriage, and about all that India was and can be.

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Books & Authors podcast with Aanchal Malhotra, author, In the Language of Remembering

Fri, 13 May 2022 11:10:09 -0000

"Partition is such a perplexing event that 75 years on, you cannot assign blame to one community because there are equally heinous acts on both sides and equal misfortunes as well. So maybe everyone is to blame at some point, and no one is to blame too." - Aanchal Malhotra, author, of 'In the Language of Remembering' talks to Manjula Narayan about the inheritance of Partition on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Vijay Mahajan, author, Digital Leapfrogs

Fri, 06 May 2022 05:50:33 -0000

"Technology has made it possible for us to be inclusive irrespective of who we are," says Vijay Mahajan, author, 'Digital Leapfrogs' as he talks to Manjula Narayan about how technology is reshaping consumer markets in India and the social and material changes being brought about by everything from Uber to Paytm and Phonepe and streaming services like Netflix

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Books & Authors podcast with Jeet Thayil, editor, The Penguin Book of Indian Poets

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 07:25:49 -0000

"Indian anthologists have made it a practice to exclude young poets. This is a disservice not only to young poets but actually to the older poets. I wanted to be as inclusive as possible; I was guided by the poems and not by the poets." - Jeet Thayil, editor, The Penguin Book of Indian Poets talks to @utterflea about the definitive anthology on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books and Authors podcast with Parvati Sharma, author, Akbar of Hindustan

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 10:38:43 -0000

"Even in his life time, not everyone had a favourable view of Akbar. Many thought he was a heretic, and he was aware of this," says Parvati Sharma, author, Akbar of Hindustan. She talks to Manjula Narayan about writing an accessible popular history of the Mughal emperor that recreates family dramas, power struggles and great battles and also shines a light on a colourful supporting cast of characters that includes ambitious royal nurses, mutinous clansmen, swashbuckling homosexual noblemen, and even favourite elephants and horses.

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Books & Authors podcast with Parul Dave Mukherji, co-editor, 20th Century Indian Art

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 12:52:23 -0000

I had spent a lot of time being critical of Eurocentrism when I realised that one has to move beyond this space of postcolonial critique. Ultimately, we have to take the responsibility of writing history from the global South. That's when a real dialogue can happen on equal terms." - Parul Dave Mukherji, co-editor of the mammoth '20th Century Indian Art', which looks at everything from the work of Raja Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, and Amrita Sher-Gil to contemporary street art, regional art movements, works by Dalit and tribal artists, photography and sculpture, and art from other nations in South Asia, talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Siddharth Sonkar, author, What Privacy Means

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 14:20:46 -0000

The fact that we are losing control over our own sense of time, how we spend our money, and the decisional autonomy that we exercise on these social media platforms is worrying. That we don't have a law in place to restrict how these platforms use our information is what is problematic." - Siddharth Sonkar, author, of 'What Privacy Means' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the idea of privacy in the Indian context, about government surveillance having a chilling effect on democracy, and about the inadequacy of the current laws to prevent corporate entities from having access to vast troves of private information about individuals.

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Books And Authors podcast with Satyabrata Rout, author, Scenography; An Indian Perspective

Sat, 02 Apr 2022 04:02:42 -0000

From the Natyashastra to now, there has been no theorizing of theatre in India. I don't know why people didn't try," says Satyabrata Rout, author, Scenography; An Indian Perspective, which is rich in details about stage design in both traditional and contemporary modern theatre in India. On this week's Books & Authors podcast, the author talks to @utterflea about his journey, working with BV Karanth, the popular mobile theatres of Assam and the flourishing Surabhi theatres of Andhra Pradesh, and how a scenographer can help the audience imagine visuals

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Books and Authors podcast with Nikhil Menon, author, Planning Democracy

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 19:44:50 -0000

The heady post-independence years of the 1950s when it was believed that democratic planning could take the nation from abject poverty to prosperity, India's Five-Year plans that grew out of the attempt to marry liberal democracy to a socialist economy, the role of the Indian Statistical Institute and the dynamism of technocrats like PC Mahalanobis in the now-defunct Planning Commission, and how the zeal for planning permeated everything from films to family life - Nikhil Menon, author of 'Planning Democracy', which paints a great picture of a young India striving to find its unique niche in a polarised world, talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books and Authors podcast with Pallavi Nigam Sahay, author A Sip in Time

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 09:55:14 -0000

"The idea is to mirror the flavour of snacks to tea and not to contrast it. Contrasting snacks can ruin the taste of tea, though it does work well with masala chai," says Pallavi Nigam Sahay, author A Sip in time. She talks to @utterflea about India's finest teas and pairing them with the right teatime treats on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books and Authors podcast with Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 12:43:00 -0000

"With Lata Mangeshkar went a huge, massive chunk of film history and film music history," says Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, 'Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice'. This book of conversations with the legend reveals her photographic memory, her magical ability to change her voice to suit specific actors, her deep understanding of the emotions in lyrics and of sound technology, and how, in the words of Dilip Kumar, her songs "are part of our lives and memory".

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Books and Authors podcast with Kavery Nambisan, author, A Luxury Called Health

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 13:15:24 -0000

"WHO has come out strongly against simple medicines like Ivermectin despite the fact that there is so much data showing that it is effective in treating COVID. This is because the vaccine lobby is very strong and they don't allow these medicines to get the publicity they deserve," says Kavery Nambisan, author of 'A Luxury Called Health', a memoir of her four-decade-long career as a surgeon in rural and small-town India. In this wide-ranging conversation with Manjula Narayan on this week's Books and Authors podcast, she speaks about treating wounded dacoits in Bihar, the problem with charity treatment, the pain of watching her husband, the poet Vijay Nambisan, succumb to cancer, her admiration for nurses who are "the trendsetters of women's liberation" in India, the effectiveness of alternative treatments like Ayurveda and homoeopathy in some cases, and the almost comic humourlessness of the extremely religious.

