The Yodakin Podcast

In the 25th episode of The Yodakin Podcast, author and activist Harsh Mander discusses his new book Under Grey Smoggy Skies: Living Homeless on the Streets of India's Cities , with Arpita Das, Founder-Publisher of Yoda Press. Under Grey Smoggy Skies brings together Mander's writings on the homeless, where he discusses the compassion and care we ought to show in our ideas of justice and our...

The 24th episode of The Yodakin Podcast features a recording of a conversation between Arshi Javaid, author of 'Yaadgah: Memories of Srinagar', and Ekta Chauhan, Assistant Professor at the Jindal School of Design and Architecture, that took place on 31st August, 2025, at Studio Safdar. 'Yaadgah: Memories of Srinagar' was released in May 2025 by Yoda Press, and brings together 14 es...

In our 23rd episode, Padmini Mongia reads from her short-story collection, 'Baby Looking Out and Other Stories', published by Yoda Press in 2018. Padmini Mongia teaches literature in English at Franklin & Marshall College. She is a teacher and scholar, a writer and painter. In this special episode, she recites the second chapter of the book, titled "The Bat and His Kite", whe...

Our 22nd episode is a special one, where Arpita Das, Founder-Publisher of Yoda Press, moderates a panel between three of our authors, as part of the 2025 Ananke Literature Festival. She talks to Arshi Javaid, author of Yaadgah: Memories of Srinagar ; Neeta Kolhatkar, author of The Feared: Conversations with 11 Political Prisoners ; and Namita Waikar, author of Farmers Protest! A Movement for Our T...

For our 21st episode, the last of 2024, we have Naima Rashid reciting a few of her poems from Sum of Worlds, published by Yoda Press in September 2024. Naima Rashid, an author, poet, and literary translator, deals with themes of migration, motherhood, and living between different cultures, places, and languages. In Sum of Worlds, Rashid questions the nature of the self as it is shattered and put t...

In our 20th episode (in our 20th year!), Founder-Publisher Arpita Das is in conversation with environmental lawyer and legal scholar, Arpitha Kodiveri. Arpitha Kodiveri is the author of 'Governing Forests: State, Law and Citizenship in Indian Forests'. Among other topics, the two discuss the centring of forest-dwelling communities in environmental law, how Dalit and Adivasi communities tac...

In the 19th episode of The Yodakin Podcast, Publisher Arpita Das is in conversation with queer activist and writer Maya Sharma. Maya Sharma is the author of two pathbreaking LGBTQIA titles, Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India (2006) and Footprints of a Queer History: Life-Stories from Gujarat ( 2022). Among other things, the two talk about queer identities, the importance of listenin...

In this episode of The Yodakin Podcast, Publisher Arpita Das is in conversation with renowned historian, Prof. Chinnaiah Jangam. Prof. Jangam translated Gabbilam:A Dalit Epic by Gurram Jashuva from the Telugu into English. Among other things, the two talk about the legendary poet Gurram Jashuva, importance of Dalit narrative traditions, significance of the word 'epic' and the recent reprod...

In this episode of the Yodakin Podcast, Publisher Arpita Das is in conversation with renowned Malayalam author B.M. Zuhara about her book ‘Dreams of a Mappila Girl’ and Fehmida Zakeer, a brilliant translator. Among other things, the three talk about Zuhara’s childhood and her childhood home, what it means to grow up as a woman who asks many questions, the familial critique and backlash Zuhara had...

In this episode, Arpita Das, publisher and founder of Yoda Press, is in discussion with Lisa Björkman, Assistant Professor of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Louisville, Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, and the author and editor of the book Bombay Brokers . Among other things, they discuss how the idea for the book originated, the gendered...

In this episode of the Yodakin Podcast, Arpita Das and graphic novelist and researcher Samarth discuss the experiences that led to the creation of the graphic novel Suit . Samarth talks about how he chose the theme of manual scavenging for his novel, the field trips for research, the influence of comic books while growing up and how he chose the graphic novel as the medium to tell this story.&nbsp...

In this episode, Kanchana Viswanathan reads some extracts from Chellammal's Journal: A Woman's Memoir of a Joint Family in Twentieth-Century India . Chellammal’s Journal records the journey of a woman in an upper-caste joint family in early twentieth-century Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu. It excavates the complex familial relationships within the walls of the house, and the interplay of love, hurt, affect...

