Navigating India

Carrying Worlds Across Languages

Daisy Rockwell is an author, translator, and painter based in the United States, who translates from Hindi and Urdu into English, and has brought some of the most significant voices of South Asian literature to readers across the world. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022, the first Hindi-language novel to receive that distinction. In this episode, I am in conversation with Daisy to talk about her journey into Hindi and Urdu, the craft of literary translation, her first encounter with India, what artificial intelligence means for the future of the craft of translation, and much more. Dive into the episode to find out. References:  1. Daisy Rockwell: Website [https://www.daisyrockwell.com/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/shreedaisy/] 2. Alice Sees Ghosts: A Novel [https://amzn.in/d/040NueyB] by Daisy Rockwell  3. Works translated by Daisy Rockwell: Tomb of Sand [https://amzn.in/d/0f0Cn5TT] by Geetanjali Shree [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geetanjali_Shree], Falling Walls [https://amzn.in/d/04Lh5xRF] by Upendranath Ashk [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upendranath_Ashk], The Women’s Courtyard [https://amzn.in/d/04dTf88M] by Mastur Khadija [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadija_Mastoor], Tamas [https://amzn.in/d/0j8NBkha] by Bhisham Sahni [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhisham_Sahni] 4. Yashpal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yashpal]: This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach [https://amzn.in/d/0fSq0QO3], Dada Comrade [https://amzn.in/d/0atssbsb] 5. Speaking of Siva [https://amzn.in/d/0btsDfkd] by A.K. Ramanujan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._K._Ramanujan] 6. Lessons learned: Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, in memoriam [https://scroll.in/article/802222/lessons-learned-susanne-and-lloyd-rudolph-in-memoriam]

What Women Want: Understanding The Female Voter in Modern India

In the long history of post-Independence India, the woman voter was invisible, rarely spoken about, and almost never listened to. But today, something has changed. Women are voting in greater numbers than ever before, making independent choices and holding politicians accountable. Journalist Ruhi Tewari draws on two decades of travelling across various states in India, covering elections, to trace the emergence of this 'Mahila voter'. She explores how women vote, and why. Tune in to the episode to find out more. References: 1. Ruhi Tewari: Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ruhi_tewari/], X [https://x.com/RuhiTewari], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruhitewari/] 2. Book: What Women Want: Understanding The Female Voter in Modern India [https://amzn.in/d/0gMDhblc] by Ruhi Tewari

A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras

What does it mean to recover the life of a woman who called herself a ‘humble housewife tied to mundane work’? In this episode, I am in conversation with Kalpana Karunakaran to discuss her book, ‘A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras’, a remarkable excavation of the life of Pankajam, a woman who defies easy categorisation. Pankajam was a voracious reader who sought freedom from a fractured relationship with her husband. Her memories are vivid and layered, marked by a deep love for children, a spirit of travel, friendships forged across distances, and an attentiveness to nature, birds, and animals. Through it all, she reinvented motherhood entirely on her own terms. We explore why it matters to study a woman like Pankajam, someone who does not fit neatly into the conventional subject of feminist discourse and what her life reveals about resistance, memory, and selfhood. We also talk with Kalpana about her own mother, Mythily Sivaraman, a well-known Indian women’s rights activist.  References: 1. Kalpana Karunakaran: Profile [https://hss.iitm.ac.in/kalpana-k/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kalpana.karunakaran?igsh=MWN6ZnRhcjF6MGppbg==] 2. Book: A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras [https://amzn.in/d/0jjqEvah] by Kalpana Karunakaran 3. Tamil Nadu Science Forum [https://tnsf.co.in]  4. Mythily Sivaraman [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythili_Sivaraman], Fragments of a Life: A Family Archive [https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Fragments_of_a_Life/AXN1Mq2WuYsC?hl=en] by Mythily Sivaraman (Life story of Subbalakshmi)  5. Indian Association of Women’s Studies [https://www.iaws.co.in/], Vina Mazumdar [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vina_Mazumdar]  6. Jane Austen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen], Louisa May Alcott [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_May_Alcott] (Little Women [https://amzn.in/d/0eEL3Da2]), Anton Chekhov [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov], Alexander Pushkin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin], Leo Tolstoy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy], Katha Prize Stories [https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Katha_Prize_Stories/FTuO6nb9QuoC?hl=en] 7. Women’s India Association [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Indian_Association], All India Women’s Conference [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_India_Women's_Conference] 8. Sarda Act [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Marriage_Restraint_Act,_1929]: Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 9. Katherine Mayo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Mayo] and her book, Mother India [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_India_(book)] (1927) 10. Mary Rajamani [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rajamani], Valentina Tereshkova [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova]

Faith and Fury: COVID Dispatches from India’s Hinterlands

In this episode of Navigating India, released on March 22nd, 2026, exactly six years after India observed the Janta Curfew, an initiative by the Government of India to combat COVID, we are joined by journalist Jyoti Yadav to discuss her book 'Faith and Fury: Covid Dispatches from India's Hinterlands'. While much of India locked itself indoors during the pandemic, she set out from Delhi to the rural heartlands of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, documenting the hardships faced by migrant workers, the shortage of oxygen cylinders, the undercounting of deaths, children orphaned by the virus, and the collapse of the state's health infrastructure. Her book is an important record of India's pandemic years, raising serious questions that the nation has been too eager to forget, at a time when the media has largely written Covid off as a closed chapter. References 1. Jyoti Yadav: Website [https://yadavjyoti.com/], X [https://x.com/jyotiyadaav], LinkedIn [https://in.linkedin.com/in/jyoti-yadav-717b6518b] 2. Book: Faith and Fury: COVID Dispatches from India’s Hinterland [https://amzn.in/d/0gWCcoEd] by Jyoti Yadav