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Books & Authors podcast with Aloke Lal, author, Murder in the Bylanes

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:06:27 -0000

"Sometimes police action during riots is cramped because of the complicity of people who are ruling or those who want to rule - that is the politicians. They would like the situation to develop in a certain manner so it is not unusual to find politicians playing a very dirty game" - Aloke Lal, author of 'Murder in the Bylanes', a memoir of his stint as Deputy Inspector General, Kanpur, in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition when it was one of the most volatile cities in north India, talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with Tanuj Bhojwani, author, The Art of Bitfulness

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 09:36:14 -0000

Our toxic relationship with our devices, the negative impact of huge and very quick scaling up of businesses, the need to change the all-pervasive culture of lauding those sorts of practices, the banality of evil with social media exemplifying the proverb, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions', and how to stop falling prey to FOMO, bad moods and negativity brought on by our smartphones allowing us to be online all the time -- Tanuj Bhojwani, co-author, with Nandan Nilekani, of The Art of Bitfulness talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with GN Devy, author Mahabharata; The Epic and the Nation

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 08:31:16 -0000

"Every civilization has its territory of fantasy. The Mahabharata seems to have drawn the boundaries of that territory for the Indian people. At the time that it got into circulation, other texts too were being composed but they were restricted to certain groups, to Buddhists, Jains, or Brahmins. The Mahabharat, however, could get into anyone's imaginative territory. That freedom to wander around was the Mahabharata's great gift from the beginning and that's why it is still appreciated in different forms - on television, in films, in digital media, in art, and in drama." - GN Devy, author, Mahabharata; The Epic and the Nation talks to Manjula Narayan about the Indian obsession with the epic, the need for a Mahabharata institute that can collate versions in different languages, and his belief that India will never have a revolution that entails a definitive break from the past because we've imbibed the idea of Kalachakra or of Time as cyclical from the Mahabharata.

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Books & Authors with Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 12:07:48 -0000

"People who are powerful and wealthy are always complex and layered characters," says Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan, in this week's Books & Authors conversation with Manjula Narayan, about the ambitious, adventurous, charismatic and bloodthirsty medieval dynasties of southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas.

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Books & Authors podcast with Rahul Rawail, author, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 10:17:13 -0000

Raj Kapoor's passion for film making made him literally chase clouds across the country to get the perfect shot, his great ear for music that ensured that songs and the background score added to the storytelling, his ability to get just what he wanted from his actors, his willingness to teach his team, and his eccentricities. Filmmaker, Rahul Rawail, who began as RK's assistant, talks to Manjula Narayan about his new book, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work.

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Books & Authors podcast with Nalin Mehta, author, The New BJP

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 09:31:54 -0000

"If the ground is shifting beneath your feet at the mass level in this country, you have to figure out why it is shifting," says Nalin Mehta, author of The New BJP, a massive book that presents fresh data and insights on a range of subjects including the new caste coalitions that have changed the party and the making of a new woman-voter base.

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Books & Authors podcast with Sagarika Ghose, author of Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 11:30:48 -0000

"Vajpayee was a ruthless politician but he couldn't do with Modi what he did with others like Madhok and Govindacharya," says @sagarikaghose, author of 'Atal Bihari Vajpayee'. She talks to @utterflea about the first BJP Prime Minister's humour, likeability, unconventionality and great belief in Parliament on this week's Books& Authors podcast

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Books & Authors podcast with Anupama Chopra, author, A Place in my Heart

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 04:30:00 -0000

"I'm sure there are a lot of people who are not very fond of me. I'm like that proverbial Trishanku figure," says film critic and Bollywood insider Anupama Chopra in a conversation on her new book 'A Place in My Heart' with host Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Manash Ghosh, author, Bangladesh War; Report from Ground Zero

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 09:19:52 -0000

The ethnic discrimination and genocide that preceded the birth of Bangladesh exactly 50 years ago, international apathy to the carnage, factionalism among the Bengali freedom fighters, the role of the Indian armed forces in training the MuktiBahini and underwater demolition squads... Manash Ghosh, the first journalist to report on the unfolding crisis in erstwhile East Pakistan, and author of 'Bangladesh War; Report From Ground Zero' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with Rukmini S, author, Whole Numbers and Half Truths

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 13:27:23 -0000

Why some states need to shut down family planning departments, the possible story behind the improved sex ratio, the truth about the higher minority fertility rate, why states that show the highest rates of COVID are not the ones that are worst afflicted, the criminalisation of young love under Sec 376, the consequences of treating an FIR as the basis for crime statistics and an understanding of women's safety... @Rukmini, author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths that interprets data to present a clear picture of contemporary India talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books&Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors podcast with with Adrija Roychowdhury, author, Delhi, in Thy Name

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 09:52:11 -0000

The lotus in the Kashmiri Pandit imagination, the falcon in the north Indian Muslim one, the growth of East Pakistan Displaced Persons Colony... @AdrijaRoychow, author, 'Delhi, In Thy Name' talks to @utterflea about the stories contained within the names of Delhi neighbourhoods like Pamposh Enclave, Shaheen Bagh, CR Park and Saket and what they reveal about the post-independence history of the city and the country

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Books & Authors podcast with Pranay Lal, author, Invisible Empire; The Natural History of Viruses

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 10:24:59 -0000

Vaccine hesitancy, cannibalism and immunity to prion disease, viruses and depression, the streaked tulip crisis and the potyvirus, industrial foods and poor gut health... @pranaylal, author of Invisible Empire; The Natural History of Viruses talks to @utterflea about all that on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with with Ramya Ramamurthy, author, Branded In History

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 13:22:05 -0000

Ordering a Rolls Royce through a catalogue, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore endorsing products, companies advertising that their rivals use human waste to make soaps, the cachet of swadeshi goods in the pre-Independence era, and the business losses of Partition, @crypticcaprice, author, Branded in History talks to @utterflea on the Books and Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Neema Shah, author, Kololo Hill

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 13:04:43 -0000

In August 1972, the Ugandan government under Idi Amin decreed that all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in 90 days and that they must take only what they could carry. Thousands of Indians, many of whom were born and brought up in Africa were suddenly rendered stateless. Kololo Hill is the story of one such family. Author @NeemaMShah talks to @utterflea about her debut novel that looks at immigration, the idea of home, and the things that people will do to protect those they love.

