India Booked with Ayushi Mona

RAYA: Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara, written by author Srinivas Reddy, is the definitive biography of India’s first truly global leader and one of the greatest kings who changed the course of Indian history. In this episode of India Booked, host Ayushi Mona and author Srinivas Reddy engage in an ardent conversation about Deccan history, the life of Krishnadevaraya and the town of Hampi.

Srinivas Reddy is a scholar, translator and musician, and his previous books include translations of Krishnadevaraya’s Amuktamalyada and Kalidasa’s Meghadutam and Malavikagnimitram.

The podcast delves into a discussion about caste, tolerance and the sensitivities around it, the link between power and value of culture and how the different perspectives and romanticism of the dynamic Indian history are put together to shape its totality.

This episode contains two very vivid excerpts from the book on the routines of the emperor Krishnadevaraya and the striking scenes of warfare, including a translation of one of the beautiful poems written by Raya himself.

By the end, you will be compelled to pick this book up right away and start reading, or pack your bags and go visit Hampi, either of which will give you an extensive idea about the life of Krishnadevaraya and the historic city of Vijayanagara. Tune in now!

In this episode of India Booked, journalist and children’s book writer Priyanka Pradhan takes us on a journey through the Himalayas by discussing stories from her book ‘Tales from the Himalayas’ which features snow leopards to bagpiping girls to the real life stories of heroes from the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, Gaura Devi and Nain Singh Rawat.

This book is for “all the children, including the children in us” as she says, for the stories in it, from the heart of the mountains, though fascinating and fun, are diverse and impactful at the same time.

This podcast is light hearted as Ayushi Mona and Priyanka Pradhan engage in a conversation about her childhood in Uttarakhand and the books she read growing up that inspired her to write one of her own, the causes and reasons of the events addressed in the book and the importance of why children and young readers need to be educated about it early on.

Tune in to this episode to get a sense of what lies in her book, the simplicity and innocence of its writing and its audience, and the way she modified the stories to make it relevant to current world, reflecting the times we live in now.

In this episode of India Booked, Ayushi Mona discusses with social activist, writer and editor Ishmeet Nagpal, an array of essential topics ranging from the upsurge in domestic violence during the lockdown to the plight of migrant workers stranded far away from their homes, the unfair burden of expectations on women during the quarantine and the uncertainty of living in cities.

The podcast explores ‘Isolocation Poems’, which is an anthology of shortlisted poems coedited by Ishmeet that reflects the shared reality of people coping with the shifted reality of life due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Listen now to discover how the anthology came to be, the beauty in the collaboration of different poets from different locations, brought together by verses of joy, pain, desire, acceptance, and catharsis, to voice out themes of mental health, feminism, love, family and the current socio-political climate

‘Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines’ is a rigorous investigation and a personalized narrative by Amandeep Sandhu about the matters of Panjab, an account on the recovery from its past and the discovery of its present.

This episode of India Booked is illuminating and comprehensive, much like the book itself, which brings an alternative outlook to the pre-existing perspectives on Panjab by discussing the impacts of militancy, separation, farm bills and egalitarianism, underlining the contrasts of a Panjab that was and a Panjab that exists now.

This conversation between Ayushi and Amandeep spans across the representation of Panjab in political and entertainment media and details into the concerns of drug addiction and the laws regarding it, agrarian havoc caused by political mismanagement during the green revolution, and the reality of rampant exodus in Panjab and much more.

Tune in to understand all in all, the events, issues and contributions of the state that shaped the Panjab we know today!

Writer, literary translator, book critic and a literary podcast (Desi Books) host herself, Jenny Bhatt speaks to Ayushi Mona how the themes of Dhumketu’s books resonated with the short stories of her own, prompting her to bring out her debut literary translation, ‘Ratno Dholi: The Best Stories of Dhumketu’.

In this hour-long episode on short stories and translations, Jenny describes, through brilliant metaphors, how a short story differs from a novel and why it is unfair to expect authors with different skillsets to master both, and about the commercial pressures on writers in the publishing industry.

Recommending works by other luminaries in the field, Jenny talks about how regional translations break stereotypes and create a better understanding of diverse cultures, and touches upon the deficit representation of Indian literature in school curriculums and of Gujarati literature being translated in comparison to other regional languages. Tune in now!

‘Twilight in a Knotted World’ is the third novel by journalist and historian Siddhartha Sarma that uncovers the many layers of the Phansigar problem and a hierarchy of stranglers through the investigations of Captain William Henry Sleeman, unearthing mysteries and bleak, uncomfortable truths about India.

