BIC TALKS

The fiercest wars are fought between siblings. Tara, a successful Delhi lawyer, is everything her younger brother isn’t: dedicated, independent, thriving. When their beloved father retires, he summons them to a meeting. But what he has to say threatens to tear the family apart. Tara’s friend Lila has it all: a great job, a lovely home, a beautiful family. But when Lila’s father dies unexpectedly, her brother wastes no time in claiming what he thinks is his. Together, Tara and Lila are forced to confront the challenge that their ambition poses to patriarchal Delhi society. Set against a backdrop of ecological collapse and political unrest, The Tiger’s Share is both a family and a state-of-the-nation novel. The Tiger’s Share, Keshava Guha’s incisive new novel unravels sibling rivalries set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing India. Guha’s storytelling transforms personal conflicts into a lens for examining societal upheavals – from shifting family loyalties to the pressures of urban ambition. In collaboration with:  Hachette UK In this episode of BIC Talks, Keshava Guha will be in conversation with Vikek Shanbhag. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in April 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

What makes a city uniquely itself? Is it its geography, history, location, demographic? Is it its leaders, influencers, inspirations? Or is it something else, an undefinable but palpable spirit, wrought over centuries of a combination of all these, that seeps into the soil and charges the air, infecting residents and visitors alike? Two decades of exploring, discovering, researching – and reading, writing, and talking – about her hometown have convinced Roopa Pai, author, columnist, and co-founder of the heritage walks and tours company, BangaloreWalks, that the latter is true – cities are neither born nor made, they become. Her collection of evocative essays on the city have now been compiled into a book, Becoming Bangalore, published by Hachette India. In her conversation with Brinda S Narayan, Roopa will dive into the city’s history to tease out bits of the Bangalore jigsaw – a chieftain’s decision, a Commissioner’s inclusiveness, a scientist’s quest for excellence, a Dewan’s conviction, a missionary’s zeal, a Maharani’s foresight, an entrepreneur’s vision, an industrialist’s generosity, an activist’s passion, a common man’s ambition, a writer’s pride in his language – in an effort to track down the genesis of Bangalore’s modern, progressive, liberal spirit. What she hopes will emerge from that discussion are tantalizing hints that reveal how a little 16th century settlement on a hill became India’s most charismatic city. In this episode of BIC Talks, Roopa Pai will be in conversation with Brinda S. Narayan. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in April 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Spies, Lies and Allies is a thrilling tale about two forgotten revolutionaries who led lives that defy belief. It takes the reader on a wild ride through Kolkata, Hyderabad, London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Mexico City and Moscow. One was Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, the brother of Sarojini Naidu. The other was M.N. Roy, the founder of Indian communism. Chatto and Roy met spies, dictators, femme fatales, assassins, revolutionaries and bomb-makers. They encountered Lala Lajpat Rai, Veer Savarkar, Vladimir Lenin, Sun Yat-Sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Joseph Stalin, Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. They travelled in disguise and survived assassination attempts by the British secret service. They had tumultuous love affairs with suspected Communist spies. They flirted with anarchism, then became communists, and Roy would eventually end up founding his own philosophy: humanism. Chatto’s sister Sarojini would distance herself from his journey, and his friend Nehru would eventually follow the Gandhian path. Roy would be ignored in newly independent India. But if Chatto and Roy were failures, they were magnificent ones. They battled for their ideas, and their ideas lived on, even if the pair died mostly forgotten. Author Kavitha Rao will be in conversation with Historian Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav. A Q&A with the audience will follow. in collaboration with: Westland Non-Fiction In this episode of BIC Talks, Kavitha Rao will be in conversation with Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in April 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Kirtinath Kurtkoti (1928-2003) belongs to the rare but powerful tradition of multilingual literary and cultural criticism in India. His oeuvre encompasses commentaries on the entire spectrum of Kannada literature, from the earliest extant writings to late twentieth-century works. Kurtkoti’s critical works highlight the unique sensibility of the Kannada literary tradition, placing it in the broader context of Indian and world literature. Courtesy of Criticism brings some of his important essays on Kannada literature to non-Kannada readers. Divided into three sections— Literary History, Literary Theory, and Literary Criticism—the book showcases 31 short and long essays of Kurtkoti’s essential writings. The book has a twofold purpose: to introduce the significant body of Kurtkoti’s works and, through these essays, to highlight the significant strands of the Kannada literary tradition. Courtesy of Criticism demonstrates the subtle ways in which a mind, enriched by its own traditions and eclectic literacy, can transcend received structures of knowledge. In this episode of BIC Talks, NS Gundur will be in conversation with Shri Chandrashekhar Kambara, M S Ashadevi and Kamalakar Bhat. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in March 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

For over five decades since the Liberation of Bangladesh and the 1971 India-Pakistan War, the Indian state has had to pay a heavy price to protect the fabric of its democracy and its basic geographical structure in the face of a multiplicity of national security threats. These threats have ranged from constant pressure along its Northern and Western borders from nuclear-armed adversaries, several internal fissures and cracks in Punjab, J&K and the Northeast and a festering problem of Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) across several states. Complementing these internal and border security challenges have been challenges in the neighborhood that have precipitated the deployments of India’s military such as in Sri Lanka and Maldives in the late 1980s. Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam, former fighter pilot and accomplished military historian, explores war and conflict in contemporary India in his latest book, Shooting Straight: A Military Biography of Lt Gen Rostum K. Nanavatty. Moving beyond the traditional discourse of the 1965 and 1971 wars, the book examines modern military challenges through the lens of one of India’s most distinguished post-1971 Army commanders. From leading para commandos in Sri Lanka to commanding formations in Siachen, Baramulla, and the Northeast during key crises, and later serving as Northern Army Commander in the aftermath of the 2001 Parliament attack, Nanavatty gained a frontline perspective on hybrid and ‘grey zone’ warfare—topics highly relevant today. Joining AVM Subramaniam in a free-wheeling discussion on the changing character of conflict over the past few decades and its implications for India through the lens of Gen Nanavatty is military historian Probal Dasgupta. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience. In this episode of BIC Talks, Arjun Subramaniamn will be in conversation with Probal Dasgupta. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in March 2025. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.