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Books & Authors with Farhad Dadyburjor, author, The Other Man

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:49:13 -0000

'The Other Man' is possibly India's first happy gay novel. Set in Mumbai, this is the story of good looking, rich and successful Ved Mehta who's about to be engaged to the perfectly suitable Disha Kapoor. And then he falls in love with Carlos. Closeted and conflicted Ved wants to make his parents happy by doing what they want. Author @FarhadJD talks to @utterflea about his funny and touching novel.

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Books & Authors with Tarun K Saint, editor, the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Volume 2

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 04:30:00 -0000

Speciesists on planets with three moons, pain merchants, murderous dolls in Calcutta, djinns in a future Dhaka, vengeful droids in Karachi, and othering and betrayal in Mumbai Prime - there's all of this in the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Vol 2. Editor Tarun K Saint talks to host Manjula Narayan about this collection of sci-fi and speculative fiction that transports readers to strangely familiar worlds.

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Books & Authors with Mytheli Sreenivas, author, Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:20:33 -0000

Indian feminists and the nation's family planning programme forced vasectomies during the Emergency and the idea of small families as a way to eliminate poverty @ProfMytheli author of 'Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Jyotirmaya Sharma, author of Elusive Non-Violence; The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa

Fri, 08 Oct 2021 04:30:00 -0000

Gandhi's introduction of non-violence as an Indian value by fabricating a tradition around it, his radical interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, his exhortation to the Jews facing Hitler... Jyotirmaya Sharma, author, Elusive Non-Violence; The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Upinder Singh, author of Ancient India; Culture of Contradictions

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 14:05:58 -0000

The idea that ancient Indians were non-violent is completely wrong." - Upinder Singh, author of Ancient India; Culture of Contradictions talks to @utterflea on godess worship and misogyny, Buddhism, the Manu Smriti and more on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Sid Mallya, author of If I'm Honest; A Memoir of My Mental Health Journey

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 05:30:53 -0000

Battling severe OCD, walking away from his father's business to strike out on his own in LA, and dealing positively with trolls, @sidmallya, author of 'If I'm Honest; A Memoir of My Mental Health Journey' talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Rajesh Kasturirangan, authors of Who Are We? An Enquiry Into The Indian Mind...

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:50:02 -0000

Cyborg India, the persistence and flexibility of caste, lynching as a form of messaging that marries social media spectacle and communal hatred, cognitive capitalism, and the idea of cosiety - @ranganaut author of 'Who Are We? An Enquiry into the Indian Mind...' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Martyn Rix, author, Indian Botanical Art; An Illustrated History

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:33:39 -0000

Zainuddin, Ram Das, Vishnupersaud and Rungiah were just some of the brilliant artists who worked with the surgeon-botanists of the East India Company to create exquisite scientifically accurate paintings of Indian flora. Martyn Rix, author of 'Indian Botanical Art; An Illustrated History' talks to @utterflea about this productive collaboration between East and West.

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Books & Authors podcast with Ruth Vanita, who has translated Mahadevi Varma's My Family

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 10:18:25 -0000

Pre-modern Indian attitudes to animals, what the Mahabharata says about cruelty to bulls, factory farming and vegetarianism, and Mahadevi Varma's stories about animals and their relationships with each other in 'My Family'... Ruth Vanita, who has translated the book talks about all that to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with Vaibhav Purandare, author of Hitler and India; The Untold Story of His Hatred for the country & Its People

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:42:49 -0000

Nazi atrocities against Indians in Germany, Subhash Chandra Bose's unfruitful meeting with Hitler, and the strange amnesia that has led to Mien Kampf being a bestseller in India, @VaibhavP21, author of 'Hitler And India' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with Akash Kapur, author of Better to have gone; Love, Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:41:06 -0000

Building a utopian community, the optimism and the bitter internal battles that were fought, the triumphs, great personal tragedies and philosophical struggles of the pioneers... @akashkapur talks to @utterflea about 'Better to have Gone; Love Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville

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Books & Authors with Lopamudra Maitra Bajpai, author of The Owl Delivered The Good News All Night

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 02:30:00 -0000

Shapeshifters, women who turn into tigers, drowned worlds, a son-in-law perplexed by his shadow... 'The Owl Delivered The Good News All Night Long' is a collection of fantastic folktales from across India. Lopamudra Maitra Bajpai who edited the volume talks to @utterflea about the themes and structures of folk lore and the ways in which these tales help you to understand the world.

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Books & Authors with with Coomi Kapoor, author of The Tatas, Freddiw Mercury & Other Bawas; An Intimate History of the Parsis

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 13:35:35 -0000

Why Ratan Tata and Nusli Wadia fell out, Cyrus Mistry's connection to Mughal-e-Azam, Bhikaiji Cama and other fiery Parsi women, intermarriage, orthodoxy, and dwindling numbers - Coomi Kapoor, author of The Tatas, Freddie Mercury & Other Bawas; An Intimate History of the Parsis talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Vikram Sampath, author, Savarkar; A Contested Legacy 1924-1966

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 02:10:56 -0000

"There's been a shocking lack of academic curiosity or scholarly evaluation of Savarkar," says @vikramsampath, author of 'Savarkar; A Contested Legacy', the second part of his two-volume biography of the father of Hindutva. On this week's Books&Authors podcast, he talks to @utterflea about the dialogue between Ambedkar and Savarkar and the surprising similarity of their views, about the contribution of violent revolutionary activity during the freedom struggle, and the still unacknowledged anti-Brahmin pogrom in Maharashtra following the assassination of Gandhi.

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Books & Authors with Pallavi Aiyar, author of Orienting; An Indian in Japan

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 08:47:00 -0000

"Ladoo-loving Ganesh in India has transformed into mooli-loving Binayaka in Tokyo!" @pallaviaiyar, author of Orienting; An Indian in Japan, talks to @utterflea about Japanese versions of Hindu deities, the society's surprising lack of tech saviness, its obsession with fantastic toilets, its unacknowledged caste system, and it's surprisingly empowered women on this week's Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with Vidya Dehejia, author of India: A Story Through 100 Objects

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 10:09:55 -0000

From the terracotta toys of the Harappans to Shiva as Nataraj, from the pages of the Gwalior Quran to Jain scrolls and the divine body of the Buddha, Vidya Dehejia, author of India; A Story Through 100 Objects talks to @utterflea about the things that have created the multicultural medley that is India.