In this episode, Sophia Naz reads some poems from Open Zero. Open Zero is at once a visceral close up of the stark ground realities of loss and an evocation of its many shapes; the ongoing erasure of a syncretic culture in the manufactured narratives of nation-states post Partition; the slipping away of self-esteem in the face of sexism and misogyny and the ravages of rapacious capitalism on an in...

Author and professor, Dolly Kikon sits down with Arpita Das to discuss her book Living with Oil and Coal . Among other things they discuss the idea of extraction in the North-East India, the haats that were at once places of connection and resentment and gender that plays a pivotal role in the coal economy.  The Yodakin Podcast is hosted by Arpita Das. It is edited by Tanya Singh. Intro music...

In this episode of The Yodakin Podcast, Arpita Das talks to Kavita Daiya about her newest monograph, Graphic Migrations: Gender and Precarity in India and the Diaspora. Among other things, they discuss the external and internal solutions that the modern states have offered to the question of migration, the ways in which depiction of Partition has evolved in the popular media and print culture, the...

Arpita Das sits down with author Anuradha Kumar and talks to her about her latest work of literary fiction, The Hottest Summer in Years. Among other things, the two discuss Anuradha's literary influences, how she brought 1950s India to life in her novel and her journey as a writer writing across genres and how she moved from fiction to non-fiction writing.  The Yodakin Podcast is hosted by Ar...

In this episode, Arpita Das, publisher and founder of Yoda Press, is in discussion with Anne-Cathrine Riebnitzsky about her book, The Women's War: A Female Soldier’s Account of Her Time in Afghanistan. The book narrates the gripping true story of Riebnitzsky's tours to the Helmand Province in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009. There she comes into contact with the Afghan women who are fighting aga...

Bhairavi: The Runaway , by Shivani urf Gaura Pant, has been translated from the Hindi for the first time in English by Priyanka Sarkar. On the eve of this book's launch, Arpita Das, founder-publisher of Yoda Press, sits down with Mrinal and Ira Pande, Shivani's daughters and esteemed writers, and with Priyanka Sarkar, to talk about Shivani's process of writing, her inspirations, how she carried th...

Publisher Arpita Das and author Thomas Crowley discuss his upcoming book, Fractured Forest, Quartzite City and delve deeper into the history and politics surrounding the Ridge in Delhi. In this conversation Crowley not only maps the ancient past of the Ridge but also deciphers the future of this ecological wonder that will ultimately shape the environmental impact it could have on Delhi. 

Bhaswati Ghosh and Arpita Das sit down to discuss Victory Colony, 1950, Ghosh's debut novel on the aftermath of the Indian Partition. They discuss the inspiration behind the novel, which is set in Calcutta, its deeply resilient protagonist Amala Manna and how history has treated the Partition on the eastern border of India.

Arpita Das and psychotherapist and author Nupur Dhingra Paiva sit down to discuss the effects of lock down across the world due to COVID19. How children are the most affected but are also the most resilient. Nupur Dhingra Paiva also talks about the way children's coping mechanisms have a lot to teach us about how we view our self isolation. Tune in!

On 13th December 2019, Goldsmiths Award nominee, Sarah Ladipo Manyika sat down with Arpita Das, Publisher-Founder of Yoda Press. Their candid conversation over coffee included Sarah's inspiration behind her extraordinary novel, her love for stories that remain untold and most importantly, why she feels that it is the young people of today that grapple most with the anxiety around ageing.

This excerpt is from our book Open Couplets written by Torsa Ghosal. Somewhere in the dingy lanes of north Kolkata, a young girl born to a family of idol-makers learns to carve goddesses with her own hands, a right that her artisan father had reserved for her brother. But, years later, when Ira Chatterjee—a breezy, jet-setting ethnographer born in the same neighbourhood—comes looking for the girl,...

In this episode of The Yodakin Podcast we bring to you Miss Hadd from Padmini Mongia's collection of short stories titled 'Baby Looking Out and Other Stories'. One evening Miss Hadd sits down and tells young children a frightening story---a story that could come true because all her stories are true. All you have to do is look, and see.

The quiet, bookish narrator who walks with a limp and often feels like the odd one out is drawn to the story of the beautiful Mohua who died a hundred years ago but still resides in her ancestral mansion on Moira Street in the heart of Old Calcutta. He finds himself outside the dilapidated mansion one day, sipping cha at a local tea stall and listening to the oddball cha wala narrate the story of...