Periyar: The Life and Times of an Iconoclast

Why is Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, who passed away over half a century ago, still a controversial yet unavoidable and crucial figure in Tamil Nadu? While this year marks 100 years of the Self-Respect Movement, initiated by Periyar, he was also labelled anti-national, anti-Hindu, anti-Brahmin, and anti-Dalit, generating extreme hate and accusations. Who was Periyar? How did his ideas evolve? What are his key contentions? Did he want a separate country? What was his relationship with Ambedkar, Annadurai, and Kamaraj? How did he leave a lasting impact on the people of Tamil Nadu? In this episode, I’m joined by A. R. Venkatachalapathy and Karthick Ram Manoharan to delve deeper into the life and ideas of Periyar. References: 1. The Cambridge Companion to Periyar [https://amzn.in/d/0vPrqZg], Edited by A. R. Venkatachalapathy and Karthick Ram Manoharan 2. A. R. Venkatachalapathy: Profile [https://www.mids.ac.in/venkatachalapathy/], X [https://x.com/ARV_Chalapathy] 3. Karthick Ram Manoharan: Profile [https://www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk/directory/karthick-ram-manoharan/], X [https://x.com/KRManoharan] 4. Books by A. R. Venkatachalapathy: In Those Days There Was No Coffee [https://amzn.in/d/dk88Dpf], Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire [https://amzn.in/d/esPesHR], Who Owns that Song?: The Battle for Subramania Bharati’s Copyright [https://amzn.in/d/b18iida], Tamil Characters: Personalities, Politics, Culture [https://amzn.in/d/bLXf3mF], The Province of the Book: Scholars, Scribes, and Scribblers in Colonial Tamilnadu [https://amzn.in/d/7vNU4sT], The Brief History of A Very Big Book: The Making of the Tamil Encyclopaedia [https://amzn.in/d/asxp2Tm] 5. Books by Karthick Ram Manoharan: Periyar: A Study in Political Atheism [https://amzn.in/d/4aab9QX], Frantz Fanon: Identity and Resistance [https://amzn.in/d/3XiaQ4H] 6. Dravidian Movement and Saivites, 1927-1944 [https://www.epw.in/journal/1995/14/special-articles/dravidian-movement-and-saivites-1927-1944.html] by A. R. Venkatachalapathy 7. Sudras and the Nation: Periyarist Explorations [https://www.epw.in/engage/article/sudras-and-nation-periyarist-explorations], Freedom from God: Periyar and Religion [https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/1/10], In the path of Ambedkar: Periyar and the Dalit question [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2020.1755127] by Karthick Ram Manoharan 8. M.S.S. Pandian: Denationalising the Past-Nation in E V Ramasamy's Political Discourse [https://www.epw.in/journal/1993/42/special-articles/denationalising-past-nation-e-v-ramasamys-political-discourse.html], Brahmin and Non-Brahmin: Genealogies of the Tamil Political Present  [https://amzn.in/d/ejMlpDn] 9. V Geetha: Periyar, Women and an Ethic of Citizenship [https://www.epw.in/journal/1998/17/review-womens-studies-review-issues-specials/periyar-women-and-ethic-citizenship], Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothe Thass to Periyar [https://amzn.in/d/iY2N52s] (Co-authored with S.V. Rajadurai) 10. Anandhi S.: Women’s Question in the Dravidian Movement c. 1925-1948 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3517871] 11. Robert L Hardgrave Jr: The Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change [https://amzn.in/d/1PZ0GM5]  12. Selig S. Harrison: Caste and the Andhra Communists [https://doi.org/10.2307/1951675] 13. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph: The Political Role of India’s Caste Associations [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23266847] 14. B.R. Ambedkar: Annihilation of Caste (An Introduction by Arundhati Roy) [https://ia801202.us.archive.org/23/items/AnnihilationOfCasteDr.B.r.ambedkar/Annihilation%20of%20caste%20Dr.B.r.ambedkar.pdf] 15. Vignesh Rajahmani: The Dravidian Pathway: How the DMK Redefined Power and Identity in South India [https://amzn.in/d/gYw5m8M] 16. Episode 18: The Dravidian Pathway: How the DMK Redefined Power and Identity in South India [https://open.spotify.com/episode/73nB5819PQBcelDPikuG2e?si=adb275af3f5b40df] by Vignesh Rajahmani 17. D. Veeraraghavan: Half a Day for Caste? Education and Politics in Tamil Nadu, 1952-55 [https://amzn.in/d/dWwCJxy]  18. Nellai R. Jebamani [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellai_R._Jebamani], Cho Ramaswamy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Ramaswamy], Maraimalai Adigal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraimalai_Adigal], K. Veeramani [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Veeramani], Maniammai [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._V._R._Maniammai], C.N. Annadurai [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._N._Annadurai], K. Kamaraj [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Kamaraj], J. Jayalalithaa [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Jayalalithaa] 19. Bipin Chandra [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipan_Chandra], Aditya Mukherjee [https://jnu.academia.edu/AdityaMukherjee/CurriculumVitae], Ranajit Guha [https://rishvanth.com/2023/04/29/ranajit-guha-a-tribute/], Partha Chatterjee [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partha_Chatterjee_(scholar)], K. A. Nilakanta Sastri [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._A._Nilakanta_Sastri], D.D. Kosambi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damodar_Dharmananda_Kosambi], Romila Thapar [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romila_Thapar], M.N. Srinivas [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._N._Srinivas], Namdeo Dhasal [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namdeo_Dhasal]