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Books & Authors with Ritu Menon, author of Zohra! A Biography in Four Acts

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 03:44:28 -0000

In her life that spanned 102 years, everyone's favourite feisty grandmother, Zohra Segal worked on stage, in film, and on television, and was successful abroad when few Indian actors were. Ritu Menon, author of Zohra! A Biography in Four Acts talks to @utterflea about Segal's difficult life, her epic perseverance, and her great spirit.

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Books and Authors podcast with L Somi Roy, author of And That Is Why; Manipuri Myths Retold

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 11:30:21 -0000

Why man gets wrinkles, why the cat buries its poop, why a doll is worshipped in a village called Kakching... L Somi Roy's 'And That Is Why; Manipuri Myths Retold' is full of wonderful tales. On this week's Book & Authors podcast, @somiroy talks to @utterflea about collecting the myths, Manipur's distinct culture, it's pre-Hindu legends, and its wonderful ponies and passion for polo, among other things.

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Books and Authors with Kanti Bajpai, author of 'India Versus China : Why They Are Not Friends

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 08:46:42 -0000

"The Chinese have so much power that they don't think they need to accommodate India or tolerate any behaviour by India that they don't like," says Kanti Bajpai, author of India Versus China : Why They Are Not Friends, in conversation with @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Aditya Gupta, author of 7 Lessons from Everest

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 03:08:31 -0000

"Everest teaches you the value of time. The consequences of missing a timeline on the mountain could be death," says Aditya Gupta. The author of 7 Lessons from Everest talks to @utterflea on the Books & Authors podcast about the stunning images he shot during his climb and the lessons he gleaned from the experience

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Books & Authors with Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland; How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 14:32:03 -0000

Jallianwala Bagh, the excesses of colonialism, the millions of soldiers from India and Africa who fought in the two World Wars, and the institutionalized racism of the British Empire find no place in British school curricula. As a result, many believe the Empire was an honourable endeavour. Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland, talks to @utterflea about this bizarre phenomenon

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Books & Authors with Vijay Gokhale, author, Tiananmen Square; The Making of a Protest | Part 2

Fri, 28 May 2021 07:52:09 -0000

The emotional nature of the Chinese, the Western media's biases while reporting on the Tiananmen Square incident (May-June 1989), and the hypocrisy of western governments who used human rights as a pressure point while continuing to reap the great benefits of trade with China in the golden quarter-century that followed... former diplomat @VGokhale59, author of Tiananmen Square; The Making of a Protest talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast

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Books & Authors with Vijay Gokhale, author, Tiananmen Square; The Making of a Protest | Part 1

Fri, 28 May 2021 07:51:59 -0000

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Books & Authors with Yatindra Mishra, editor of Akhtari; The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar | Part 2

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:33:14 -0000

Begum Akhtar's magical voice and musical genius, the respect she commanded, and her journey from Akhtarbai Faizabadi to Begum Akhtar, the feminism that made her the first female ustad to initiate disciples with a formal thread tying ceremony, her sense of humour, and great style...Yatindra Mishra editor of Akhtari; The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Yatindra Mishra, editor of Akhtari; The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar | Part 1

Thu, 20 May 2021 13:32:50 -0000

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Books & Authors with Esther David, author of Bene Appetit; The Cuisine of Indian Jews | Part 2

Thu, 13 May 2021 14:48:16 -0000

How Indian Jews observe kosher laws, the delicious gongura chicken of the Bene Ephriam of Andhra Pradesh and the steamed fish dishes of the Bnei Menashe of Manipur and Mizoram, emigration to Israel, and the great demand for Bombay Duck among the Bene Israel community there - Esther David, author of Bene Appetit; The Cuisine of Indian Jews talks about all that to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Esther David, author of Bene Appetit; The Cuisine of Indian Jews | Part 1

Thu, 13 May 2021 14:47:47 -0000

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Books & Authors with Samrat Choudhury, author of The Braided River; A Journey Along the Brahmaputra | Part 2

Fri, 07 May 2021 08:46:00 -0000

In The Braided River, Samrat Choudhury combines travel writing, environmental reportage, political and historical analysis, and memoir as he follows the course of the mighty Brahmaputra. Samrat Choudhury, author of The Braided River; A Journey Along the Brahmaputra talks to Manjula Narayan about all that in this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Samrat Choudhury, author of The Braided River; A Journey Along the Brahmaputra | Part 1

Fri, 07 May 2021 08:45:38 -0000

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Books & Authors with Vaasanthi, author of Rajinikanth; A Life | Part-2

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 04:35:00 -0000

Rajinikanth's life as a porter and a bus conductor before he became a superstar, the subaltern fans who made him an icon in Tamil cinema, his close friendships, how his status threatened chief minister Jayalalithaa, and his decision to stay away from politics, Vaasanthi, author of Rajinikanth; A Life talks to Manjula Narayan about all that in this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Vaasanthi, author of Rajinikanth; A Life | Part-1

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 04:30:00 -0000

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Books & Authors with Kabir Bedi, author of Stories I Must Tell | Part-2

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 11:41:41 -0000

His open marriage with Protima, his torrid relationship with Parveen Babi, the swinging 70s, his career in Hollywood, Bollywood, his Wild success in Italy, and his great honesty in his memoir, Stories I Must Tell, Kabir Bedi talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on the Books and Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Kabir Bedi, author of Stories I Must Tell | Part-1

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 11:40:25 -0000

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Books & Authors with Indranee Ghosh, authorof Spiced, Smoked, Pickled, Preserved | Part-2

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:17:33 -0000

Part cookbook, part memoir, Indranee Ghosh's Spiced, Smoked, Pickled, Preserved presents vignettes from a family's history over three generations and from her own childhood in Shillong. She talks to Manjula Narayan about her great recipes and her reminiscences of a vanished world on the Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Indranee Ghosh, authorof Spiced, Smoked, Pickled, Preserved | Part-1

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:15:24 -0000

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Books & Authors with Amit Chaudhuri, author of 'Finding the Raga; An Improvisation on Indian Music' | Part-2

