She's been a novelist, a playwright, a critic, an essayist, a memoirist, a journalist, a writer for cinema and a historian of theatre -- in both English and Marathi. Shanta Gokhale joins Amit Varma in episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about her remarkable life and times. (For full linked show notes, go to
SeenUnseen.in.) Also check out: 1. Shanta Gokhale on
Amazon,
Wikipedia and
her own website. 2.
One Foot on the Ground -- Shanta Gokhale. 3.
Living With Father: A Memoir -- Shanta Gokhale. 4.
आमची आई : इंदिरा गोपाळ गोखले -- Shanta Gokhale. 5.
The Engaged Observer: The Selected Writings of Shanta Gokhale -- Edited by Jerry Pinto. 6.
Rita Velinkar (
Marathi) (
English) -- Shanta Gokhale. 7.
Tya Varshi/Crowfall (
Marathi) (
English) -- Shanta Gokhale. 8.
Playwright at the Centre: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present -- Shanta Gokhale. 9.
Shivaji Park: Dadar 28: History, Places, People -- Shanta Gokhale. 10.
Satyadev Dubey: A Fifty-Year Journey Through Theatre -- Edited by Shanta Gokhale. 11.
The Scenes We Made: An Oral History of Experimental Theatre in Mumbai -- Edited by Shanta Gokhale. 12.
Avinash: The Indestructible -- Shanta Gokhale. 13.
Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife -- Lakshmibai Tilak (translated by Shanta Gokhale). 14.
The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 15.
The Adda at the End of the Universe -- Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas). 16.
Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen. 17.
The Never Never Nest -- Cedric Mount. 18.
The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande — Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mrinal Pande). 19.
The Female Eunuch -- Germaine Greer. 20.
The Second Sex -- Simone de Beauvoir. 21.
A Godless Congregation — Amit Varma. 22.
Agarkar’s Donkeys: A Meditation on God — Amit Varma. 23.
The Life and Times of Urvashi Butalia — Episode 287 of The Seen and the Unseen. 24.
The Kavita Krishnan Files — Episode 228 of The Seen and the Unseen. 25.
Films, Feminism, Paromita — Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 26.
The Will to Change — bell hooks. 27.
The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 28.
The Three Languages of Politics — Arnold Kling. 29.
Memories and Things — Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 30.
History of European Morals — WEH Lecky. 31.
The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress — Peter Singer. 32.
The Nurture Assumption — Judith Rich Harris. 33.
Phineas Gage. 34.
Don’t think too much of yourself. You’re an accident — Amit Varma’s column on Chris Cornell’s death. 35.
The Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Sugata Srinivasaraju — Episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen. 36.
Dnyaneshwar,
Tukaram,
Arun Kolatkar and
Dilip Chitre. 37. GN Devy on
Amazon and
Wikipedia. 38.
Navyug Vachanmala and
Arun Vachan -- PK Atre's series for elementary school and middle school respectively. 39.
The State of Our Farmers — Episode 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil). 40.
Varun Grover Is in the House — Episode 292 of The Seen and the Unseen. 41.
Hussain Haidry, Hindustani Musalmaan — Episode 275 of The Seen and the Unseen. 42.
Storytel. 43.
Pu La Deshpande,
Raag Darbari and
Kashi Ka Assi on Storytel. 44.
The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 45.
Stage.in. 46.
A Doll's House -- Henrik Ibsen. 47.
Looking for Ibsen in Maharashtra -- Shanta Gokhale. 48.
The Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997 -- Edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West. 49.
The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature -- Edited by Amit Chaudhuri. 50. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with
Roshan Abbas,
Varun Duggirala,
Neelesh Misra,
Snehal Pradhan,
Chuck Gopal,
Nishant Jain,
Deepak Shenoy and
Abhijit Bhaduri. 51.
1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 52.
1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 53. Namdeo Dhasal on
Amazon and
Wikipedia. 54. Alice Munro on
Amazon and
Wikipedia. 55.
Squid Game on Netflix. 56. Yada Kadachit (
Part 1) (
Part 2) -- Written and directed by Santosh Pawar. 57. Sakharam Binder (
Marathi) (
English) -- Vijay Tendulkar. 58.
A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 59.
सप्तरंगी कोरिया एक अनुभव -- Sudha Hujurbajar-Tumbe. 60.
Suyash Rai Embraces India’s Complexity -- Episode 307 of The Seen and the Unseen. 61.
Alice in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll. 62.
Charles Dickens,
William Wordsworth,
JB Priestley,
George Bernard Shaw and
William Shakespeare on Amazon. 63.
The Lost Daughter -- Elena Ferrante. 64.
