410. Worlds Within Worlds

Meet Mohandas: experimenting, debating, and testing the ideas that would later define him as Mahatma. This conversation around The Dawn of Life, Prabhudas Gandhi's newly translated memoir, returns us to the ashram circles of South Africa, where Gandhi was still shaping the ideals that would one day define him. Translated into English for the first time by Hemang Ashwinkumar, recipient of the 2024–25 New India Foundation Translation Fellowship, the book revives a family archive both historical and deeply personal. Written by his young grandnephew who lived alongside him at Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm, the memoir offers an intimate portrait of shared labour and domestic routines, debates on diet and brahmacharya, experiments in simplicity, and the quiet discipline that shaped a philosophy. Here, Gandhi appears exacting yet tender, fallible yet searching, and alive in the small routines that forged his philosophy. In conversation with Nandini Nair of the New India Foundation, Hemang reflects on recovering overlooked histories and carrying a handwritten chronicle into the present; opening a rare window onto Gandhi in the making. The session will conclude with an audience Q&A. In collaboration with: The New India Foundation and Penguin In this episode of BIC Talks, Hemang Ashwinkumar is in a conversation with Nandini Nair. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Nov 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Four poets from Bangalore come together for an evening of poetry in English and Hindi, exploring how language moves across geographies, experiences, and ways of seeing. Their poems reveal how words can hold multiple realities, opening up Worlds Within Worlds through translation, memory, and imagination. The event will feature readings from Perennial: The Red River Book of 21st Century Hindi Poetry (Red River, 2025), edited by Sourav Roy and Tuhin Bhowal; So That You Know (HarperCollins, 2025) by Mani Rao; and The Book of Blue (Red River, 2024) by Atreyee Majumder. Together, these books offer distinct yet connected perspectives on how poetry continues to shape and question the world we inhabit. In this episode of BIC Talks, Atreyee Majumder, Sourav Roy and Tuhin Bhowal are in conversation with Mani Rao. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Carrying the people and pulse of a city. Bengaluru Bus Stories is a conversation on how public transport weaves lives together by connecting neighbourhoods, opportunities, and communities across the city. Drawing from EQUIMOB, an international research collaboration between the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Utrecht University, Bangalore Bus Prayaanikara Vedike, and SAMVADA, the discussion explores how buses shape daily life, build connections, and remain vital to the city's social fabric. Moderated by Dr. Ranjana Raghunathan of Vidyashilp University, the panel brings together researchers and activists reflecting on their work with commuters and policymakers, reimagining Bengaluru's buses as true lifelines that are designed with care, inclusion, and dignity at the core. In this episode of BIC Talks, Shaheen Shasa, Sobin George and Prajwal Nagesh are in a conversation with Ranjana Raghunathan. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

What happens when one-sixth of humanity undertakes the world's most complex development experiment? In A Sixth of Humanity, renowned political scientist Devesh Kapur and former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian unpack India's audacious journey of nation-building and economic transformation. Blending democracy, socialism, and liberalization in an unprecedented way, India has charted a "precocious" path to development—one that defies conventional models and continues to reshape global geopolitics and economics. Through this conversation, the authors reflect on India's unique development trajectory, the paradoxes that define it, and what it reveals about the future of large, diverse democracies. In this episode of BIC Talks, Devesh Kapur, Arvind Subramanian are in a conversation with Ramachandra Guha. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

The Constitution promises freedom, but really,  how free are we under its design? In 2025, India's Constitution turned seventy-five: a remarkable testament to endurance and adaptability. Yet, beneath its promise of liberty lies a constant negotiation of power. Gautam Bhatia examines the Constitution not just as a legal document, but as a dynamic terrain where visions of authority clash, intersect, and contend for supremacy. Central to this story is the drift toward centralisation: power increasingly concentrated in the union executive. While certain elements of this concentration are embedded in the Constitution's design, landmark Supreme Court judgments have, at key moments, accelerated the trend. This talk explores how these structures shape, channel, and sometimes constrain the possibilities for emancipation. Through a careful reading of the Constitution's text, history, and interpretations, Bhatia sheds light on the subtle (and often contested) mechanisms that govern India's democracy. A Q&A will follow, giving audiences a chance to engage with these questions of power, freedom, and the ongoing relevance of India's constitutional experiment. The Vijay Nambisan Trust: The Vijay Nambisan Trust was formed to perpetuate the cause of Humanities in its many spheres. The Vijay Memorial Lecture to be held every year is the first event to be sponsored by the Trust in partnership with the Bangalore International Centre. About Vijay Nambisan:One of the best poet-writers of his generation, Vijay Nambisan is known as much for his poetry and prose, as he is for his reclusiveness. He dropped out of IIT Madras in his fourth year of engineering to pursue his love for the written word. He won the first All India British Council Poetry Prize in 1988, worked for a number of years in the literary section of The Hindu and published collections of poetry and prose in his inimitable style. He was married to surgeon and novelist, Kavery Nambisan. In this episode of BIC Talks, Gautam Bhatia delivers a talk. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

dynamics in a society steeped in tradition and inviting us to contemplate not just the challenges facing Pakistan but also the boundless potential for change and understanding. This session delves deeper into their experiences, exposing the layers of tradition that shape societal norms, offering a compelling examination of the challenges and opportunities inherent in the region's sociopolitical landscape.   In this episode of BIC Talks, Ruchi Ghanashyam and A R Ghanashyam will be in conversation with Latha Reddy. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Feb 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