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 15:48:33 -0000

The deeply intellectual nature of Hindustani classical music, the path of Indian modernity, and the new intolerance for beauty that arose in the 1980s and has led to the current hostility to nuance in every sphere... Amit Chaudhuri, author of Finding the Raga, talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Amit Chaudhuri, author of 'Finding the Raga; An Improvisation on Indian Music' | Part-1

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 15:46:23 -0000

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Books & Authors with Ritu Menon, author of Address Book; A Publishing Memoir in the time of covid | Part-2

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 10:39:40 -0000

The need to publish books of cultural and historical value, forging bonds with feminist presses across the world, and why its worthwhile to fight for bibliodiversity in publishing... Ritu Menon, founder of the feminist press, Women Unlimited, and author of Address Book; A Publishing Memoir In the Time of Covid, talks about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Ritu Menon, author of Address Book; A Publishing Memoir in the time of covid | Part-1

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 10:37:34 -0000

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Books & Authors with Sanjay Gubbi, author of Leopard Diaries; The Rosette in India | Part-2

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 16:44:43 -0000

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Books & Authors with Sanjay Gubbi, author of Leopard Diaries; The Rosette in India | Part-1

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 16:42:14 -0000

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Books & Authors with Trisha Bora, author of How Not to Kill Your House Plants | Part-2

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:34:10 -0000

Biophilia, the tangible experience of gardening, forest bathing, and the plantdemic - Trisha Bora, author of How Not to Kill Your House Plants talks about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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Books & Authors with Trisha Bora, author of How Not to Kill Your House Plants | Part-1

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:31:16 -0000

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Books & Authors with Damon Centola, author of Change; How to Make Big Things Happen | Part-2

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:28:27 -0000

How do you bring about social change? Are influencers really all that influential? And can a small minority change the way society thinks? Touching on a range of subjects from Black Lives Matter to the Arab Spring, sociologist Damon Centola talks about how big ideas spread.

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Books & Authors with Damon Centola, author of Change; How to Make Big Things Happen | Part-1

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 08:27:26 -0000

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71: Books & Authors with Anuja Chauhan, author of Club You to Death | Part-2

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:56:00 -0000

Gossip, scandal and a perfect murder! Anuja Chauhan's whodunnit Club You to Death features a beautiful corpse, an unusual investigating officer in ACP Bhavani Singh, action set in Delhi's poshest club and a set of characters that gives the reader insights into everything from young love to privilege, politics and hypocrisy.

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70: Books & Authors with Anuja Chauhan, author of Club You to Death | Part-1

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:53:10 -0000

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69: Books & Authors with Jahnavi Misra, author of The Punished; Stories of Death Row Prisoners in India | PART-2

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 15:50:54 -0000

Written by Jahnavi Misra, The Punished; Stories of Death Row Prisoners in India is based on interviews with condemned prisoners and their families done by the criminal justice centre, Project 39A. Great poverty, torture, and mental illness are recurring themes in this collection that aims to make readers understand the people we want to kill.

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68: Books & Authors with Jahnavi Misra, author of The Punished; Stories of Death Row Prisoners in India | PART-1

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 15:48:31 -0000

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67: Books & Authors with Neha Sinha, author of Wild and Wilful; Tales of 15 Iconic Indian Species | PART-2

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 15:20:37 -0000

The man who befriends crocodiles, the fate of the blind Gangetic dolphin, the joy of a flock of rosy starlings on a semal, and the tragedy of the Indian elephant - conservationist Neha Sinha, author of Wild & Wilful talks about all that in the Books & Authors podcast this week.

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66: Books & Authors with Neha Sinha, author of Wild and Wilful; Tales of 15 Iconic Indian Species | PART-1

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:58:20 -0000

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65: Books & Authors with Sunita Dwivedi, author of Buddha in Gandhara | PART-2

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 16:05:00 -0000

Sunita Dwivedi, author of Buddha in Gandhara, travelled across Pakistan and Afghanistan to visit the numerous Buddhist sites there. In this episode of the Books & Authors podcast she talks about circumambulating a stupa in a burqa, staring in wonder at the architecture of the caves in Bamiyan, and of the great need to preserve Buddhist heritage sites across South Asia.

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65: Books & Authors with Sunita Dwivedi, author of Buddha in Gandhara | PART-1

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:53:45 -0000

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64: Books & Authors with Aniruddha Bahal, author of A Taste for Trouble; Memories from Another Time | PART-2

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 15:45:49 -0000

Operation West End, match fixing, sting operations in public interest, and the current state of Indian journalism, Aniruddha Bahal, author of A Taste for Trouble; Memories from Another Time and editor-in-chief of Cobrapost discusses all that in this week's Books & Authors podcast with Manjula Narayan.

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64: Books & Authors with Aniruddha Bahal, author of A Taste for Trouble; Memories from Another Time | PART-1

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 15:21:11 -0000

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63: Books & Authors with Yashaswini Chandra, author of The Tale of the Horse; A History of India on Horseback | PART-2

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:05:05 -0000

From Uchchaishravas to Prithviraj Chauhan's Chetak and Ranjit Singh's Laili, horses were an integral part of the Indian landscape, myth, and history. Author of The Tale of the Horse, Yashaswini Chandra talks of the import of horses from central Asia and Arabia, of the indigenous breeds like the Kathiawari and the Manipuri, of Shah Jahan's favourite piebald horse, of expert Maratha women equestrians, of artists like Bagta, and of Rajput legends in a fantastically horsey conversation on Books & Authors this week.

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62: Books & Authors with Yashaswini Chandra, author of The Tale of the Horse; A History of India on Horseback | PART-1

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 15:11:54 -0000

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61: Books & Authors podcast with Saaz Aggarwal, editor of 'Sindhi Tapestry; Reflections on the Sindhi Identity' | Part-2

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 02:31:42 -0000

The Sindhi community in India has been stereotyped as both enterprising and hardworking, and cutthroat and flashy. Saaz Aggarwal, editor of 'Sindhi Tapestry; Reflections on the Sindhi Identity', talks about Partition, cultural amnesia, and much more.

