When the British broke up the Indian Empire, they didn’t just divide land; they divided families, languages, and histories. Sam Dalrymple joins us to discuss his debut book, Shattered Lands, and how the borders of British India once stretched from the Himalayas to the Arabian Gulf. Its sudden breakup still echoes through today’s conflicts, refugee crises, and shared cultures across Asia. Together, we trace how history’s borders left behind living fault lines and how South Asia and the Gulf have more that unites them than we often realise.

Listen to our season finale to uncover how the world we live in was drawn and redrawn by the British Empire.

From Punjab’s first encounters with outsiders to the upheaval of Partition, meet the women who defied tradition, colonial rule, and societal norms to shape history.

In this conversation with Harleen Singh, author of The Lost Heer, we uncover stories of queens, rebels, and protectors, women who ruled and resisted, even when confined by purdah or erased from history books.

From early education reforms to royal negotiations and hybrid cultural identities, this is a journey through colonial Punjab you won’t find in school textbooks.

Watch or listen now to discover the voices history tried to silence.

As India races to modernise and liberalise its economy, who is left behind? In this episode of The Reading List, journalist Neha Dixit unpacks the unseen story of India’s working class through the life of Syeda, a home-based worker whose story mirrors that of millions.

From exploitative labour practices to systemic injustice, from communal tensions to quiet acts of rebellion, The Many Lives of Syeda X reveals what India’s development looks like from the margins.

This is an eye-opening episode about endurance, dignity, and what it really takes to survive and hope in modern India.

What does it mean to inherit more than just money, like expectations, silence, and systems that need rethinking?

In this episode, author Keshava Guha joins Aashna Malhotra to discuss The Tiger’s Share, a novel that explores how family duty, gender, class, and climate intersect in the heart of Delhi.

They reflect on generational divides, evolving gender roles, and a rising nationalism that seeks applause over accountability, and what it takes to imagine a better India, even when change feels difficult.

Whether you’re drawn to political fiction, layered family dynamics, or big questions about the world we live in, this is an episode worth tuning into.

In this episode of The Reading List, author Amitabha Bagchi joins Aashna Malhotra to talk about "Unknown City", an epistolary novel that explores memory, emotional growth, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we’ve been.

As his protagonist rereads decades of emails with the significant women in his life, Bagchi shares how fiction can become a space for personal reckoning, and how learning to listen, as a writer and a person, shaped his approach to character and plot.

Whether you're drawn to layered storytelling or curious about how feedback can deepen your writing, this episode is full of insight, honesty, and inspiration.