Ep 327: The Many Shades of George Fernandes
The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma
The Dilemma of a Biographer
"I have cried writing some of the lines I have cried," she says. "The difference between novel and a biography is that I'm as a biographer bound by the sources" The author has written about 80 years of times of India in her new book, 'India: A Biography'
George Fernandes was an activist, politician, minister, thinker -- and was as complicated as the times he lived in. Rahul Ramagundam joins Amit Varma in episode 327 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss his biography of Fernandes, the decades he lived through, and this country that kept changing, changing, changing. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Rahul Ramagundam at Jamia Millia Islamia, Amazon, LinkedIn and Google Scholar. 2. The Life and Times of George Fernandes -- Rahul Ramagundam. 3. Gandhi's Khadi: A History of Contention and Conciliation -- Rahul Ramagundam. 4. Including the Socially Excluded -- Rahul Ramagundam. 5. The Incredible Curiosities of Mukulika Banerjee — Episode 276 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mukulika Banerjee). 6. The Pathan Unarmed — Mukulika Banerjee. 7. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 8. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 9. A shoe store brings together two faces of 2002 Gujarat riots -- The Hindu. 10. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma. 11. The Anti-Defection Law — Episode 13 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra). 12. Our Parliament and Our Democracy — Episode 253 of The Seen and the Unseen (w MR Madhavan). 13. The Decline of the Congress — Episode 248 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 14. Urban Governance in India — Episode 31 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 15. South India Would Like to Have a Word — Episode 320 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nilakantan RS). 16. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister — Amit Varma’s column on reading. 17. One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 18. Love in the Time of Cholera -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 19. No One Writes to the Colonel -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 20. The Moon is Down -- John Steinbeck. 21. Is Paris Burning? -- Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. 22. Freedom at Midnight -- Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. 23. Hermann Hesse and Henry Miller on Amazon. 24. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 25. Life among the Scorpions -- Jaya Jaitly. 26. Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. 27. The Graham Staines murder. 28. Thomas Weber's books on Gandhi. 29. Coomi Kapoor Has the Inside Track -- Episode 305 of The Seen and the Unseen. 30. The Emergency: A Personal History — Coomi Kapoor. 31. Gyan Prakash on the Emergency — Episode 103 of The Seen and the Unseen. 32. Emergency Chronicles — Gyan Prakash. 33. A Prisoner's Scrap-Book -- LK Advani. 34. Prison Diary -- Jayaprakash Narayan. 35. The Power Broker — Robert A Caro. 36. Robert A Caro on Amazon. 37. On Exactitude in Science — Jorge Luis Borges. 38. Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie. 39. VS Naipaul on Amazon. 40. Idgah (Hindi) (English) -- Munshi Premchand. 41. Sara Rai Inhales Literature — Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 42. Raw Umber: A Memoir -- Sara Rai. 43. Samuel Huntington on Wikipedia and Amazon. 44. Francis Robinson and Barbara Metcalf on Amazon. 45. India in the Persianate Age — Richard Eaton. 46. The New India Foundation. 47. Weapons of the Weak -- James C Scott. 48. The Causes of the Indian Revolt -- Syed Ahmed Khan. 49. Hind Swaraj — MK Gandhi. 50. Hindutva — VD Savarkar. 51. Annihilation of Caste -- BR Ambedkar. 52. Gandhi before India -- Ramachandra Guha. 53. Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World -- Ramachandra Guha. 54. Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Amazon. 55. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! Episode art: ‘The Fist’ by Simahina.
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