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60: Books & Authors podcast with Saaz Aggarwal, editor of 'Sindhi Tapestry; Reflections on the Sindhi Identity' | Part-1

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 02:31:11 -0000

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59: Books & Authors podcast with Yasser Usman, author of Guru Dutt; An Unfinished Story | Part-2

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 14:24:05 -0000

CID, Pyasa, Kagaz Ke Phool, Chaudvin ka Chand, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam are all classics... Guru Dutt's short, tragic life, his huge creative output, his doomed relationships with his phenomenally talented wife Geeta Dutt and with Waheeda Rehman, the leading lady of his most memorable films - Yasser Usman looks at all that in this book on one of the great auteurs of commercial Hindi cinema.

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58: Books & Authors podcast with Yasser Usman, author of Guru Dutt; An Unfinished Story | Part-1

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 14:18:40 -0000

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57: Books & Authors with Vinay Sitapati, author of Jugalbandi; The BJP Before Modi | Part-2

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 05:34:00 -0000

The electoral origins of Hindutva, the Vajpayee-Advani relationship, Hindu Fevicol, and the inability of the opposition to really understand the BJP... Vinay Sitapati, author of Jugalbandi; The BJP Before Modi discusses all that in this week's Books & Authors podcast with Manjula Narayan.

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56: Books & Authors with Vinay Sitapati, author of Jugalbandi; The BJP Before Modi | Part-1

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 05:33:00 -0000

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55: Books & Authors with Sai Paranjpye, author of A Patchwork Quilt: A Collage of My Creative Life | Part-2

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 13:57:40 -0000

Sai Paranjpye, whose memoir of her creative life, A Patchwork Quilt, is just out, talks about the making of classic films Sparsh and Chashme Buddoor, her great appreciation of intelligent actors, and her irritation at being called a "woman director".

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54: Books & Authors with Sai Paranjpye, author of A Patchwork Quilt: A Collage of My Creative Life | Part-1

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 13:56:38 -0000

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53: Books & Authors podcast with Shoba Narayan, author of Food & Faith | Part-2

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 12:54:37 -0000

In Food and Faith, Shoba Narayan explores history, myth, identity, and the role of spirituality in her life by partaking of sacred food in shrines across India - from Puri's bhog to Amritsar's langar to Jewish halva in Mumbai, to Goa's feasts, and Jaipur's rabdi!

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52: Books & Authors podcast with Shoba Narayan, author of Food & Faith | Part-1

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 12:53:56 -0000

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51: Books & Authors podcast with Tim I Gurung, author of Ayo Gorkhali; A History of the Gurkhas | Part-2

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:01:21 -0000

Tim I Gurung, author of Ayo Gorkhali; A History of the Gurkhas, talks about the origins of the community, their contribution to the Allied victory in both world wars and the subsequent shabby treatment of war veterans, their role in saving lives during the Partition, and their fight for parity within the British army.

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50: Books & Authors podcast with Tim I Gurung, author of Ayo Gorkhali; A History of the Gurkhas | Part-1

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 12:58:02 -0000

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49: Books & Authors podcast with Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, author of Loss | Part-2

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 13:07:30 -0000

Catch Manjula Narayan in conversation with Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi whose new book, Loss, is a memoir of grief that looks at the deaths of his father, his mother and a beloved pet. Lyrical, deeply insightful, and occasionally savagely funny, Loss examines the questions we all grapple with and leads the reader to an understanding of how death imbues life with meaning.

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48: Books & Authors podcast with Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, author of Loss | Part-1

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 13:05:30 -0000

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47: Books & Authors with Arshia Sattar, who has retold the Mahabharata for Children | Part-2

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 14:30:11 -0000

Yudhishtira as a man who hasn't got his due, Karna as a tragic hero, Eklavya as a representative of the marginalised, the horror of Draupadi's cheerharan, Duryodhana's growth from a petty prince to a generous hero, and the Mahabharata as a complex text about good people who don't always do good things and bad people who are sometimes honourable - Arshia Sattar, who has retold the Mahabharata for Children, talks about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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46: Books & Authors with Arshia Sattar, who has retold the Mahabharata for Children | Part-1

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 14:29:40 -0000

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45: Books & Authors podcast with Rujuta Diwekar, author of Eating in the Age of Dieting | Part-2

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 02:51:00 -0000

"To be healthy, eat local, seasonal, traditional. Life is very simple unless we allow the weight loss and food industry to complicate things for us", says Rujuta Diwekar.

Catch Rujuta Diwekar, celebrity nutritionist and author of Eating in the Age of Dieting, in conversation with Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, HT, on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

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44: Books & Authors podcast with Rujuta Diwekar, author of Eating in the Age of Dieting | Part-1

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 02:50:00 -0000

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43: Books and Authors with Amandeep Sandhu, author of Panjab; Journeys Through Fault Lines | Part-2

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 11:47:25 -0000

The unhealed wound of 1984, the Green Revolution, Khalistan, Hindutva's attempts to coopt Sikhism and the double-bind that Punjab is in today... Amandeep Sandhu, author of Panjab; Journeys Through Fault Lines talks about all that to Manjula Narayan in this week's Books & Authors podcast

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42: Books and Authors with Amandeep Sandhu, author of Panjab; Journeys Through Fault Lines | Part-1

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 11:47:01 -0000

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41: Books and Authors with Ananth Krishnan, author of India's China Challenge। Part-II

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 16:25:02 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, Hindustan Times dialogues with Ananth Krishnan, author of India's China Challenge. Listen to this episode as Manjula discuss the complications that hurdled the author's way.

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41: Books and Authors with Ananth Krishnan, author of India's China Challenge। Part-I

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 16:05:46 -0000

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40: Books & Authors with RK Raghavan author of A Road Well Travelled; An Autobiography। Part-II

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 17:27:18 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, Hindustan Times dialogues with RK Raghavan, former head of CBI and the author of 'A Road Well Travelled'. Tune in now and listen to the bone-chilling experiences of the former head of CBI.

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40: Books & Authors with RK Raghavan author of A Road Well Travelled; An Autobiography। Part-I

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 17:11:03 -0000

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39: Heart-to-heart with Manjiri Indurkar, author of 'It's All In Your Head, M'। Part-II

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:22:23 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, Hindustan Times dialogues with Manjiri Indurkar, author of 'It's All In Your Head, M'. Tune in to this episode as they talk about her haunting experiences while constructing her thoughts into a book and much more.

