The Unusual Allure of Sugar Cane and Straight Lines

What is this world we live in, and how did we get here? One of the finest thinkers on this subject is in the house. Santosh Desai joins Amit Varma in episode 356 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss Indian society and this changing world. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Santosh Desai on Twitter, the Times of India, LinkedIn, Futurebrands and his own website. 2. Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense Of Everyday India -- Santosh Desai. 3. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 4. The Slimfit Conspiracy -- Santosh Desai. 5. Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life — Episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen. 6. The Great Indian Rope Trick? -- Santosh Desai. 7. We Are All Amits From Africa — Episode 343 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok and Naren Shenoy). 8. Subhashish Bhadra on Our Dysfunctional State — Episode 333 of The Seen and the Unseen. 9. Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian! — Episode 12 of Everything is Everything. 10. Nick Carter, PG Wodehouse and Arthur Hailey on Amazon. 11. Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco on Amazon. 12. The Wisden Book of Test Cricket (1877-1977) — Compiled & edited by Bill Frindall. 13. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister — Amit Varma’s column on reading. 14. Dom Moraes on Amazon, Wikipedia, Britannica and Poem Hunter. 15. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 16. Films, Feminism, Paromita — Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 17. The Poetic Feminism of Paromita Vohra — Episode 339 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ramachandra Guha: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 19. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 20. Dreamers: How Indians are Changing the World -- Snigdha Poonam. 21. Young India — Episode 83 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Snigdha Poonam). 22. The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 23. India Moving — Chinmay Tumbe. 24. India = Migration — Episode 128 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Chinmay Tumbe). 25. The Guilty Pleasures of Digital Dawdling -- Santosh Desai. 26. 30 years on, you can get what you want but don’t know what you need -- Santosh Desai. 27. How traditions give meaning to our lives -- Santosh Desai. 28. The Median Voter Theorem. 29. Mohammad Zubair’s Twitter thread on the Dharam Sansad. 30. Inverting the Behaviour Change Paradigm? -- Santosh Desai. 31. A Life in Indian Politics — Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jayaprakash Narayan). 32. Jayaprakash Narayan Wants to Mend Our Democracy -- Episode 334 of The Seen and the Unseen. 33. India’s Lost Decade — Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 34. Living Two Lives in Digital India -- Santosh Desai. 35. Kashi Ka Assi — Kashinath Singh. 36. The Experience Machine. 37. Anarchy, State and Utopia — Robert Nozick. 38. Song of Myself — Walt Whitman. 39. Baaba Maal and Advaita on Spotify.. 40. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Paul Cézanne, Krishen Khanna, Jayasri Burman and Gogi Saroj Pal. 41. Sudhir Kakar, Ashis Nandy, Roland Barthes, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong and John Berger on Amazon. 42. Ways of Seeing -- John Berger. Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new video podcast. Check out Everything is Everything on YouTube. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! Episode art: ‘He Sees Everything’ by Simahina.