indian literature

UR Ananthamurthy (1932–2014), writer, teacher, literary critic, and public intellectual, was born in Shivamogga district in Karnataka. In 1965, his debut novel, Samskara, took the literary world by storm with its unflinching portrayal of the rigid orthodoxy in Brahmin society. Since then, it has become a landmark novel of the modernist, or Navya, movement of the 1950s and 1960s in Kannada literature. He received the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour, in 1994, and was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.

The Essential UR Ananthamurthy is a five-part compendium of select fictional and non-fictional works, poetry, and autobiographical writings from one of India’s most illustrious and outspoken writers. The section ‘Novels’ portrays characters in conflict with tradition, idealism, and modernity in a rapidly changing independent India through excerpts from powerful novels such as Samskara, Bharathipura, Avasthe, and Bhava. ‘Poetry’ presents five evocative poems on the themes of power and politics. ‘Short Stories’ highlights the chief themes that preoccupied Ananthamurthy—the constraints of the traditional order, the cultural dominance of the West, the sinister workings of power, and the creativity of political dissent. ‘Essays and Speeches’ captures the range and depth of Ananthamurthy’s democratic imagination through his writings on cultural identity and literature, community and creativity, linguistic and nationalist politics, and on figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Ram Manohar Lohia. And, the final section, ‘Memoirs’, gathers Ananthamurthy’s memories of family, friendships, work, and travel from the different phases of his life.

The Essential UR Ananthamurthy offers a rich glimpse into the mind of one of modern India’s most profound writers and thinkers and demonstrates why Ananthamurthy’s works will endure for generations to come. The book has been edited by Manu Chakravarthy and Chandan Gowda.

This episode of BIC Talks features NS Gundur, Anjum Hasan, HS Raghavendra Rao, Nithyananda Shetty and the editors of the book.

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In this episode, we speak to Ruth Vanita, an academic, an activist, and an author who has contributed immensely to literature around gender, sexuality, and culture. We speak to her about her book 'Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans of Bombay Cinema,' and explore her ground-breaking study of courtesan imagery in 235 films, throwing light on the role the courtesan figure played in shaping the modern Indian erotic, political and religious imagination.

About the Guest:
Ruth Vanita co-founded India’s first nationwide feminist magazine called Manushi: A journal about Women and Society, which combined academic research and grassroots activism. An author of several books such as Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, Memory of Light, Love’s Rite: Same-sex Marriage in India and the West and Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans of Bombay Cinema, she has also translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English. 

This series is hosted by Swati. Swati is a Social Design Practitioner, a researcher, and a podcaster. She has been working with the medium of audio for over 5 years, running a community radio station in Ahmedabad,  and has experimented with various forms of story-telling through different mediums.

You can also listen to this and more by downloading Belongg’s app UnOther, spelt U_N_O_T_H_E_R which is available on both the Apple and Google app stores. To invite such experts to your organization for guest lectures or expert consultations, please also look at Belongg Circle, a platform that curates intersectional experts and makes it easy for a range of organizations to integrate such thinking in their work. 

In this episode, we speak to Urvashi Butalia, an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. Urvashi tells us about her early encounters with inclusive literature, and how her reading journey has evolved with her feminism. She also talks about the importance of reading books that transcend and question boundaries of identity, and how reading is inherently a form of activism.
 
About the Guest:

Urvashi Butalia is known for her pioneering work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir. In 2003, she founded Zubaan Books, a feminist publishing house that is known for its pathbreaking and diverse work.

This series is hosted by Zinnia Sengupta, former literature collective associate at Belongg. Zinnia has always dreamed of making the world a kinder, more inclusive place than the one she was raised in. She has written for Pune Mirror, Verve, and other travel & lifestyle publications, and worked closely with several grassroots-level NGOs.

Books and authors in the episode: 

1. Versions of the Heer-Ranjha saga
2. Rajinder Singh Bedi
3. Mahadevi Verma (Poetry, Shrankhala ki Kadiyaan)
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Chandamama and Phantom comics
6. Godaan by Premchand
7. Nayantara Sehgal
8. Anita Desai
9. Kamla Markandaya
10. Rukogi Nahi Radhika by Usha Priyamwada
11. Amrita Pritam
12. Krishna Sobti
13. Mridula Garg
14. Chitra Mudgal
15. Gulshan Nanda
16. Salma
17. A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir by Baby Haldar
18. Shareer ki Jankari (About the Body) by 75 women from Rajasthan, published by Zubaan
19. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
20. Middlemarch by George Eliot
21. Birth of the Maitreya by Bani Basu
22. Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis
23. Queeristan by Parmesh Shahani
24. Kalpana Swaminathan’s detective fiction
25. Karuna Ezra Parikh
26. Peace Has Come by Parismita Singh

You can also listen to this and more by downloading Belongg’s app UnOther, spelt U_N_O_T_H_E_R which is available on both the Apple and Google app stores. To invite such experts to your organization for guest lectures or expert consultations, please also look at Belongg Circle, a platform that curates intersectional experts and makes it easy for a range of organizations to integrate such thinking in their work. 

