Ep 277: The Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Sugata Srinivasaraju
The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma
I Was Fascinated by Urdo Poetry and Punjabi Poetry
I was so fascinated by urdo at some point i wanted to learn to write and read urdo, but never happened. But then all my urdu came through the hindi fillms of the sixties and te seventies and the great lyricists. And now i have mister chirenji sing, you know, whom i call him the great bureaucrat who served the state. He himself writes punjabi poetry. So these two were different worlds for me. When i was shocked when i started writing or for outlooksaon on these states and all that, and and, but this, this cultural thing never came up to me. I became a very serious political
He grew up breathing Kannada literature -- and he also embraced the globalised world. Sugata Srinivasaraju joins Amit Varma in episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss this confluence of the old and the new, the near and the far, his society and the world. Also check out: 1. Sugata Srinivasaraju in Outlook, ToI/Mumbai Mirror, New Indian Express, The Wire, Mint, Twitter and his own website. 2. Furrows in a Field -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 3. Pickles from Home: The Worlds of a Bilingual -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 4. Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 5. Sugata Srinivasaraju on his father, Chi Srinivasaraju: 1, 2, 3. 6. Maharashtra Politics Unscrambled -- Episode 151 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sujata Anandan). 7. Dodda Alada Mara (Big Banyan Tree). 8. GP Rajarathnam, AR Krishnashastry, P Lankesh and KS Nissar Ahmed on Wikipedia. 9. The Tell Me Why series of encyclopedias -- Arkady Leokum. 10. Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire on Amazon. 11. Rayaru Bandaru Mavana Manege -- The KS Narasimhaswamy poem Sugata translated. 12. Phoenix and Four Other Mime Plays -- Chi Srinivasaraju (translated by Sugata Srinivasaraju, who tweeted about it here.). 13. Ahobala Shankara, V Seetharamaiah, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, KV Narayana, Noam Chomsky, DR Nagaraj, Jorge Luis Borges and Tejaswini Niranjana. 14. Lawrence Weschler on how Akumal Ramachander discovered Harold Shapinsky. 15. AK Ramanujan and Gopalakrishna Adiga. 16. The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse -- Edited by Alan Bold. 17. Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-22 -- Shahid Amin. 18. Kraurya -- Girish Kasaravalli. 19. Deconstructing Derrida -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 20. Yaava Mohana Murali -- Gopalakrishna Adiga's poem turned into a song. 21. Ram Guha Reflects on His Life -- Episode 266 of The Seen and the Unseen. 22. Understanding Gandhi. Part 1: Mohandas — Episode 104 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ram Guha). 23. Understanding Gandhi. Part 2: Mahatma — Episode 105 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ram Guha). 24. Modern South India: A History from the 17th Century to our Times -- Rajmohan Gandhi. 25. Ki Ram Nagaraja at Book Brahma. 26. A Map of Misreading -- Harold Bloom. 27. The Singer of Tales -- Albert Lord and David Elmer. 28. ಪಂಪ ಭಾರತ ದೀಪಿಕೆ: Pampa Bharatha Deepike -- DL Narasimhachar. 29. The Open Eyes: A Journey Through Karnakata -- Dom Moraes. 30. Dom Moraes on DR Bendre's love for numbers. 31. DR Bendre, Kuvempu, Shamba Joshi, MM Kalburgi, Shivaram Karanth, VK Gokak and Chandrashekhar Patil. 32. Da Baa Kulkarni, Sriranga, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Bhisham Sahni, Kartar Singh Duggal and HY Sharada Prasad. 33. His Will Was His God -- Sugata Srinivasaraju on HY Sharada Prasad. 34. Jeremy Seabrook on Amazon. 35. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope -- Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen. 36. The Rise and Fall of the Bilingual Intellectual — Ramachandra Guha. 37. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande -- Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen. 38. Sara Rai Inhales Literature -- Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 39. The Art of Translation -- Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 40. Negotiating Two Worlds, Bilingualism As A Cultural Idea -- Sugata Srinivasaraju delivers the HY Sharada Prasad Memorial Lecture. 41. Karunaalu Baa Belake -- A Kannada version of 'Lead, Kindly Light'. 42. Liberal impulses of our regional languages -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 43. Why Resisting Hindi is No Longer Enough -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 44, The Indianness of Indian Food -- Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor).
45. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid — Richard Purden. 46. Roam Research and Zettelkasten. 47. Sixteen Stormy Days — Tripurdaman Singh. 48. The First Assault on Our Constitution — Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 49. Nehru’s Debates -- Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain). 50. Speaking of Siva -- Ak Ramanujan's translations of the Vacanas. 51. Not Waving but Drowning -- Stevie Smith. 52. Pictures on a Page -- Harold Evans. 53. Notes From Another India -- Jeremy Seabrook. 54. Good Times, Bad Times -- Harold Evans. 55. John Pilger on Amazon. 56. Sugata Srinivasaraju's pieces in Outlook in 2005 on the Infosys land scam: 1, 2. 57. ‘Bellary Is Mine’ -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 58. Deca Log: 1995-2005. A history in ten-and-a-half chapters, through the eyes of Outlook -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 59. The Sanjay Story: From Anand Bhavan To Amethi -- Vinod Mehta. 60. Lucknow Boy: A Memoir -- Vinod Mehta. 61. Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker -- Ved Mehta. 62. Off the Record: Untold Stories from a Reporter's Diary -- Ajith Pillai. 63. A Town Offers Its Shoulder -- Sugata Srinivasaraju. 64. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 65. Dhanya Rajendran Fights the Gaze -- Episode 267 of The Seen and the Unseen. 66. The Story of an Income Tax Search — Dhanya Rajendran on Instagram. 67. George Plimpton, 76; 'Paper Lion' author, longtime literary editor, amateur athlete -- David Mehegan. 68. Does The Paris Review Get a Second Act? -- Charles McGrath on literary magazines as "showcases of idealism." 69. My Father's Suitcase -- Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize lecture. 70. Gandhi's Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India -- Dhirendra K Jha. 71. Harmony in the Boudoir -- Mark Strand. 72. Of Human Bondage -- W Somerset Maugham. 73. Man’s Worldly Goods -- Leo Huberman. 74. Autobiography -- Bertrand Russell. 75. Graham Greene, Joseph Conrad, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens and George Orwell on Amazon. 76. Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert. 77. Reflections on Gandhi -- George Orwell. 78. The Tyranny of Merit -- Michael Sandel. 79. Home in the World: A Memoir -- Amartya Sen. 80. Living to Tell the Tale -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 81. Ayodhya - The Dark Night and Ascetic Games by Dhirendra Jha. 82. Team of Rivals -- Doris Kearns Goodwin. 83. My Last Sigh -- Luis Bunuel. 84. Interview with History -- Oriana Fallaci. 85. Ryszard Kapuscinski on Amazon. 86. Journalism as Literature -- Salman Rushdie on Ryszard Kapuscinski. 87. Mallikarjun Mansur, Bhimsen Joshi and Kumar Gandharva on Spotify. 88. Vachanas sung by Mallikarjun Mansur and Basavaraja Rajguru. 89. Outlander, Knightfall and Money Heist on Netflix. 90. Sugata Srinivasaraju's Twitter thread on the songs of DR Bendre. This episode is sponsored by The Desi Crime Podcast. You’ll find them on all podcast apps. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! The illustration for this episode is by Nishant Jain aka Sneaky Artist. Check out his work on Twitter, Instagram and Substack.The AI-powered Podcast Player
