Ep 363: Ranjit Hoskote is Dancing in Chains

He's a poet, art critic, curator, translator, cultural theorist -- and someone who helps make sense of our world. Ranjit Hoskote joins Amit Varma in episode 363 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life, his times and his work. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Ranjit Hoskote on Twitter, Instagram and Amazon. 2. Jonahwhale -- Ranjit Hoskote. 3. Hunchprose -- Ranjit Hoskote. 4. I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd -- Translated by Ranjit Hoskote. 5. Poet's nightmare -- Ranjit Hoskote. 6. State of enrichment -- Ranjit Hoskote. 7. Nissim Ezekiel, AK Ramanujan, Arun Kolatkar, Keki Daruwalla, Dom Moraes, Dilip Chitre, Gieve Patel, Vilas Sarang, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Agha Shahid Ali, Mani Rao, Mustansir Dalvi, Jerry Pinto, Sampurna Chattarji, Vivek Narayanan and Arundhathi Subramaniam. 8. Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham and Rita Dove. 9. The Life and Times of Shanta Gokhale — Episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen. 10. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen. 11. कुँवर नारायण, केदारनाथ सिंह, अशोक वाजपेयी and नागार्जुन. 12. Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Bismillah Khan, Igor Straviksky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. 13. Palgrave's Golden Treasury: From Shakespeare to the Present. 14. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 15. Sara Rai Inhales Literature — Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. The Art of Translation — Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 17. Arun Khopkar, Mani Kaul and Clement Greenberg. 18. Stalker -- Andrei Tarkovsky. 19. The Sacrifice -- Andrei Tarkovsky. 20. Ivan's Childhood -- Andrei Tarkovsky. 21. The Color of Pomegranates -- Sergei Parajanov. 22. Ranjit Hoskote's tribute on Instagram to Gieve Patel. 23. Father Returning Home -- Dilip Chitre. 24. Jejuri -- Arun Kolatkar. 25. Modern Poetry in Translation -- Magazine and publisher founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. 26. On Exactitude in Science — Jorge Luis Borges. 27. How Music Works — David Byrne. 28. CBGB. 29. New York -- Lou Reed. 30. How This Nobel Has Redefined Literature — Amit Varma on Dylan winning the Nobel Prize. 31. The Fire and the Rain -- Girish Karnad. 32. Vanraj Bhatia on Wikipedia and IMDb. 33. Amit Varma's tweet thread on Jonahwhale. 34. Magic Fruit: A Poetic Trip -- Vaishnav Vyas. 35. Glenn Gould on Spotify. 36. Danish Husain and the Multiverse of Culture -- Episode 359 of The Seen and the Unseen. 37. Steven Fowler. 38. Serious Noticing -- James Wood. 39. How Fiction Works -- James Wood. 40. The Spirit of Indian Painting -- BN Goswamy. 41. Conversations -- BN Goswamy. 42. BN Goswamy on Wikipedia and Amazon. 43. BN Goswamy (1933-2023): Sage and Sensitivity -- Ranjit Hoskote. 44. Joseph Fasano's thread on his writing exercises. 45. Narayan Surve on Wikipedia and Amazon. 46. Steven Van Zandt: Springsteen, the death of rock and Van Morrison on Covid — Richard Purden. 47. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 48. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 49. Future Shock -- Alvin Toffler. 50. The Third Wave -- Alvin Toffler. 51. The Long Tail -- Chris Anderson. 52. Ranjit Hoskote's resignation letter from the panel of Documenta. 53. Liquid Modernity -- Zygmunt Bauman. 54. Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol -- Episode 360 of The Seen and the Unseen. 55. Panopticon. 56. Tron -- Steven Lisberger. 57. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul. 58. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 59. Ramchandra Gandhi on Wikipedia and Amazon. 60. Majma-ul-Bahrain (also known as Samudra Sangam Grantha) -- Dara Shikoh. 61. Early Indians — Tony Joseph. 62. Tony Joseph’s episode on The Seen and the Unseen. 63. Who We Are and How We Got Here — David Reich. 64. पुराण स्थल. 65. The Indianness of Indian Food — Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 66. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 67. The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society -- Richard Lannoy. 68. Clifford Geertz, John Berger and Arthur C Danto. 69. The Ascent of Man (book) (series) -- Jacob Bronowski. 70. Civilization (book) (series) -- Kenneth Clark. 71. Cosmos (book) (series) -- Carl Sagan. 72. Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Stephen Jay Gould and Oliver Sacks. 73. Raag Darbari (Hindi) (English) — Shrilal Shukla.. 74. Raag Darbari on Storytel. 75. Krishnamurti's Notebook -- J Krishnamurty. 76. Shame -- Salman Rushdie. 77. Marcovaldo -- Italo Calvino. 78. Metropolis -- Fritz Lang. 79. Mahanagar -- Satyajit Ray. 80. A Momentary Lapse of Reason -- Pink Floyd. 81. Learning to Fly -- Pink Floyd, 82. Collected poems -- Mark Strand. 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: ‘Dancing in Chains’ by Simahina.