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39: Heart-to-heart with Manjiri Indurkar, author of 'It's All In Your Head, M'। Part-I

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:11:31 -0000

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38: Chetan Bhagat on his book 'One Arranged Murder' | Part-2

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:56:32 -0000

Catch Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor, Hindustan Times in conversation with Chetan Bhagat about his new book 'One Arranged Murder'. They both talk about writing, the process behind it and what went behind writing his latest one.

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37: Chetan Bhagat on his book 'One Arranged Murder' | Part-1

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:55:33 -0000

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36: In conversation with Luc Leruth, co-author of 'Rumble in a Village' | Part-2

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 17:53:38 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Luc Leruth, co-author of the book 'Rumble in a Village'. Tune in to this episode as they talk about how the book broadens into an entertaining and insightful fictional look at life in an Indian village and much more.

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35: In conversation with Luc Leruth, co-author of 'Rumble in a Village' | Part-1

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 17:47:14 -0000

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34: In conversation with Aparna Karthikeyan author of "Woof! : Adventures by the sea" | Part 2

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 06:04:38 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Aparna Karthikeyan, about her latest book Woof!. A book for kids and dog lovers of all ages. Tune in and find out.

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34: In conversation with Aparna Karthikeyan author of "Woof! : Adventures by the sea" | Part 1

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 06:04:34 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Aparna Karthikeyan, about her latest book Woof!. A book for kids and dog lovers of all ages. Tune in and find out.

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33: In conversation with Puja Changoiwala, author of 'Gangster on the Run' | Part 2

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:52:11 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Puja Changoiwala, about her book Gangster on the Run. A book about a former gangster who turned his life around. Tune in to learn more..

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33: In conversation with Puja Changoiwala, author of 'Gangster on the Run' | Part 1

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 16:51:17 -0000

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32: In conversation with Shylashri Shankar, the author of Turmeric Nation; A Passage Through India's Tastes | Part 1

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 06:30:00 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Shylashri Shankar about her new book Turmeric Nation; A Passage Through India's Tastes. It is a series of essays that delves into the anthropological account of patterns that have formed Indian food cultures, taste preferences, and cooking traditions. Tune in for more..

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32: In conversation with Shylashri Shankar, the author of Turmeric Nation; A Passage Through India's Tastes | Part 2

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 06:30:00 -0000

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31: In conversation with Parmesh Shahani on his new book, Queeristan Part 2

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:19:40 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Parmesh Shahani about his second book Queeristan. They discuss LGBTQI+ inclusion in the workspace, the main theme of the book . Tune in more this enticing discussion.

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31: In conversation with Parmesh Shahani on his new book, Queeristan Part 1

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 14:19:37 -0000

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30: Part 2 | In conversation with Ashutosh Bharadwaj on his new book, The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 15:53:18 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Ashutosh Bharadwaj about his new release 'The Death Script'. An engaging conversation with the author about the details of conflict and death, narratives of trauma, and violence. Tune in for more.

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30: Part 1 | In conversation with Ashutosh Bharadwaj on his new book, The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 15:53:11 -0000

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29: Part 2 | In conversation with Janaki Lenin on her new book, Every Creature Has a Story- What Science Reveals about Animal Behaviour

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 14:57:54 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Janaki Lenin about her new release, Every Creature Has a Story: What Science Reveals about Animal Behaviour, and how from weekly editorial essays it transformed into a book.

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29: Part 1 | In conversation with Janaki Lenin on her new book, Every Creature Has a Story- What Science Reveals about Animal Behaviour

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 14:57:20 -0000

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27: Part 2 | In conversation with Farrukh Dhondy on his new book Rumi; A New Collection

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 15:01:34 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Farrukh Dhondy on Rumi, the various interpretations of the poet. Starting from why he translated the book to his fascination with Sufism, all questions are answered in today's interaction. Tune in for more.

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28: Part 1 | In conversation with Farrukh Dhondy on his new book Rumi; A New Collection

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 14:58:23 -0000

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26: In conversation with Dhruv Bogra, author of 'Away - Seven Real Adventures in the Wilderness' (Part 1)

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 03:38:00 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Dhruv Bogra in regards to his upcoming new book, 'Away - Seven Real Adventures in the Wilderness'. Away is dedicated to thousands of migrants who have suffered a lot because of the pandemic, walking and cycling thousands of miles to reach their villages and millions of retail employees across grocery stores, restaurants and delivery services who put their country first and served, leaving the safety of their own homes.

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25: In conversation with Dhruv Bogra, author of 'Away - Seven Real Adventures in the Wilderness' (Part 2)

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 06:35:55 -0000

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24: In Conversation with Shobhaa De, author of 'Lockdown Liaisons' (Part 2)

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:36:26 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Shobhaa De in regards to her upcoming new book, 'Lockdown Liaisons'.
The book is a collection of 24 short stories from the varying perspectives of both men and women – young and old, brave and cowardly, cheerful and weighed down. Tune in to know more as Shobhaa De shares her take on the charged emotional and social realities of the pandemic.

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24: In Conversation with Shobhaa De, author of 'Lockdown Liaisons' (Part 1)

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:35:43 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Shobhaa De in regards to her upcoming new book, 'Lockdown Liaisons'. The book is a collection of 24 short stories from the varying perspectives of both men and women – young and old, brave and cowardly, cheerful and weighed down. Tune in to know more as Shobhaa De shares her take on the charged emotional and social realities of the pandemic.

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23: Ravinder Bhogal, author of Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 13:38:23 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, In conversation with Ravinder Bhogal, regarding her upcoming new book, 'Jikoni'. She talks about her experience as an immigrant and how they have to adaptive of the food, as they cross so many landscapes. She says that this book is not just a recipe book but it's a book for immigrants who miss their own food in a new place.

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22: In conversation with Kavita Devgan, author of 'Fix It With Food'

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 05:20:31 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Kavita Devgan, in regards to her upcoming new book, 'Fix It With Food'. This book gives knowledge regarding nutrition and how to acquire them from food? Tune in now

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21: In conversation with Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras, editors of " The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia" (Part-2)

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 07:12:10 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras, editors of " The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia". The editors talk about the making of the book and how people from all walks of life came together to write it.

