Robert Wilson Lynd was an Irish writer, editor of poetry and urbane literary essayist. In today's podcast, I treat you with one of his essays titled The Pleasures of Ignorance. This essay truly agitates the readers' minds and rekindles the desire for rational thinking. Enjoy.

"The Mirror" is a short story about a selfish queen that does not like to be seen because of her hideous appearance. It was written by Catulle Mendes more than a century ago but it still captivates the modern reader. I narrate this story in today's podcast.

Rakhshanda Jalil, in her book titled Preeto and Other Stories: The Male Gaze in Urdu, brings us a collection of short stories originally written in Urdu and shows how Urdu male writers have been able to capture a woman's emotions perfectly. In this podcast, I narrate a beautiful short story written Gulzar.

Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from AD 161 to 180, recording his private notes to himself and ideas on Stoic philosophy. In today's podcast, I summarise the wisdom contained in this book.

The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story. The surviving work is dated to roughly 200 BCE – 300 CE, based on older oral tradition. Today, I narrate a story from this repository of fascinating tales.

Romila Thapar is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. In this podcast, I narrate one of her essays on Indian nationalism and its history.

Rupert Spira is an English teacher of the "direct path", a method of spiritual self-enquiry through talks and writing. In his book The Nature of Consciousness, he challenges the prevailing materialist paradigm that is holding humanity back, suggesting that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter, and that overlooking or ignoring this reality is the root cause of the suffering we see around us.

Khalil Gibran, usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title. In today's podcast, I narrate some of his stories which are really short and truly profound.

Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar was an Indian polymath - philosopher, jurist, economist, politician, social reformer, journalist, writer, sociologist, and anthropologist. His views on religions and the partition of India because of religion are quite interesting and worth reading. I read some pages of his book in this podcast.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. In his book On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche traces episodes in the evolution of moral concepts with a view to confronting "moral prejudices", specifically those of Christianity and Judaism. I discuss these ideas in today's podcast.