In the 18th episode of India Booked, discussing the period of colonial India, host Ayushi Mona and Author Siddhartha Sarma unravel the aspects of history and the gaps that are filled by fictionalizing it.

The podcast delves into the reasons for bringing out the book and the solid portrayal of major female characters in it, the construction of conversations between them and the thoughts that went into vivifying the untold stance of the characters in history.

Tune in now to discover the underlying facets of the colonial rule and a list of historical fiction recommendations that will get you absolutely hooked into the genre, if you aren’t already!

‘Bhairavi- The Runaway’, written by Shivani aka Gaura Pant, a pioneer of women’s fiction in India, is the story of a woman's life, her resilience, her moral and mental strength, and about the restraints and choices women have in the society.

In this episode of India Booked, the translator of ‘Bhairavi’ and Chitra Mudgal’s ‘Giligadu’, Priyanka Sarkar talks to Ayushi Mona about her experience translating the books, the scope and depth of women’s literature, about bringing alive a concept to an unaware audience and as she says, ‘translating the untranslatable’.

The discussion in this episode spans from the reactions women receive from the society for writing bold books to the inclusion of glossaries in translations to spirituality and sensuality in mythology and the aspect of humanizing the characters in it. Priyanka takes us into the world of ‘Bhairavi’ through significant excerpts from the book, both in Hindi and English, while pulling out comparisons between them and explaining the nuances of translation. Tune in now!

Stoned, Shamed, Depressed’ is an alarming reality check of the struggles faced by the teens of India, dealing with the evident but deliberately denied issues of substance abuse, social media and gaming, bullying, body shaming and the frailty of mental health. Renowned journalist and author Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava traces the difficult journey from teenage to adulthood, where children easily give into temptations without realizing the repercussions and dangers of the virtual world and bad habits.

In this episode of India Booked, Jyotsna talks to host Ayushi Mona about the eye opening accounts that materialized the book and the incidents that confirm the ignorance and denial of parents on the mental health issues and habits of their children.

The conversation addresses the concerns of drugs, consent and self-harm, of how children get caught up in the web of conforming to the expectations of their family against the pressure from their peers and much more.

Tune in now to hear Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava dig beneath the charades of everyday lives of the Indian teenager in both cyberspace and the modern-day school life in urban India.

‘The ‘Other’ Shangri-La: Journeys through the Sino-Tibetan frontier in Sichuan’ is a narrative travelogue based on author Shivaji Das and his wife’s journey which explores the region’s history and the lives and cultures of the people inhabiting these remote lands in detail.

In this episode of India Booked, Shivaji Das and Yolanda Yu recount their journey to Tibet as writers and more significantly as travellers, embellishing it with quirky incidents and fascinating anecdotes.

The travel enthusiasts and companions share with Ayushi Mona the highlight of their trip with surprisingly different approaches, one recounting how they got entangled in the unfolding of a love triangle, while the other underlines the realities of them travelling on rugged roads fraught with danger.

The podcast narrates the adventures of travelling into lands far away, the edge of touring as a couple, the culture and habits of migration amongst the Tibetans and the dangerous journeys they undertake that “make men out of boys”, as Shivaji puts it.

Tune in to hear them discuss elements of nature that are worth going back to and draw parallels between the two diverse cultures of India and China. This episode is for writers and travellers alike, as it explores the routines they follow as writers and the thrills they experience as travellers on a journey!

In the 14th episode of India Booked, author Anukrti Upadhyay takes us through the deserts of Rajasthan and the hot springs of Japan through her novel Kintsugi. In the same conversation, she connects contrasts betweenthe cultures of Jaipur and Japan and creates a delightful echo, all of her own.

Anukrti Upadhyay is also the author of the twin novellas Daura and Bhaunri, which have been commended for its independent characters and fresh narrative, and a short story collection in Hindi called Japani Sarai, making her one of the few bilingual writers in India.

Tune into this episode to hear her and host, Ayushi Mona discuss her inspiration for writing and her thoughts on how books belong more to the readers than the authors themselves. She paints a picture of the striking visual differences in the aesthetics of Japan and India, calling both the cultures “perfect foils to each other” and expresses how people, despite differences in cultures and traditions, are not very different from each other after all.

Tune in for a descriptive treat of an excerpt from the novel Kintsugi by the author herself, as she brings to life the people and the lanes of the Johri Bazar of Jaipur.