In this episode, we speak to Urvashi Butalia, an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. Urvashi tells us about her early encounters with inclusive literature, and how her reading journey has evolved with her feminism. She also talks about the importance of reading books that transcend and question boundaries of identity, and how reading is inherently a form of activism.

About the Guest:
Urvashi Butalia is known for her pioneering work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir. In 2003, she founded Zubaan Books, a feminist publishing house that is known for its pathbreaking and diverse work.

This series is hosted by Zinnia Sengupta, former literature collective associate at Belongg. Zinnia has always dreamed of making the world a kinder, more inclusive place than the one she was raised in. She has written for Pune Mirror, Verve, and other travel & lifestyle publications, and worked closely with several grassroots-level NGOs.

Books and authors in the episode: 

1. Versions of the Heer-Ranjha saga
2. Rajinder Singh Bedi
3. Mahadevi Verma (Poetry, Shrankhala ki Kadiyaan)
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
5. Chandamama and Phantom comics
6. Godaan by Premchand
7. Nayantara Sehgal
8. Anita Desai
9. Kamla Markandaya
10. Rukogi Nahi Radhika by Usha Priyamwada
11. Amrita Pritam
12. Krishna Sobti
13. Mridula Garg
14. Chitra Mudgal
15. Gulshan Nanda
16. Salma
17. A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir by Baby Haldar
18. Shareer ki Jankari (About the Body) by 75 women from Rajasthan, published by Zubaan
19. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
20. Middlemarch by George Eliot
21. Birth of the Maitreya by Bani Basu
22. Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis
23. Queeristan by Parmesh Shahani
24. Kalpana Swaminathan’s detective fiction
25. Karuna Ezra Parikh
26. Peace Has Come by Parismita Singh

You can also listen to this and more by downloading Belongg’s app UnOther, spelt U_N_O_T_H_E_R which is available on both the Apple and Google app stores. To invite such experts to your organization for guest lectures or expert consultations, please also look at Belongg Circle, a platform that curates intersectional experts and makes it easy for a range of organizations to integrate such thinking in their work. 

In this episode, we speak to Ruth Vanita, an academic, an activist, and an author who has contributed immensely to literature around gender, sexuality, and culture. We speak to her about her book 'Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans of Bombay Cinema,' and explore her ground-breaking study of courtesan imagery in 235 films, throwing light on the role the courtesan figure played in shaping the modern Indian erotic, political and religious imagination.
 
About the Guest: 
Ruth Vanita co-founded India’s first nationwide feminist magazine called Manushi: A journal about Women and Society, which combined academic research and grassroots activism. An author of several books such as Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, Memory of Light, Love’s Rite: Same-sex Marriage in India and the West and Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans of Bombay Cinema, she has also translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English. 

This series is hosted by Swati. Swati is a Social Design Practitioner, a researcher, and a podcaster. She has been working with the medium of audio for over 5 years, running a community radio station in Ahmedabad,  and has experimented with various forms of story-telling through different mediums.

You can also listen to this and more by downloading Belongg’s app UnOther, spelt U_N_O_T_H_E_R which is available on both the Apple and Google app stores. To invite such experts to your organization for guest lectures or expert consultations, please also look at Belongg Circle, a platform that curates intersectional experts and makes it easy for a range of organizations to integrate such thinking in their work. 

In this episode, we speak to Madhumita Bhattacharya, one of India’s few crime thriller writers. Madhumita talks to us about her journey as a writer, the trials and tribulations that led to the creation of 'Dirty Women', her latest novel and the need for stronger women characters in fiction.
 
About the Guest:
Madhumita Bhattacharya has written four murder mysteries - The Masala Murder, Dead in a Mumbai Minute, Goa Undercover, and Dirty Women. With an experience of working in the space of the newsroom, writing and editing across a wide range of subjects, Madhumita weaves in personal experiences of her work into her latest novel Dirty Women, a story about the investigation into the disappearance of a four-year-old Tara in 2002 in Calcutta. 

This series is hosted by Swati. Swati is a Social Design Practitioner, a researcher, and a podcaster. She has been working with the medium of audio for over 5 years, running a community radio station in Ahmedabad,  and has experimented with various forms of story-telling through different mediums. 

You can also listen to this and more by downloading Belongg’s app UnOther, spelt U_N_O_T_H_E_R which is available on both the Apple and Google app stores. To invite such experts to your organization for guest lectures or expert consultations, please also look at Belongg Circle, a platform that curates intersectional experts and makes it easy for a range of organizations to integrate such thinking in their work.