The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

India has changed so much in the last 30 years -- and so has Indian sport. One of our finest chroniclers, Sharda Ugra, joins Amit Varma in episode 220 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about sports journalism, cricket, other Indian sports, and how she has embraced both the sublime and the shady. Also discussed: the eternal charm of Sion, Atul Bedade, gorillas and paagal kuttas.  Also check out: 1. Sharda Ugra at ESPN Cricinfo (1, 2) and India Today. 2. Sharda Ugra's books for John Wright and Yuvraj Singh. 3. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 4. Building Sports Ecosystems -- Episode 126 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Joy Bhattacharjya). 5. The Evolution of Cricket -- Episode 97 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Harsha Bhogle). 6. Money in Cricket -- Episode 41 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gideon Haigh and Prem Panicker). 7. Summertime -- The Miles Davis version. (Other iconic versions here.) 8. Ghachar Ghochar -- Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur. 9. Amit Varma talks about Ghachar Ghochar in episode 13 of The Book Club on Storytel. 10. Anil Kumble delivers the second Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Memorial lecture. 11. Rahul Dravid's guide for haters to enjoy the IPL -- Sharda Ugra. 12. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 13. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 14. The Tamilian Gentleman Who Took on the World -- Amit Varma. 15. The Girl From Haryana -- Amit Varma. 16. The Connell Guide to How to Write Well -- Tim de Lisle. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Psychology of Performance. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

Sushant Singh, a defense and foreign policy analyst and former army officer, shares gripping insights into India's security landscape. He discusses the complexities of Kashmir and the political dangers that threaten national safety. Sushant reflects on the evolution of the Indian military from a colonial force to a professional entity and tackles pressing issues regarding military governance. The conversation also navigates geopolitical tensions with Pakistan and China, emphasizing the need for a balance between defense and development.

The world of creators has changed in the last few years -- and maybe advertising is dead? Varun Duggirala joins Amit Varma in episode 218 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe his journey as a creator in the world of advertising -- and the time he kidnapped people for reality television. Also check out: 1. Varun Duggirala's website, Linktree, Instagram and Twitter. 2. Advertising is Dead -- Varun Duggirala. 3. The Varun Duggi Show. 4. Unschooled by Varun Duggirala. 5. Amit Varma on Podcasting on The Varun Duggi Show. 6. Flipped Script -- Episode 112 of Advertising is Dead (w Pooja Jauhari). 7. The Jungle Book (1967 film). 8. This Be The Verse -- Philip Larkin. 9. Small Town Mindset -- TEDx talk by Varun Duggirala. 10. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (Jonathan Haidt speaking to host Vasant Dhar). 11. The Prem Panicker Files -- Episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 12. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Paramaeswaran). 13. Success, Legacy, Our Moral Compass & Taking the Plunge -- Varun Duggirala. 14. Frameworks, Tough Decisions and the Force -- Varun Duggirala. 15. Conversation and Society -- Episode 182 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Russ Roberts). 16. The Seen and the Unseen with Ghazala Wahab and Tamal Bandyopadhyay. 17. How it Feels to Reach 1 MILLION Subscribers -- Ali Abdaal. 18. Staying Ahead of the Content Curve -- Episode 85 of Advertising is Dead (w Tanmay Bhatt). 19. Future Focus: The Intimate Content Ecosystem -- Varun Duggirala. 20. Pivot -- Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. 21. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 22. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 23. The Balanced Information Diet -- Varun Duggirala. 24. Stillness is the Key -- Ryan Holiday. 25. The Ride of a Lifetime -- Robert Iger. 26. Inside Voices. 27. Blockbuster. 28. The Defiant Ones on Netflix. 29. The Minimalists. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

Prem Panicker has been raising hell in Indian journalism for over 30 years: A muckraker and a pioneer, a maverick and an elder statesman, he is loved by fans and feared by the establishment. Prem joins Amit Varma in episode 217 of The Seen and the Unseen for a raw and intimate account of the wounds he got from living, and the lessons he learnt while healing. Also check out: 1. Smoke Signals -- Prem Panicker's blog. 2. The Peepli Project -- Edited by Prem Panicker 3. The State of the Media -- Episode 46 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prem Panicker). 4. Money in Cricket -- Episode 41 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gideon Haigh and Prem Panicker). 5. The New World Upon Us -- Amit Varma. 6. The Glimpse -- Trilok Gurtu. 7. The Out of Eden Walk -- Paul Salopek. 8. A Picture of Hell, and No Kerosene -- Amit Varma. 9. A World of Stopped Watches -- Amit Varma. 10. Being Muslim in India -- Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab). 11. One Way Ticket -- Neil Sedaka. 12. The House of the Dead -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 13. Kettyolaanu Ente Malakha -- Directed by Nissam Basheer. 14. The Hunter Becomes the Hunted -- Episode 200 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. The Seen and the Unseen episodes with Deepak Shenoy and Sonia Faleiro. 16. Bhimsen -- Prem Panicker (adapted from Randaamoozham by MT Vasudevan Nair). 17. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (Vasant Dhar chatting with Jonathan Haidt).  18. The Windowpane channel and newsletter. 19. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 20. Gell-Mann Amnesia. 21. It's Hard to Build and Easy to Destroy -- Amit Varma. This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Life Lessons from the Great Books. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

