BIC TALKS

In northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband, and then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a transgender person – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two. To her family’s consternation, Ma insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist. Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders. This episode of BIC Talks is adapted from a conversation between Geetanjali Shree, Anukrti Upadhyay and Arunava Sinha about Geetanjali's International Booker winning novel, that was part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Bhūta Kōlā, also referred to as Daiva kōlā or Nēmā, is a shamanistic ritual dance performance prevalent among the communities of Tulu Nadu and parts of Kasargod in northern Kerala, India. The dance is highly stylized and performed as part of 'Bhootaradhana' or worship of the local deities worshipped by the Tulu speaking population. It has had it's influence on Yakshagana folk theatre. Būta kōlā is closely related to Theyyam of neighbouring state of Kerala. In this episode of BIC Talks, educator, writer and columnist Dr Purushottam Bilimale and researcher and writer Dr Indira Hegde talk about the history, social and religious aspects and contemporary relevance of this ancient ritual practice. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Dancer, actor and public intellectual Mallika Sarabhai writes a memorable account about how she stumbled her way to health, fitness and sanity. In this episode of BIC Talks, Mallika speaks to author and journalist Ramjee Chandran about her book In Free Fall is all about coming to terms with oneself and ones body and find the lifestyle that works for you. And how to make mistakes, pick yourself up and carry on. In this conversation Mallika and Ramjee dive into her artistic process, her perspective on the evolution of grammar of performance, her stint as Draupadi with Peter Brook, a glimpse into her study on what corrupts people which her a doctorate and her foray into electoral politics. This conversation was part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2022.  Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

The Pashtuns are perhaps the largest ethnic group in the world without a country of their own. They inhabit a continuous stretch of land from the Hindu Kush to the Indus, across Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan used the Pashtun-dominated areas in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as a launching pad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later during the US-led War on Terror. In the process FATA was kept in a constitutional and informational black hole. The discontent finally burst in 2018 when the extra-judicial killing of a Pashtun youth led to widespread protests. In this episode of BIC Talks, veteran analyst Tilak Devasher speaks to Ambassador PS Raghavan, chairperson of the National Security Advisory Board of India about his book The Pashtuns in an attempt to fill the gap in the geopolitical understanding of South Asia, given the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the shifting power equations in the region. This conversation was part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Over 150 years ago, in 1870, a public park was inaugurated in Bangalore. Designed by British engineer Richard Sankey, it spread over 100 acres and encompassed features typical to the city—granite outcrops, lush greenery, wide avenues and government buildings. Originally named Meade’s Park, it has been known to generations of Bangaloreans as Cubbon Park—sanctuary, lung space, thoroughfare, battlefield, picnic spot, repository of urban biodiversity, and public park. In this episode of BIC Talks, author and ecologist Harini Nagendra speaks to author and co-founder of BangaloreWALKS Roopa Pai about her book, Cubbon Park, The Green Heart of Bangalore - the first of its kind as they attempt to decode the enduring appeal of the Park. This conversation was adapted from a Bangalore Literature Festival 2022 session. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Pradeep Magazine's memoir is a story of lived, real experiences, of joy, sorrow, fear, loss and hope, and about how an uprooted identity shapes one's attitude towards society and the nation. From the Kashmir of the 1950s to terror-stricken Punjab, from the Mandir-Masjid divide and the impact of Mandal politics to the tragic consequences of the Kashmir situation-Magazine paints a fascinating portrait of modern India. At the core of the book are accounts of some of the most epochal events in India's cricketing history, woven around personal encounters with several well-known cricketers. The author lays bare the vicious machinations that are a staple diet of sports governance and reveals hitherto unknown facts about the frictions and ego clashes that are inevitable in a game that dominates India's sporting discourse. Journalist and editor Prem Panicker engages author and cricket writer Pradeep Magazine in a conversation about this journey as a reporter. This episode of BIC Talks is adapted from a session at Bangalore Literature Festival, 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

So who really spearheaded India’s Freedom Struggle? Millions of ordinary people-farmers, labourers, homemakers, forest produce gatherers, artisans and others-stood up to the British. People who never went on to be ministers, governors, presidents, or hold other high public office. They had this in common: their opposition to Empire was uncompromising. In The Last Heroes, these footsoldiers of Indian freedom tell us their stories. The men, women and children featured in this book are Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, Brahmins, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. They hail from different regions, speak different languages and include atheists and believers, Leftists, Gandhians and Ambedkarites. The people featured pose the intriguing question: What is freedom? They saw that as going beyond Independence. And almost all of them continued their fight for freedoms long after 1947. The post-1947 generations need their stories. To learn what they understood. That freedom and independence are not the same thing. And to learn to make those come together. This episode of BIC Talks is adapted from a conversation between P Sainath and Indu Prasad at Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

Since 1962 World Theatre Day has been celebrated by International Theatre Institute Centres, ITI Cooperating Members, theatre professionals, theatre organizations, theatre universities and theatre lovers all over the world on the 27th of March. This day is a celebration for those who can see the value and importance of the art form “theatre”, and acts as a wake-up-call for governments, politicians and institutions which have not yet recognised its value to the people and to the individual and have not yet realised its potential for economic growth. Says the World Theatre Day website. In this episode of BIC talks, we invited a cast of Bangalore theatre makers to speak to us about what they considered essential to their practice, to describe a toolbox, as it were, for a theatre artist highlighting what they felt necessary for mindful involvement in theatre. A second prompt was to pick a piece of text that has had an influence on their work. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

With the coming of age of independent cinema and stories portraying lives across the spectrum in India, the focus has shifted from the protagonist to the writers and makers. In this episode of BIC Talks, filmmaker Alankrita Srivastava speaks to radio presenter and film critic Stutee Ghosh about the business of filmaking while being a woman. This session was originally part of the Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.

The reading down of Section 377 by the Supreme Court in 2018 has led to a fundamental shift in the rights of India’s LGBTQ citizens and necessitated policy changes across the board—not least in the conservative world of Indian business. In his path-breaking and genre-defying book, Parmesh Shahani—Vice President at Godrej Industries Ltd—draws from his decade-long journey in the corporate world as an out and proud gay man, to make a cogent case for LGBTQ inclusion and lay down a step-by-step guide to reshaping office culture in India. He talks to inclusion champions and business leaders about how they worked towards change; traces the benefits reaped by industry giants like Godrej, Tata Steel, IBM, Wipro, the Lalit group of hotels and many others who have tapped into the power of diversity; and shares the stories of employees whose lives were revolutionised by LGBTQ-friendly workspaces. In this episode of BIC Talks Parmesh is in conversation with journalist Shrabonti Bagchi. This session was originally part of Bangalore Literature Festival 2022. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.