The Hindu On Books

Disturbed Afghanistan has always fascinated writers and journalists. Its history has drawn people in. The absence of Central control, the terrible civil war within, foreign intervention and a staging point for the cold war to defeat the Soviet Union. Afghanistan has seen it all. And you thought it might have ended.

After the sudden withdrawal of American troops, Washington has left Afghanistan to the Taliban, a group that they were bombing after 9/11. Pakistan is back in focus along with its ally China – a country that looks set to influence the course of events in Afghanistan.

Guests: Ananth Krishnan, Hong Kong-based China correspondent of The Hindu and Stanly Johny, Foreign Editor, The Hindu. Co-authors of ‘The Comrades and the Mullahs – China, Afghanistan and the New Asian Geopolitics’, Harper Collins, 277 pages, Rs. 599.

Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu

Edited by Ranjani Srinivasan

The story of Covid could not be told sitting in the studio, says journalist, anchor, columnist and author Barkha Dutt. What began as daily reporting of going to Delhi border and returning to the studio to put out the story of India’s fight against COVID after the 21-day lockdown was announced during the first wave, Ms. Barkha realised the story of the pandemic was not about policies, announcements and statistics. It was about reaching out to human beings behind the numbers.

Her people-connect stories took her on a journey of 30,000 kms across 14 States in 120 days and became her new book: “Humans of Covid- To Hell and Back”, published by Juggernaut.

Nothing was planned, in writing of the book. The poignant accounts of hardships that millions of ordinary Indians faced with courage during the carnage of COVID over the last two years just kept adding up.

While writing about the migrants who were compelled to walk home after the first lockdown, to chronicling victims, survivors and heroes of the pandemic, Ms. Barkha herself became the story she was reporting. She lost her father to COVID and despite her privilege and connections, she could do nothing to save him when he called her to say, “I am choking; Treat me.”

A devastated Barkha did not stop her journey because she realised what was unfurling was the story of India and her people, each of whose grief was personal but the nation was passing through a collective trauma. And it had to be documented.

In this episode, she talks at length on the book and the people she met across the length and breadth of the country.

Guest: Barkha Dutt, Journalist, anchor, columnist and author

Host: Soma Basu

Edited by Reenu Cyriac

In this episode, we are joined by Nalin Mehta, author of ‘The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party’, a book that looks at the factors behind the rise of the BJP to a position of hegemony in Indian politics. How did India become a BJP-centric polity, from first being ruled mostly by the Congress, to a period of coalitions drawn from regional players and socialists and then a bipolar system? Mehta examines all these templates.

Guest: Nalin Mehta, Political scientist, author and journalist

Host: Nistula Hebbar, Political Editor, The Hindu

Edited by Reenu Cyriac

In this episode, we are joined by Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second: How America's elites are making China stronger, a book that traces China’s growing influence on America’s elites and corporations — how this influence has grown, how Beijing wields it, and how America should respond, while not compromising on its values. From Henry Kissinger to the leading lights of Hollywood, the book explains how China cultivated key opinion shapers in the U.S. and traces the history of U.S.-China engagement in the 50 years since Nixon’s historic 1972 trip. While the focus is on China and the U.S., Fish explains how there are plenty of lessons for other countries engaging with China, including India, that are wrestling with similar dilemmas.

Guest: Isaac Stone Fish

Host: Ananth Krishnan, China correspondent, The Hindu 

Edited By: Reenu Cyriac

In "Whole Numbers and Half Truths", data journalist Rukmini S delves

deep into a range of numbers to answer some of the burning questions

India is dealing with, from crime and how India votes to how India

handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on on-the-ground reporting and

backed with data, the book questions some of the most deeply-held

conventional wisdoms about politics and society in India.

Guest: Rukmini S, author, Whole Numbers and Half Truths

Host: Ananth Krishnan, China correspondent, The Hindu

Edited by: Ranjani Srinivasan

"Phenomenal Woman" is about Kamala Harris, the Vice-President of the United States. Chidanand Rajghatta not only talks about Kamala Harris, her links with India, and how she evolved through the rough and tumble of U.S. politics, but also through that narrative, he touches upon some of the fascinating and tectonic shifts that have been happening in U.S. politics.

Guest: Chidanand Rajghatta, U.S. Bureau Chief, The Times of India

Host: Narayan Lakshman, Associate Editor, The Hindu

Edited by: Reenu Cyriac

Kavery Nambisan belongs to a rare breed of writers – the doctor who writes fiction. She is a general surgeon – a domain where women are uncommon. Another uncommon thing about her career is that she is a rural doctor, having practised for the most part of her career in rural India. She has published seven critically acclaimed novels. "A Luxury Called Health: A Doctor’s Journey Through the Art, the Science and the Trickery of Medicine". A Luxury Called Health is her first book-length foray into non-fiction.

This book is not easy to classify. At one level, it has strong elements of the memoir but it also contains social commentary, history, and feminist critique. She writes in moving detail about her late husband, the poet Vijay Nambisan’s battle with cancer and her unnerving experience with the hubris endemic in the medical profession. She also talks about her experience in treating hundreds of patients with Ivermectin, the drug’s remarkable efficacy against COVID-19, and why it hasn’t been more front and centre in the battle against the pandemic. A common thread running through the book is a desire to engage with fundamental questions about health, sickness and medical treatment. She speaks to The Hindu about her book, what prompted her to write it, and her concerns about the medical profession today.

Guest: Kavery Nambisan

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

Edited by: Reenu Cyriac

The 50 anniversary of Bangladesh’s liberation takes place on December 16. Much has been written about the Indian role and Delhi’s assistance to the Mukti Bahini. 

Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, who served in India’s mission in Bangladesh soon after liberation, has provided a riveting, insider account of Delhi’s preparations for a free Bangladesh – by no means an agreed goal within the Indian establishment in the early part of March 1971 – in his new book “India and the Bangladesh Liberation War”. 

But the Pakistani massacre in Dhaka on March 25 and subsequent attacks by the Pakistani Army in East Bengal convinced everyone in the Indian establishment that Bangladesh was an idea whose time had come. 

 Guest: Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, former Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, who was India’s ambassador to China (1993-1996) and the European Union (1996-2000). 

Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu 

Saumya Roy speaks to us on her latest book "Mountain Tales". It is a gut-wrenching story of the poor and marginalised who work and live at Mumbai’s Deonar landfill to earn their daily bread.

Journalist Saumya Roy, who spent eight years researching the impact of urbanisation, over-consumption and waste mismanagement in Maximum City, describes it as ‘discarded desires’ of the moneyed-people. Roy initially planned to write a magazine article but in 2016 after fire erupted in Deonar’s garbage mountains engulfing the city in its smoke and the pickers got arrested, her Mountain Tales took shape as she witnessed the unspoken trauma of the marginalised community.

She speaks at length on the books and the people in it in this episode.

Host: Soma Basu, Deputy Editor, The Hindu

Want to get more from The Hindu on books? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here (Newsletter Subscription)

Write to us with comments and feedback at [email protected]

In his memoir, "Stories I Must Tell, The Emotional life of an Actor", actor Kabir Bedi details his unique life experiences. In the barely 300 pages of the book, Kabir speaks candidly of his great successes (Sandokan, Khoon Bhari Maang, Octopussy) as well as his failures and mistakes. Writing through the prism of his relationships, Kabir reveals the agony and ecstasy of being a husband, lover, parent and son to unique personalities. 

Host: Mini Anthikad Chibber