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  • Of Bakharwals, Jonangis and more

    Of Bakharwals, Jonangis and more
    2025/04/18
    "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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 分
  • Intrepid Americans in India

    Intrepid Americans in India
    2025/04/10
    "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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 分
  • Delhi underbelly

    Delhi underbelly
    2025/04/03
    "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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    44 分
  • Barking up the right tree

    Barking up the right tree
    2025/03/28
    "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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 分
  • Delhi; tales of a city with multiple pasts

    Delhi; tales of a city with multiple pasts
    2025/03/20
    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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 分
  • A sampling of some of the best Indian short fiction

    A sampling of some of the best Indian short fiction
    2025/03/13
    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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    58 分
  • The incredible story of the most successful escape of WW2

    The incredible story of the most successful escape of WW2
    2025/03/07
    "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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 分
  • Exploring the multiple layers of truth

    Exploring the multiple layers of truth
    2025/02/28
    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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 時間 4 分