What is it like to be Muslim in India? Ghazala Wahab joins Amit Varma in episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen to discuss.the history of Islam in the subcontinent -- and how, at this present moment, we may be trapped in a vicious circle. Also check out: 1. Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India -- Ghazala Wahab. 2. Dragon On Our Doorstep -- Pravin Sawhney and Ghazala Wahab. 3. Force -- The magazine edited by Ghazala Wahab. 4. Ghubar-e-Khatir -- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. 5. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 6. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma).  7. The Notebook Trilogy -- Agota Kristof. 8. Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures -- Episode 17 of Conversations With Tyler. 9. A Writer Learns to See -- Episode 215 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Annie Zaidi). 10. Private Truths, Public Lies -- Timur Kuran. 11. Memories and Things -- Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 12. Influence of Islam on Indian Culture -- Tara Chand. 13. Our Colorful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 14. Nanak Was Here -- Episode 166 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Amardeep Singh). 15. The Two Faces of Islam -- Stephen Schwartz. 16. India Wins Freedom -- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. 17. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 18. Hum Dekhenge -- Written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and sung by Iqbal Bano. 19. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty -- James Thurber. 20. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 21. Radically Networked Societies -- Episode 158 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane). 22. The BJP Before Modi -- Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati). This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, The Joy of Mathematics. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. Please subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