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20: In conversation with Akhil Katyal and Aditi Angiras, editors of "The World That Belongs To Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia" (Part-1)

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 07:06:40 -0000

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19: In conversation with Ira Mukhoty, author of Akbar: The Great Mughal (Part-2)

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:30:42 -0000

Continuing the conversation, Manjula Narayan talks to Ira Mukhoty, author of the book "Akbar: The Great Mughal". The author now unravels some lesser-known facts about the relationship of the king with his family members.

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18: In conversation with Ira Mukhoty, author of Akbar: The Great Mughal (Part-1)

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 12:27:27 -0000

Manjula Narayan, National Books Editor at Hindustan Times, talks to Ira Mukhoty author of the book "Akbar: The Great Mughal". Listen in as the author talks about how the book delves deep into India's history from food, textiles, architecture, and more.

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17: TM Krishna, author of Sebastian & Sons (Part2).

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 11:19:01 -0000

TM Krishna's new book on mridangam makers highlights the central role of these dalit master craftspersons in Carnatic music, and examines the complex relationship they share with upper caste mridangam players.

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16: TM Krishna, author of Sebastian & Sons (Part1).

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 11:17:06 -0000

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15: Rajat Ubhaykar on his book 'Truck De India- A Hitchhiker's Guide to Hindustan' (Part-2)

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 12:30:40 -0000

Dhaba food, blingy truck bodies, infernal heat, the generosity of truck drivers, and the ubiquity of corruption, Rajat Ubhaykar's book combines sociological and cultural insights with anecdote and reportage to give you a vivid picture of the lives of Indian truckers.

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14: Rajat Ubhaykar on his book 'Truck De India- A Hitchhiker's Guide to Hindustan' (Part-1)

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 12:29:54 -0000

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13: In conversation with Sunil Gupta, Sunetra Choudhury on Black Warrant (Part-2)

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:17:51 -0000

Continuing their conversation from the previous part, our guests talk about what is it like to witness a hanging? Was Ram Singh, one of the accused in the Nirbhaya case, murdered in prison? What were Afzal Guru's last moments like? Sunil Gupta, who worked at Tihar for 35 years, and journalist Sunetra Choudhury, who helped him put down his story, talk about their sensational book, Black Warrant.

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12: In conversation with Sunil Gupta, Sunetra Choudhury on Black Warrant (Part-1)

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 12:14:36 -0000

What is it like to witness a hanging? Was Ram Singh, one of the accused in the Nirbhaya case, murdered in prison? What were Afzal Guru's last moments like? Sunil Gupta, who worked at Tihar for 35 years, and journalist Sunetra Choudhury, who helped him put down his story, talk about their sensational book, Black Warrant.

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11: In conversation with Shubha Mudgal (Part-2)

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 13:01:49 -0000

Books And Authors with Manjula Narayan | Shubha Mudgal's Looking for Miss Sargam, a book of short stories about classical musicians, of 'music and misadventure', is both funny and full of pathos.

Tune in to listen to the part-2 of the conversation.

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10: In conversation with Shubha Mudgal (Part-1)

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 12:57:58 -0000

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9: In conversation with Namita Gokhale, author of Jaipur Journals

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 15:16:49 -0000

Namita Gokhale, director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, talks about her metafictional novel, Jaipur Journals, which looks at writers with both wicked humour and deep sympathy.

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8: Amit Khanna on his new book Words, Sounds, Images

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 04:34:47 -0000

Amit Khanna, a film industry insider for six decades, who set up Reliance Entertainment and has worked across media, talks about Dev Anand, working with four generations of entertainment and media professionals, about Nehru's dictatorial side, and about the convergence of media and entertainment.

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7: Books & Authors with Kaveree Bamzai, author of No Regrets

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 15:21:09 -0000

Farah Khan, who grew up in a tiny flat the size of her current living room carpet, offers insights in Kaveree Bamzai's book, No Regrets, as do Twinkle Khanna, Sania Mirza, and Smriti Irani, among others. Bamzai's guilt-free woman's guide to a good life tells us what NOT to do on everything from being a mother, to managing money, marriage, anger, and growing old.

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6: In conversation with music legend Usha Uthup at the JLF 2019- Throwback

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 09:03:31 -0000

Usha Uthup talks about being the voice of disco in India, her magical connect with the audience, singing in many different languages, and about the Samy Sisters, her older siblings who were famous in 60s Mumbai!

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5: Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World by Ramachandra Guha

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:52:45 -0000

In his latest book, Gandhi; The Years That Changed The World 1914-1948, Ramachandra Guha looks once more at one of the most revered and most controversial figures in modern Indian history. Here, he discusses why Gandhi continues to be relevant.

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4: The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper, Andrew Otis

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:51:55 -0000

Fearless but flawed! James Hicky, editor of India's first newspaper, was passionate about freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and unafraid to take on even Warren Hastings, governor general of India. Author Andrew Otis, who spent five years researching Hicky’s life and work, talks about the man and his times, about the sorry condition of India’s priceless archives, and about how we are essentially still fighting for freedom of expression though in a vastly different new media environment.

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3: Chidanand Rajghatta author of Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:49:42 -0000

Growing anti-rationalism and hatred led to the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. Here, Chidanand Rajghatta, author of Gauri Lankesh and the Age of Unreason, talks about growing up in the era of Mandal and Masjid and the roots of the illiberalism that's threatening to engulf India.

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2: Saba Naqvi, author, Shades of Saffron, talks about her tryst with gaumutra soap

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:37:38 -0000

Saba Naqvi’s eminently readable ‘Shades of Saffron’ combines straight reportage and in-depth analysis to present real insights into the rise of the BJP, which she has been covering since 1997. A first-person account of events as they happened that also goes deeper to examine the nature of our complex society, this book includes fascinating nuggets of information and great anecdotes too. Here, Naqvi talks about being a liberal Muslim woman journalist covering the BJP since the 1990s, about her tryst with gaumutra soap, and about such politicians as Vajpayee, Pramod Mahajan and Narendra Modi, whom she sees as a “solitary figure”.

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1: Ira Mukhoty on her book, 'Daughters of the Sun'

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:26:58 -0000

The author talks about the dynamic empresses, queens and begums of the Mughal Empire, who are the subject of her eminently readable new book.

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