Episodes

  • The power and the glory

    The power and the glory
    Feb 7 2025
    "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.
    Show More Show Less
    54 mins
  • Battling alternate reality

    Battling alternate reality
    Jan 31 2025
    "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.
    Show More Show Less
    52 mins
  • Of flying yoginis, Trojan elephants, and kings who ghost their girlfriends

    Of flying yoginis, Trojan elephants, and kings who ghost their girlfriends
    Jan 23 2025
    "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
    Show More Show Less
    56 mins
  • Tibetans: From Lhasa to Dharamsala and the wider world

    Tibetans: From Lhasa to Dharamsala and the wider world
    Jan 16 2025
    "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.
    Show More Show Less
    48 mins
  • In the land of the lotus eaters

    In the land of the lotus eaters
    Jan 10 2025
    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
    Show More Show Less
    52 mins
  • Cosy Delhi crime

    Cosy Delhi crime
    Jan 4 2025
    "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.
    Show More Show Less
    50 mins
  • Cuba: Will the revolution endure?

    Cuba: Will the revolution endure?
    Dec 12 2024
    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!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Indian ink

    Indian ink
    Dec 6 2024
    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
    Show More Show Less
    48 mins