178. #GirishKarnad(4/9): The River Has No Fear of Memories | The Art and Craft of Playwriting Part I
Release Date: 06/30/2022
315. Tracing Origins
BIC TALKS
Karthik Venkatesh, in his book, 10 Indian Languages and How They Came to Be, traces the long and varied journeys of ten languages through time, examining the cultural shifts and political and social influences that have shaped them. He provides a glimpse of their literature, tracks the growth of their scripts and identifies landmark moments that have preserved and reinvented these ten Indian languages. Venkataraghavan Subha Srinivasan, in his book, The Origin Story of India’s States, gives us an account of the genesis of India’s states, presenting the incredible origin...
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314. India Votes 2024: Karnataka Elections (Part 4 of 4)
BIC TALKS
Karnataka elects 28 members to the Lok Sabha and is considered a crucial swing state (to borrow a term from American politics) in the forthcoming elections as the INDIA Alliance is hoping to make major gains here. But if history is any indicator, then the BJP has an advantage. In the past four parliamentary elections since 2004, the BJP has managed to win more seats than the Congress. In the elections of 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019, the BJP won 18, 19, 17 and 25 seats respectively. In the 2019 elections, the BJP, riding on a national wave that favoured the reelection of Prime Minister Narendra...
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313. India Votes 2024: Seeds of Democracy (Part 3 of 4)
BIC TALKS
In India, the question of whether voters are truly getting what they vote for remains a complex and often debated issue. While elections provide a platform for citizens to express their preferences and hold their representatives accountable, challenges such as electoral misconduct, corruption, and the influence of money and power continue to cast doubt on the efficacy of the electoral process. Moreover, the disconnect between campaign promises and actual governance outcomes further muddles the picture. Despite strides in transparency and electoral reforms, the gap between voter expectations...
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312. India Votes 2024: Electoral Bonds (Part 2 of 4)
BIC TALKS
On the eve of the 2024 general election, electoral bonds have been thrust into the spotlight, representing a focal point in discussions surrounding political financing in India. These bonds, introduced as a means to ostensibly bring transparency to political funding, have instead been criticised for exacerbating the problem by allowing for anonymous and unrestricted donations to political parties. It leads to the question of what exactly the cost is of fighting an election and what it means for the future of India’s democracy. In this episode of BIC Talks, Prof. Trilochan Sastry,...
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311. India Votes 2024: Democracy vs Disinformation (Part 1 of 4)
BIC TALKS
Misinformation and fake news pose significant challenges in the electoral context in India, influencing public opinion, political discourse, and ultimately, democratic processes. With the widespread use of social media and messaging platforms, false narratives can spread rapidly, often targeting specific communities or political factions. This phenomenon not only undermines the credibility of information but also exacerbates societal divisions and hampers informed decision-making among voters. In India, where diverse perspectives and identities intersect, the proliferation of misinformation...
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310. The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Life and Work of AK Ramanujan (Part 5 of 5)
BIC TALKS
"The Gift That Keeps Giving," is a special five-part BIC Talks mini-series on the life and work of A.K. Ramanujan. Join us as we venture into the rich tapestry of Ramanujan's legacy, featuring exclusive interviews with writers, artists, and scholars who share a profound connection with his work. With each episode, we unravel the enduring impact of Ramanujan’s poetry, translations, and scholarship, providing insights into the creative spirit that continues to inspire generations. Discover the man whose intellectual contributions remain a perpetual gift to the world of literature, art, and...
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309. The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Life and Work of AK Ramanujan (Part 4 of 5)
BIC TALKS
"The Gift That Keeps Giving," is a special five-part BIC Talks mini-series on the life and work of AK Ramanujan. Join us as we venture into the rich tapestry of Ramanujan's legacy, featuring exclusive interviews with writers, artists, and scholars who share a profound connection with his work. With each episode, we unravel the enduring impact of Ramanujan’s poetry, translations, and scholarship, providing insights into the creative spirit that continues to inspire generations. Discover the man whose intellectual contributions remain a perpetual gift to the world of literature, art, and...
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308. The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Life and Work of AK Ramanujan (Part 3 of 5)
BIC TALKS
"The Gift That Keeps Giving," is a special five-part BIC Talks mini-series on the life and work of A.K. Ramanujan. Join us as we venture into the rich tapestry of Ramanujan's legacy, featuring exclusive interviews with writers, artists, and scholars who share a profound connection with his work. With each episode, we unravel the enduring impact of Ramanujan’s poetry, translations, and scholarship, providing insights into the creative spirit that continues to inspire generations. Discover the man whose intellectual contributions remain a perpetual gift to the world of literature, art, and...
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307. The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Life and Work of AK Ramanujan (Part 2 of 5)
BIC TALKS
"The Gift That Keeps Giving," is a special five-part BIC Talks mini-series on the life and work of A.K. Ramanujan. Join us as we venture into the rich tapestry of Ramanujan's legacy, featuring exclusive interviews with writers, artists, and scholars who share a profound connection with his work. With each episode, we unravel the enduring impact of Ramanujan’s poetry, translations, and scholarship, providing insights into the creative spirit that continues to inspire generations. Discover the man whose intellectual contributions remain a perpetual gift to the world of literature, art, and...
info_outline
306. The Gift that Keeps on Giving: The Life and Work of AK Ramanujan (Part 1 of 5)
BIC TALKS
"The Gift That Keeps Giving," is a special five-part BIC Talks mini-series on the life and work of A.K. Ramanujan. Join us as we venture into the rich tapestry of Ramanujan's legacy, featuring exclusive interviews with writers, artists, and scholars who share a profound connection with his work. With each episode, we unravel the enduring impact of Ramanujan’s poetry, translations, and scholarship, providing insights into the creative spirit that continues to inspire generations. Discover the man whose intellectual contributions remain a perpetual gift to the world of literature, art, and...
info_outlineGirish was a Kannada playwright, but his knowledge of theatre came from all over the world and from many languages. We explore his relationship with English and other languages and literatures. Girish talks about his plays that he believes do not work, what he learned from them, and how he responded to their failure.
About the Series:
In June 2019, a few days before his death, Girish Karnad and Arshia Sattar had extensive conversations about his work, his life, and the concerns that had occupied him over almost sixty years as a writer and a public intellectual. This podcast is a distillation of those freewheeling conversations, a short intellectual biography to celebrate the life and work of one of India’s finest playwrights and thinkers. In this series, we hear Girish talk about Kannada literature, existentialism, making of modern Indian theatre, the art and craft of playwriting, and his life as a public intellectual.
The series is hosted by Arshia Sattar and Anmol Tikoo, with special guests such as Vivek Shanbhag, Shanta Gokhale, and Sunil Shanbag, who provide the context for Girish’s comments. Each episode also contains scenes from his plays read by members of Bangalore’s theatre community. The readings show us how closely his philosophical and political ideas were to what he wrote. They also provide an opportunity for audiences, particularly those who might not be already familiar with Girish’s works, to experience the power of his work.
The title for the series is taken from the song in Hayavadana (Kannada title), a song which has been musically recreated for us by Pallavi MD and Konarak Reddy. Apart from the fact that Neerina Mele Chitra remains one of Kannada’s most beloved ranga geethe, we found it to be particularly evocative as we remember a man who profoundly impacted India’s cultural arena in the last half of the 20th century. This podcast series, we hope, will bear witness to Girish Karnad, a man who gave us so much to remember, but also so much to take forward.