Hands Up!

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” ― Franz Kafka The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka touches upon themes like conditional love, hypocrisy within families and alienation. However, during this conversation we expand the scope of the conversation which recognises the fact that men do feel disposable when they are of no use to a specific person or a family. (Of course, the same logic...

It is quite entertaining to read a book that tells you why the poor are not killing us. Not that I was ever afraid of being killed by a poor person. The book is enjoyable and readable. It might even make you feel intelligent. But it’s not. That’s the opinion of my guest Abhishek Pisharody, a political consultant. Read his detailed review here.

“Math has proven the existence of God, because it is absolute and without contradiction; but the devil must exist as well, because we cannot prove it.” ~ Yoko Ogawa In this episode, I discuss the book “The Housekeeper and the Professor” with Srishti Khurana. The book is based on a quirky character who loses memory every 80 minutes. In addition to the story involving the lives of the housekeeper, h...

“God had a full beard, Satan had a goatee” ~ Marion Poschmann. The ‘Pine Islands’ is a page turner that tracks the journey of a young Japanese man and a German national (who is a beard researcher) through the forests of Japan. It explores thoughts of Basho, Haikus and German character’s fraught marital life. Though I read the book with some curiosity, I felt it was a muddled narrative. However, my...

After recording a podcast about the first book "Days at the Morisaki Bookshop" by Satoru Yagisawa, I discuss the sequel to the book with Deeksha Sharma who studies Computational Social Sciences at IIT Jodhpur. In this episode we discuss independent bookstores, a brief summary of the sequel and 'slice of life' genre. We also debate whether reading can be a viable escape, book club...

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov In this episode Nikita and I discuss the nuances of characters in the novel, moral dilem...

"She knows that no single specific experience led to her loss of language. Language worn ragged over thousands of years, from wear and tear by countless tongues and pens. Language worn ragged over the course of her life, by her own tongue and pen. Each time she tried to begin a sentence, she could feel her aged heart. Her patched and repatched, dried-up, expressionless heart. The more keenly she f...

Mahabharata the epic is a forbidden text in Indian households. I did not know the story completely till I read it on my own at the age of 24. But my friend Prajukta Pradhan has a deep knowledge of the text as her father cut off the cable connection and fed his children with Mahabharata serial CDs. Prajukta's deep knowledge of the text and the details that she remembers kept me hooked for almos...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." ~ Jane Austen. In this episode with Dr Angana Moitra, professor at Jindal Global University I discuss the classic 'Pride and Prejudice', its characters, the nuances and its relevance for modern day readers. We also discuss aunties, the institution of marriage an...

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground “Notes from Underground” is a powerful and intense social commentary and monologue of a very frustrated former government servant. The book is written in a certain social and political environment where “determinism” was presented as an ideal. In this conversation with Deeksha I explore t...

Adolescence is a short but incisive TV series about a child who has turned into a murderer due to his own insecurities and the social media activities of a girl he was interested in. The show articulates the nature of factors that shape children, adolescents and men of today. I discuss the show, its characters, the implications of show on society and several related themes with Debasmita Sasmal, a...

"Don’t be afraid to love someone. When you fall in love, I want you to fall in love all the way. Even if it ends in heartache, please don’t live a lonely life without love." ~ Satoshi Yagisawa in 'Days at Morisaki Bookshop'. 'Days at the Morisaki Bookshop' by Satoshi Yagisawa is a wonderful book in the “slice-of-life” genre. I talk about this book with Diwyani Vajpayee wh...

"How are we writing the future of humanity? We're not writing anything, it's writing us. We're windblown leaves. We think we're the wind, but we're just the leaf." ~ Samantha Harvey in Orbital In this episode, Nikita and I discuss how the book 'Orbital' impacted both of us. We debate the relevance of space exploration when the same ingenuity and resources can...

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in White Nights. “White Nights” was a story that healed me in a way. It told me that stories that happen to an individual are not entirely new. Human nature has not changed a lot over centuries. In this episode I discuss Dostoevsky’s famous novella with Deeksha Sharma. Deeksha works as a marketer and SEO expert at a startup in...

A description of ‘Chaos Theory’ by Grok is as below. “Chaos Theory studies complex systems where small changes in initial conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes, often called the "butterfly” effect. It explores unpredictable, non-linear behavior in deterministic systems like weather, fluid dynamics, or populations. Though seemingly random, chaotic systems follow underlying patterns and r...

In this episode of Hands Up! I discuss the book “Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh” by Shrayana Bhattacharya with Bency Ramakrishnan and Nikita Pathak. Bency Ramakrishnan is a policy professional and a lawyer. She confesses that she was a closet Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) fan until recently. Nikita Pathak is a development professional who admires SRK and his work, but doesn’t claim to be a SRK fan. Both of...

Ramayana has fascinated me as an adult even more than it did during my childhood. As I navigate through knotty personal dilemmas it serves as source of inspiration and guidance. I had heard a liberal take on the epic before this episode. To a large extent I felt that it was just a story and treated it as such in spite of my devotion towards Rama. My friend Yash Sampat whom I met at the Enthu Book...

Ramayana has inspired people in the subcontinent and several nations of south east Asia for centuries. It’s one of the greatest myths of humanity. Yet, it is also controversial in many ways. The treatment of women, especially Sita has sparked many debates. Chitra Banerjee Divakurani’s book “Forest of Enchantments” adds to this conversation. As part of Enthu Book Club, Nikita and I read this book a...

“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.” ~ Julian Barnes in The Sense of an Ending. Dr Angana Moitra, Faculty at Jindal School of Langu...