There is so much about India that is unseen to us, hidden behind layers of blindness. If only we could peel them off. Annie Zaidi joins Amit Varma in episode 215 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how her many years as a writer, blogger, journalist, playwright and filmmaker deepened her vision of our world. Also check out: 1. Bread, Cement, Cactus -- Annie Zaidi. 2. Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women's Writing -- Annie Zaidi (editor). 3. Prelude to a Riot -- Annie Zaidi. 4. Annie Zaidi's author page on Amazon.in. 5. Known Turf -- Annie Zaidi's blog. 6. History, Fear and the Role of the Writer -- A talk by Annie Zaidi for Mumbai Local. 7. Ek Red Color Ki Love Story -- A short film by Annie Zaidi. 8. Annie Zaidi's films. 9. The Art of Translation -- Episode 168 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Arunava Sinha). 10. राधा सौंदर्य -- Beni Prasad Beni. 11. Thandi Hawayein Lehrake Aaye. 12. Aakar Patel at The Windowpane Sessions. 13. A Scientist in the Kitchen -- Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 14. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 15. Jackson Katz's TedX talk about violence against women and the passive voice. (Also, this quote.) 16. Demystifying GDP -- Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 17. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State -- Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 18. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 19. Our Colourful Past -- Episode 127 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 20. Early Indians -- Tony Joseph. (And the Seen/Unseen episode with him.) 21. The Right to Property -- Episode 26 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 22. The Baptist, the Bootlegger and the Dead Man Walking -- Amit Varma's column on the Uttar Pradesh Mritak Sangh. 23. India Awakes. 24. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 25. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 26. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India -- Akshaya Mukul. 27. The Citizenship Battles -- Episode 152 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Srinath Raghavan). 28. 'Understand the Chronology' -- Rohan Venkataramakrishnan's piece on how Amit Shah linked CAA to NRC. 29. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva -- Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 30. Our Hindu Rashtra -- Aakar Patel. 31. Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley’s Father’s Scooter -- Episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley).  32. Misogyny and our Legal System -- Episode 58 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Chandavarkar and Hamsini Hariharan). 33. The History of Desire in India -- Episode 161 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhavi Menon). 34. Women in Indian History -- Episode 144 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ira Mukhoty). 35. Sultana's Dream --  Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. 36. The Mothers of Maya Diip -- Suniti Namjoshi. 37. The Prisons We Broke -- Baby Kamble. 38. The High Caste Hindu Woman -- Pandita Ramabai. 39. Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu. 40. The Story of My Experiments With Truth -- Mahatma Gandhi. 41. I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd -- Lal Dĕd (translated by Ranjit Hoskote). This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. The India Uncut Newsletter has resumed. So do subscribe, it’s free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India is a complex country. The last few decades have been full of tumult. How does one make sense of it all? Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley joins Amit Varma in episode 214 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the many frames he uses to look at our politics, economics, culture and Dilip Kumar. Also check out: 1. Anticipating the Unintended -- Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley's newsletter. 2. Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, featuring Raghu Jaitley. 3. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, featuring Sanjay Lal. 4. It Happened One Night. 5. Persuasion -- Yascha Mounk's newsletter. 6. The Coddling of the American Mind -- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 7. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 8. Public Opinion -- Walter Lippman. 9. The World Outside and the Pictures in our Heads -- Walter Lippman. 10. A Venture Capitalist Looks at the World -- Episode 213 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sajith Pai). 11. Puliyabaazi -- Saurabh Chandra and Pranay Kotasthane's podcast. 12. ये लिबरल आख़िर है कौन? -- Episode 37 of Puliyabaazi (w Amit Varma). 13. Remembering Frédéric Bastiat (2007) -- Amit Varma. 14. The Candemakers' Petition -- Frédéric Bastiat. 15. Frédéric Bastiat's writings at Bastiat.org and Amazon. 16. Also on Amazon, the books of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. 17. Imagined Communities -- Benedict Anderson. 18. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 19. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 20. The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail -- Jonathan Haidt. 21. Political Ideology in India -- Episode 131 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rahul Verma). 22. The Three Languages of Politics -- Arnold Kling. 23. Naya Daur, the anti-Nehruvian film from 1957. 24. Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar In The Life Of India -- Meghnad Desai. 25. The Twitter threads on Mahmood Farooqui by Kavita Krishnan and Audrey Truschke. 26. Misogyny and our Legal System -- Episode 58 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Chandavarkar and Hamsini Hariharan). 27. The Harshacharita of Banabhatta. 28. Murty Classical Library of India. 29. The End of History and the Last Man -- Francis Fukuyama. 30. The Light that Failed -- Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes. 31. Elite Imitation in Public Policy -- Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok). 32. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 33. Range Rover -- Archives of Amit Varma's poker column for the Times of India. 34. The BJP’s Magic Formula -- Episode 45 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Prashant Jha). 35. How the BJP Wins -- Prashant Jha. 36. The Concept of the Political -- Carl Schmitt. 37. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on Demonetisation, collected in one Twitter thread. 38. Lessons from an Ankhon Dekhi Prime Minister -- Amit Varma. 39. Beware of the Useful Idiots -- Amit Varma. 40. The Tragedy of Our Farm Bills -- Episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 41. Fun Home -- Alison Bechdel. 42. Restaurant Regulations in India -- Episode 18 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhu Menon). 43. Kalyug -- Shyam Benegal's 1981 film. 44. India After Gandhi -- Ramachandra Guha. 45. Ramachandra Guha on The Seen and the Unseen: 1, 2, 3, 4. 46. The Ideas of Our Constitution -- Episode 164 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Madhav Khosla). 47. India’s Founding Moment — Madhav Khosla. 48. Jadunath Sarkar, Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya Sen on Amazon. 49. The Idea of India -- Sunil Khilnani. 50. The Indian Trilogy -- VS Naipaul. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compunds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Amit has promised to resume The India Uncut Newsletter. So do subscribe, it's free! And check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

VCs have a crazy job description. They need to understand society, figure out what people will want tomorrow and bet on the future. Sajith Pai joins Amit Varma in episode 213 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his frames of looking at the world -- and what he has learnt about media, entrepreneurship and this country of ours. Also check out: 1. The Indus Valley Playbook -- Sajith Pai. 2. Understand Startups, Metrics and Valuations -- Twitter thread by Sajith Pai. 3. India2, English Tax and Building for the Next Billion Users -- Sajith Pai. 4. India1, Avocado Startups & Product-Market Fit -- Sajith Pai. 5. Indo-Anglians: The newest and fastest-growing caste in India -- Sajith Pai. 6. MERIT colleges, national track India, & privilege blindness -- Sajith Pai. 7. Deconstructing Indian Startups & VCs -- YouTube talk by Sajith Pai. 8. India’s Start-Up Ecosystem -- Episode 171 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mohit Satyanand). 9. Indian Society: The Last 30 Years — Episode 137 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Santosh Desai). 10. An Adman Reflects on Society & the Self -- Episode 199 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ambi Parameswaran).  11. Essays -- Paul Graham. 12. Ali Abdaal on reaching one million subscribers and staying patient for the long haul. 13. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh).  14. The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. 15. Finite and Infinite Games -- James Carse. 16. It Happened in India -- Kishore Biyani. 17. TikTok and the Sorting Hat -- Eugene Wei. 18. The Art of Narrative Nonfiction (+ JBS Haldane) -- Episode 183 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Samanth Subramanian). 19. Lessons in Investing (and Life) -- Episode 208 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Deepak Shenoy). 20. The tweets by Benedict Evans and Pomp. 21. VCs should play bridge -- Alex Danco. 22. The only thing that matters -- Marc Andreessen. 23. Fixing Indian Education -- Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). This episode is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Check out their course, Introduction to Machine Learning. For free unlimited access for a month, click here. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag.  And do check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