The Lost Daughter -- The film by Maggie Gyllenhaal. 65.
The Shadow Lines -- Amitav Ghosh. 66.
Enid Blyton on Amazon. 67.
This Life At Play: Memoirs -- Girish Karnad. 68.
Sunil Shanbag and Shanta Gokhale in conversation with Girish Karnad. 69.
Aranyer Din Ratri -- Satyajit Ray. 70.
Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World -- Tim Harford. 71.
A Room of One's Own -- Virginia Woolf. 72.
A Passage to India -- EM Forster. 73. Kumar Shahani on
Wikipedia and
IMDb. 74.
Middlemarch -- George Eliot. 75.
Anna Karenina -- Leo Tolstoy. 76,
Far From the Madding Crowd -- Thomas Hardy. 77.
Vanity Fair -- William Makepeace Thackeray. 78.
Ulysses -- James Joyce. 79.
Picnic at Hanging Rock -- Peter Weir. 80.
Why Read the Classics? -- Italo Calvino. 81.
The Memoirs of Dr Haimabati Sen — Haimabati Sen (translated by Tapan Raychoudhuri). 82. Hercule Poirot on
Amazon,
Wikipedia and
Britannica. 83.
The Golden Age of Murder — Martin Edwards. 84. PG Wodehouse on
Amazon,
Wikipedia and
Britannica. 85.
A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 86.
The Creative Process: A Symposium -- Edited by Brewster Ghiselin. 87.
Nissim Ezekiel and
Satyadev Dubey. 88.
Avadhya -- CT Khanolkar. 89.
Masaan — Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan and written by Varun Grover. 90.
Tanjore Painting and
Prabhakar Barwe. 91.
Profit = Philanthropy — Amit Varma. 92.
Where Have All The Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma. 93.
What Have We Done With Our Independence? — Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta). 94.
The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen. 95.
Memoirs -- Habib Tanvir. 96. Sulabha Deshpande on
Wikipedia and
IMDb. 97. Sunil Shanbag on
Wikipedia,
IMDb and
Instagram. 98. Atul Pethe on
Book My Show and
Facebook. 99.
Shanta Gokhale's cameo in
Ardh Satya (at 1:36:10). 100.
My Friend Sancho -- Amit Varma. 101.
Bend it Like Beckham -- Gurinder Chadha. 102.
We Should Celebrate Rising Divorce Rates (2008) — Amit Varma. 103. Indira Sant on
Amazon and
Wikipedia. (And
a translation of Ekti by Vinay Dharwadkar.) 104.
The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya). 105.
Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh — Shrayana Bhattacharya. 106.
Private Truths, Public Lies — Timur Kuran. 107.
Ranjit Hoskote,
Arundhati Subramaniam and
Jerry Pinto on Amazon. 108.
Alt News,
The News Minute and
Scroll. 109.
The Reflections of Samarth Bansal — Episode 299 of The Seen and the Unseen. 110.
The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva — Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 111.
Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope — Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen. 112.
Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma (on Demonetisation). 113.
Enabled by technology, young Indians show what it means to be a citizen — Amit Varma. 114.
Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health — Amit Varma. 115.
The Life and Times of Teesta Setalvad -- Episode 302 of The Seen and the Unseen. 116.
Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert. 117.
The Brothers Karamazov -- Fyodor Dostoevsky. 118.
The World as India -- Susan Sontag. In addition to the links above, Shanta recommended: Books:
Women in Love (DH Lawrence),
Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka),
Ways of Seeing (John Berger),
84, Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff),
The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway),
The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass),
The Shadow Lines,
The Glass Palace,
Hungry Tide (all Amitav Ghosh),
Solo (Rana Dasgupta),
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera),
Respected Sir (Naguib Mahfouz),
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez),
Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie),
The Sense of an Ending,
Flaubert's Parrot,
The Noise of Time,
Levels of Life (all Julian Barnes). Hindustani Classical Vocal:
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan,
Ustad Amir Khan,
Bhimsen Joshi,
Padma Talwalkar,
Dinkar Kaikini,
Venkatesh Kumar,
Ulhas Kashalkar,
Uday Bhawalkar (dhrupad),
Mukul Shivputra. Carnatic Vocal:
MS Subbulakshmi,
DK Pattamal,
TM Krishna,
Sanjay Subrahmanyan. Instrumental:
TR Mahalingam (flautist),
Lalgudi Jayaraman (violin). Others:
Geet Varsha (Kumar Gandharva),
Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo (Farida Khanum),
Dnyaneshwari (Lata Mangeshkar). This episode is sponsored by
CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Check out Amit’s online course,
The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to
The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free!
Episode art: ‘Reading the World’ by Simahina.