Kabuliwala is a Bengali short story written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1892, during Tagore's " Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines) from 1891 to 1895. The story is about "The Fruitseller" a Pathan from Kabul, Afghanistan who visits to Calcutta (present day Kolkata), India each year for selling dry-fruits and while living in India he develops filial affection with a five-year-old girl Mini from a middle-class aristocratic family. I narrate this story in today's podcast.

An Edible History of Humanity is a book written by Tom Standage that encompasses the history of the world from prehistory to modern day times through the tracing of foods and agricultural techniques used by man. I discuss this book and tell you the story of good in today's podcast.

Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian, philosopher, and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. The Augustinian theodicy, is a type of Christian theodicy that developed in response to the evidential problem of evil. I discuss this in today's podcast.

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country. Today I narrate one of his short stories. It's called The Kingdom That Failed.

Sikhism or Sikhi is a Dharmic religion that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. Sikhism is one of the youngest of the major religions and the world's fifth-largest organized religion, with about 25-30 million Sikhs as of the early-21st century. But what is Sikhism? What is its history? I discuss some of these questions and much more in today's podcast.

The Missionary Position is a book by the British-American journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens published in 1995. It is a critique of the work and philosophy of Mother Teresa, the founder of an international Roman Catholic religious congregation, and it challenges the mainstream media's assessment of her charitable efforts. I share some of the interesting points from the book in today's podcast.

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. In today's podcast, I narrate one of his short stories which beautifully captures the events that take place in the course of a few hours.

The Partition of India was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, India and Pakistan. The whole event, which took place in 1947, was preceded and succeeded by countless instances of riots and violence. It is in this setting I narrate you a sad short story written by a Punjabi writer Mohinder Singh Sarna.

David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. I discuss some of his interesting ideas in today's podcast.

Judith Jarvis Thomson was an American philosopher who studied and worked on ethics and metaphysics. She wrote a moral philosophy essay titled A Defense of Abortion in 1971. This has been widely read and discussed on the issue of abortion. I discuss her arguments in today's podcast.