Books and Authors

"Prime ministership is a continuum. If VP Singh had not done Mandal to empower the OBCs, the story for Mr Modi might have been very different. He is today an OBC PM and he's talking about taking power to the most backward, the Mahadalits, the Pasmanda Muslims; those who have been on the peripheries of power are to be given a stake. If VP Singh hadn't done as he did, maybe the BJP would have continued as a Brahmin-Bania party, which it used to be known as" - Neerja Chowdhury, author, 'How Prime Ministers Decide', talks to Manjula Narayan about Indira Gandhi's religiosity, the central issues that each Indian PM has grappled with, Manmohan Singh and the Indo-US Nuclear deal, the friendship between Vajpayee and PV Narasimha Rao, Sonia Gandhi asking VP Singh and Vajpayee for advice and much more.

"The issues of citizenship and identity become very mixed up in the case of cross border communities like Bengalis and Nepalis. And that is something one is seeing now happening with Kukis as well in Manipur, where there is widespread suspicion that a lot of them have come from Myanmar" - Samrat Choudhury, author, 'Northeast India; A Political History' talks to Manjula Narayan about the complex cultural, linguistic, religious and political histories of each of the states of northeast India, how the region became a part of India as a result of the Anglo-Burmese wars, the genesis of the idea of India itself, the ignored history of slavery in the subcontinent, and the need to avoid airbrushing the past.

"Our writers have never divorced themselves from social reality. They have not really gone as much into individual lives without taking into account the social space in which those lives are lived. Almost all these stories are written in a down-to-earth mode. The attempt is largely to depict the real world and not the world of the intellectual imagination or fantasy. There's too much reality to get away from. Writers in our country have taken that reality head on and grappled with it, and have never flinched or looked away. These are the stories that continue to tell you the things that matter" - Arunava Sinha, editor, The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told, talks to Manjula Narayan about translation, pan Indianism, literature from different parts of the country, and how editing a volume of short fiction like this one is an intense experience.

"Even women who says they are feminist, within the family, they put out messages that they have internalised. Both daughters and sons notice it and the sons profit from it. But in fact, the mother's spoiling of her son is a negative gift because the world outside is not a cuddly place. As a result, it becomes difficult for him to handle that world. If we want to look at the future, we first have to be aware of our past. We need to look at the oral traditions we have inserted in our lives and think, "Is this the way?" We can create a new world of solidarity without competition as men against women." - Mineke Schipper, author, Hills of Paradise, which looks at power, powerlessness and the female body, talks about sexist proverbs from Europe, China, Africa and India, the power of ancient myth in modern life, and the way towards a more equal world.

"Our food memories are hardwired in our brain. I tell parents about the importance of giving your child healthy comfort food so that they return to those foods as adults in times of happiness and stress. If junk food is their comfort food as children, they will return to it as adults, and we know that those foods actually cause depression. Food has a lot of effect on your hormones. When you eat a healthy food that makes you feel good inside, you are cutting down stress right away" - Kavita Devgan, author, '500 Recipes; Simple Tricks for Stress-Free Cooking' talks to Manjula Narayan about food memories, the pluses of including mushrooms and buckwheat in your diet, giving in to occasional cravings for sabudana, and opting for variety on your plate

"There are no ghosts, but ghostliness does exist" - Riksunder Banerjee, author, 'Haunted Places of India' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan about the paranormal, horror stories from different parts of the country, and avenging ghost mothers.

"The things she'd seen of the world made her cautious of men in general. So, she never allowed herself to be dictated to by a man. Also, she understood, from the other tawaifs, that it was important to give your child an education, which she hadn't had herself. I was sent to boarding school. I never really faced any discrimination because, the minute I opened my mouth, somehow, people think I come from an affluent background. They just assume you are well off because you are fluent in English. Nobody asks you about your background." - Manish Gaekwad, author, The Last Courtesan, talks to Manjula Narayan about his mother, who was trafficked as a child and her subsequent life as an entertainer in Calcutta and at Foras Road in 1990s Bombay, and about writing a memoir about her life.

"Seaweed is packed with iron, zinc, Omega 3, protein and Vitamin B12 and is especially important for countries with a large vegetarian population like India, where it can provide a lot of the nutritional intake. India also has a huge potential for seaweed farming. It has a 17000-kilometre coastline and 700 types of seaweed but you don't yet know how to cultivate it so there's a lot of research to be done" - Vincent Doumeizel, author, The Seaweed Revolution, talks to Manjula Narayan about the many applications of seaweed including in promoting food security, improving health, in the creation of environmentally friendly clothing, in building materials and in combating pollution, among other things.

"We thought that, when it came to mammals, we knew it all. But we've just discovered two new macaques and a new barking deer in Arunachal Pradesh. We now know that we have more than 440 mammals in India. And there must be more. We need many more Indians working on many more discrete taxa. If they do that then we'll have a truer picture. We work with an encyclopaedia of ignorance to guide us. Nature has so many things and we are only scraping the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we see." - Vivek Menon, author, 'Indian Mammals; A Field Guide' talks to Manjula Narayan about the wild asses of Kutch, bats as great pollinators, India having the largest squirrels in the world, and about putting together this impressive volume that includes in depth information about every known mammal in the country from the tiny shrew to the large elephant.

"If the police accuses someone, unless it's proved in court, don't believe them," says Shevlin Sebastian, co-author, The Stolen Necklace, which examines the case of VK Thajudheen, whose safe middle class existence was shattered when he was imprisoned for a petty crime he did not commit. A true story of police excess in a small town in north Kerala, it takes readers into the milieu of the Muslim community of the area, offers glimpses of life in a mofussil prison, and underlines the fragility and randomness of life.