A Book A Day - A Literary Podcast from India

Carl Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy and religious studies. It's interesting how he combines the wisdom of all these disciplines and points out at the state of our lives - it's pleasures and miseries. I discuss his ideas on religion in this podcast and how it adds meaning to one's life.

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. I discuss his ideas in this podcast.

The Stolen Bacillus” is a satirical short story about the potential role of science and scientists in facilitating bio terrorism, written by Herbert George Wells better known as H. G. Wells. It's quite interesting given the times we live in, where a virus has caused the entire world to panic. I narrate this short story in the podcast.

Ramayana is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient Indian history, the other being the Mahābhārata. Along with the Mahābhārata, it forms the Hindu Itihasa. The epic, traditionally ascribed to the Maharishi Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, a legendary prince of Ayodhya city in the kingdom of Kosala. I share a few things about the story of Ramayana in this podcast.

Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. It has different schools of thoughts such as Buddhism, Jainism etc. And of course what is today known as Hinduism and its different schools. But the challenge is to make sense of its structure and framework. Which is exactly what I discuss in this podcast.

The Iranian Revolution, locally known as the Islamic Revolution was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the replacement of his government with an Islamic republic under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. Naipaul captures the immediate change in Iranian landscape right after the revolution in his book Among the Believer...

Several stories about the famous Mughal emperor, Akbar, and his advisor, Birbal, have done the rounds for many years. It was mostly passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. Many even created new stories with morals and assigned the characters of Akbar and Birbal if they deemed fit. I narrate one such story in this podcast.

Francis Bacon's works, seen as developing the scientific method, remained influential through the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism. He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. In this podcast, I share some of his ideas.

In this book, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar explains the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. He brings to light the profound wisdom contained in Patanjali's Sanskrit passages in a language that is palatable to the modern mind. I discuss this book briefly and the underlying philosophy.

In his book The Age of Kali, William Dalrymple travels the Indian subcontinent and tries to capture the troubles of those times (1990s). In this podcast, I take out the chapter on Imran Khan, where Dalrymple describes his personality, character and how the Pakistani society views him. I read out a few excerpts from the book as well.

Wahiduddin Khan, known with the honorific Maulana, was an Indian Islamic scholar and peace activist known for having written a commentary on the Quran and having translated it into contemporary English. He passed away two days ago due to coronavirus. This podcast is a tribute to his efforts for encouraging interfaith harmony and reforms in the Muslim world.

Publisher’s Note Tales, fables and stories occupy an important place in the Tibetan way of life. This may not be co in the lives of Tibetans these days, but in the part Tibetans grew up listening to tales from their grandparents or storytellers, Fascinated by such extraordinary and ghostly characters, as ogres, demons, kings and princes, dragons etc, often sounded similar. We are pleases to bring...

V S Naipaul's book, Among the Believers, describes a six-month journey across the Asian continent after the Iranian Revolution. V.S. Naipaul explores the culture and the explosive situation in countries where Islamic fundamentalism was growing. In this podcast, I read out the lessons from Malaysia.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work. Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book, Kim, and many short stories, including How the Camel Got Its Hump - which I am going to narrate in this podcast.

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer. His short stories are widely read even today. I narrate one of his short stories called The Distinguished Stranger in this podcast.

The Hindu Way: An Introduction to Hinduism is the perfect introduction to one of the world’s oldest and greatest religions. Derived from Shashi Tharoor’s bestselling book Why I Am a Hindu and his other discussions and writings on the subject, this is an examination of the fundamentals and complexities of Hinduism—a book that will appeal to both adults as well as young adult readers. I read the int...

The Age of Kali is a 1998 travel book by William Dalrymple. The book's theme is trouble in the Indian subcontinent and the Hindu belief in a time called the Kali Yuga when many problems will come to exist in the world. In this episode I read out the chapter on Vrindavan which talks about how Hindu widows find a home in this place.

Blink is Malcolm Gladwell's second book. It presents in popular science format research from psychology and behavioral economics on the adaptive unconscious: mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information. In other words, how can we channelize our intuitions better. I discuss the book briefly in this podcast.

Mirabai was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. I recite some of her poems in this podcast.

The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature. It is organized in 114 chapters, which consist of verses. Since this is the month of Ramazan for Muslims, I decided to give a brief idea about the book to those who would want to read it.

"The Three Questions" is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1885 as part of the collection What Men Live By, and Other Tales. The story takes the form of a parable, and it concerns a king who wants to find the answers to what he considers the three most important questions in life. I narrate the story in today's podcast.

Why I Am Not a Christian is an essay by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. In this essay, he explores various arguments in support of existence of God and in Christian morality, and goes on to critique them. I narrate the essay in this podcast.

Chachnama, the story of Chach, tells the story of the early 8th-century conquests of Sindh (now in Pakistan) by the Umayyad general Muhammad bin Qasim. It is also sometimes called as The Conquest of Sindh or The History of Sindh and India. In this podcast, I narrate the story briefly in the words of V. S. Naipaul who wrote about it in his 1981 book called Among the Believers.

Arabian Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central and South Asia, and North Africa. The stories are inter-weaved brilliantly and contain countless events of magic and fantasy. I read out the beginning of this long tale in this pod...

George Orwell's essay “Reflections on Gandhi” examines Gandhi's principal of non-violence, or Satyagraha ("holding on to the truth"), as a political tool. Orwell attempts to evaluate non-violence as a method of political leverage outside of the unique circumstances in which Gandhi successfully deployed his method. I narrate this essay in today's podcast.