India's financial system has been in crisis for more than a decade -- and it affects all of us. Tamal Bandyopadhyay joins Amit Varma in episode 212 of The Seen and the Unseen to make sense of all the turbulence. Also check out: 1. Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy -- Tamal  Bandyopadhyay. 2. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's books on Amazon. 3. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's website. 4. Tamal Bandyopadhyay's columns in Mint and Business Standard.5. India's Lost Decade -- Episode 116 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Puja Mehra). 6. The Fight of the Central Banker -- Episode 193 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Viral Acharya). 7. The Importance of Finance -- Episode 125 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 8. Zombie Firms and Creative Destruction -- 118 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah). 9. Easy Money -- Episode 56 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul).  10. IL&FS and the Indian Financial System -- Episode 91 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul and Ashutosh Datar). 11. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on public sector banks and NPAs.. 12. What Really Happened? — Lawrence H White on the 2008 Financial Crisis. 13. Politics and the English Language -- George Orwell. 14. Lady Chatterley's Lover -- DH Lawrence. 15. Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and its Lessons -- Ben S Bernanke, Timothy F Geithner and Henry M Paulson Jr. 16. Code Name God: The Spiritual Odyssey of a Man of Science -- Mani Bhaumik. 17. Ispat Bhi Hum Banate Hain -- The Tata Steel commercial. (Also this.) 18. Complan Boy and Girl (w Shahid Kapoor and Ayesha Takia). 19. Maltova Mum. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit’s online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.

Our agriculture needs reform -- but we should be wary that our attempt to get there is not at the cost of our democracy. Ajay Shah joins Amit Varma in episode 211 of The Seen and the Unseen to share his insights on the process, content and implication of the farm bills. Also discussed: knowledge assimilation, public health, how we tackled the pandemic and what we can do going forward. Also check out: 1. Ajay Shah's homepage. 2. The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Episode 154 of The Seen and the Unseen. 3. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 4. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3. 5. The State of Our Farmers — Ep 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil, in Hindi). 6. India's Agriculture Crisis -- Episode 140 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Barun Mitra & Kumar Anand).  7. Other episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on Agricultire: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 8. We Must Save Our Farmers — Amit Varma. 9. The Indian State is the Greatest Enemy of the Indian Farmer — Amit Varma. 10. A Tale of Two Satyagrahas — Amit Varma. 11. Economic Freedom in Agriculture -- Ajay Shah. 12. India: An Agricultural Trade Powerhouse -- Ajay Shah. 13. Enabling a National Market for Food -- Anirudh Burman, Ila Patnaik, Shubho Roy & Ajay Shah. 14. Feeding the Hungry in the Pandemic -- Episode 210 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ruben Mascarenhas). 15. Previous episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the pandemic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 16. We Are Fighting Two Disasters: Covid-19 and the Indian State — Amit Varma. 17. Public Choice Theory -- Episode 121 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. Analysing the 2021 budget -- Ajay Shah. 19. The Theatre of the Budget (2020) -- Episode 159 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ajay Shah and Vivek Kaul).  20. DeMon, Morality and the Predatory Indian State -- Episode 85 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan). 21. Most of Amit Varma’s writing on DeMon, collected in one Twitter thread. 22. India's Water Crisis -- Episode 60 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vishwanath S aka Zenrainman). 23. The Delhi Smog -- Episode 44 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vivek Kaul). 24. Episode of The Seen and the Unseen on GST: 1, 2, 3. 25. Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the farm bills & what followed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You can now buy Seen/Unseen swag. And do check out Amit’s online courses, The Art of Clear Writing and The Art of Podcasting.