A cab in five minutes. Groceries in ten. Biryani in twenty. Who really powers your fast, effortless digital life? OTP Please! (Penguin Random House) uncovers the hidden human stories behind South Asia's booming app economy. Vandana Vasudevan takes readers into the lives of gig workers racing against the clock, small sellers navigating the algorithm, and the restless customers who keep tapping 'Order Now.' From India's hyperlocal delivery boys to Pakistan's ride-hail drivers, Nepal's app startups to Bangladesh's e-marketplace sellers, the book reveals the invisible ecosystem that fuels our digital ease – and the costs it quietly extracts. Vandana will be in conversation with Mekin Maheshwari, serial entrepreneur, early Flipkart leader, and Founder & CEO of Udhyam Learning Foundation, exploring the realities, challenges, and humanity behind the apps we use every day. An insightful morning unpacking the human side of technology, offering perspectives that linger long after the screen goes dark. In this episode of BIC Talks, Vandana Vasudevan will be in conversation with Mekin Maheshwari. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

What does it take to dream beyond your time—and make those dreams real? Vikram Sarabhai, founder of India's space programme, imagined communication satellites that would educate people when even a modest rocket launch seemed audacious. He envisioned agricultural complexes powered by atomic energy, sea water turned drinkable, and a modern India fuelled by science and creativity. But Sarabhai was more than a scientist—he co-founded the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, the National Institute of Design, the dance academy Darpana, and India's first textile research cooperative, ATIRA. He also ran a thriving pharmaceutical company and launched India's first market research organisation, ORG. As India navigates its twenty-first century aspirations, this session revisits the humane, imaginative, yet pragmatic vision of a man who built enduring institutions. Drawing from Vikram Sarabhai: A Life, author Amrita Shah offers an intimate portrait of a multifaceted genius whose legacy continues to shape India's present and future. After her talk, she will be in conversation with Jahnavi Phalkey, exploring the many lives and lasting vision of this extraordinary builder of modern India. In this episode of BIC Talks, Amrita Shah will be in conversation with Jahnavi Phalkey. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Oct 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Between Gandhi and Savarkar lies the story of India's unresolved future. The future of India has long been caught between two irreconcilable visions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not just men, but embodiments of two enduring ideologies: Hind Swaraj and Hindutva. Their contest was never merely personal; it was a struggle over what India could, and should, become. Partition was one gash on the body of the nation, its scars still visible. Can India afford new wounds? To even attempt an answer, we must return to the old antagonisms – between communities, yes, but also within Hindu society itself. Few rivalries have been as sharp, or as consequential, as that between Gandhi and Savarkar. Based on his new book, Hindutva and Hind Swaraj, this talk reflects on the unresolved gulf between Gandhi and Savarkar. Not as history, but as a question that remains open: can such differences ever be bridged, or are they the fault lines of India's future? In this episode of BIC Talks, Makarand R Paranjape delivers a talk. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Sep 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

At its heart, The Dark Hours of the Night is a story about girlhood under constraint, about how adolescence, desire, and freedom are shaped and stifled within the walls of a conservative household. Rabia's journey, woven together with the lives of her friends and cousins, illuminates the subtle negotiations, unspoken rebellions, and fragile solidarities that mark women's coming-of-age in a patriarchal world. The novel opens a conversation about the everyday intimacies of restriction and resistance: the ache of thwarted desire, the bonds of friendship, the weight of silence, and the difficult balance between compromise and courage. It asks what it means to grow up when the future has already been decided, and whether education, love, or even small acts of defiance can shift those boundaries. In this session, Subodh Sankar and Salma will reflect on these resonant themes, of gender, family, power, and the search for selfhood, that lie at the centre of The Dark Hours of the Night and across Salma's larger body of work. இரண்டாம் ஜாமங்களின் கதை என்பது கட்டுப்பாடுகளின் நடுவே வளரும் பெண் சிறுவயதின் கதை. இளமையின் ஆசைகள், சுதந்திரத்தின் கனவுகள் மற்றும் எதிர்பார்ப்புகள், ஒரு மரபுவழி குடும்பத்தின் சுவர்களுக்குள் எவ்வாறு கட்டுப்படுத்தப்படுகின்றன என்பதை இந்த நாவல் வெளிப்படுத்துகிறது. ராபியாவின் வாழ்க்கைப் பயணம், அவளது தோழிகள் மற்றும் சொந்தங்கள் இணைந்து, பெண்களின் வளர்ச்சிப் பாதையில் அமைதியான எதிர்ப்புகள், நுட்பமான சமரசங்கள், சொல்லப்படாத போராட்டங்கள் மற்றும் உறவுகள் எவ்வாறு உருவாகின்றன என்பதை சுட்டிக்காட்டுகிறது. இந்த நாவல் அன்றாட வாழ்க்கையில் காணப்படும் கட்டுப்பாடுகள் மற்றும் எதிர்ப்புகளைப் பற்றி உரையாடலைத் தொடங்குகிறது: நிறைவேறாத ஆசைகள், நட்பு பந்தங்கள், மௌனத்தின் சுமை, சமரசம் மற்றும் துணிச்சலின் இடைநிலைகள். எதிர்காலம் ஏற்கனவே தீர்மானிக்கப்பட்டிருக்கும் சூழலில் வளர்வது என்றால் என்ன, கல்வி, அன்பு அல்லது சிறிய எதிர்ப்புகள் கூட அந்த எல்லைகளை மாற்ற முடியுமா என்பதையும் கேட்கிறது. இந்த உரையாடலில், சுபோத் சங்கருடன் சல்மா, இரண்டாம் ஜாமங்களின் கதை மற்றும் தனது விரிவான படைப்புகளின் மையத்தில் இருக்கும் பாலினம், குடும்பம், அதிகாரம் மற்றும் தனித்தன்மை தேடல் போன்ற கருக்களை ஆராயவுள்ளனர். In collaboration with: Simon & Schuster India In this episode of BIC Talks, Salma will be in conversation with Subodh Sankar. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Sep 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.