The Lottery Ticket is a short story by Anton Chekhov about a middle-class couple that believes they have won the lottery. Ivan Dmitritch is skeptical of his wife spending money on lottery tickets and believes she is wasting money on them. The story gives you a glimpse of a love-hate relationship. I narrate this story in today's podcast.

Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. While mostly known for his poetry and Sufism, Rumi has also written a few short stories - written in his own poetic style, of course - which are quite popular across the world. I narrate a couple of these short stories in this podcast.

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 Believers. I read out a few pages from the book for you in this podcast.

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.