Beyond the Lines

Roli Books

Beyond the Lines is a podcast by Roli Books that dissects Indian books and writing, diving into culture and things that inform it, and reflects on our times. Self-confessed bookworms Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar chat up with your favourite writers, artists and creative heads on an episode each. Catch our guests tell their stories, talk about ideas that inspire them, their guilty pleasures and passions that drive them. With the right doses of the sincere and silly, the most urgent and leisurely, some gripping some ticklish, the featured guests here have enough food for thought for everybody at the table. Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar. Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books. Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can get a twenty percent discount on all books featured in the show. Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes

  1. 07/22/2021

    Ep 09 Pandemic Tapes: India Under Lockdowns

    On the finale episode of season one of Beyond the Lines, our co-host Chirag Thakkar gets on a call with Anoo Bhuyan, Soutik Biswas and Dr Kalpana Swaminathan to unpack the events spanning over a year of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as its second wave that wreaked havoc on India’s peoples. Over two summers, India woke up to the same cycles of news: people falling sick in hordes; a shortage of beds, medicines, emergency wards, ambulances, testing kits, information, systems, oxygen, the list could go on. Bearing witness to this ongoing disaster that we are, likely, still in the middle of, the special wrap-up episode tries to make sense of an India that never went out of the SOS mode since March 2020. Anoo Bhuyan is a journalist who covers health at Indiaspend.com; Soutik Biswas is India Correspondent and Features and Analysis Editor at BBC India, and Dr. Kalpana Swaminathan, who writes with Dr. Ishrat Syed under the pseudonym Kalpish Ratna is a writer and surgeon. Anoo, Soutik and Kalpana are also contributors, among others, to a publishers’ set of essays titled, The Dark Hour: India under Lockdowns, forthcoming in the fall of 2021 with Roli Books. We will be back with more in the second season of Beyond the Lines; stay tuned. Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar.   Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books.   Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram.   Check out books published by Roli and other leading international art, design and illustrated publishers at CMYK Bookstore, among other online retail stores. Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com to get a 20 percent discount on your purchase.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Ep 09 Pandemic Tapes: India Under Lockdowns
  2. 05/26/2021

    Ep 07 So You Think You Can Cook Featuring Nandita Iyer

    Our co-host Chirag Thakkar gets on a call with food writer and blogger Dr. Nandita Iyer, who takes on heavy-duty questions that get to the heart of what we eat and how and why we eat what we eat, answers for which we all have sought for so long. Whether ghee is good for you, if diets work and are sustainable, what oil is good for desi cooking, why eating seasonal producce is directly tied to your wellbeing – all of this and a whole lot more on this episode. And oh, if she were a pickle or a chutney, Nandita thinks she’s likely to be a Punjabi mix pickle. Have you ever thought of what condiment or cocktail you would be? Nandita is the author of several cookbooks, most recently of ‘Everyday Superfoods,’ and the forthcoming book ‘Thali: Vegetarian Wholesomeness from India’ to be published by Roli Books. Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar. Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books.     You can follow Nandita Iyer on twitter @saffrontrail here, as well as on facebook, instagram and her blog.         Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram.    Check out books published by Roli and other leading international art, design and illustrated publishers at CMYK Bookstore. Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com to get a 20 percent discount on your purchase.           Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Ep 07 So You Think You Can Cook Featuring Nandita Iyer
  3. 05/19/2021

    Ep 06 Scindias and the Pulse of Indian Politics

    Our co-host Chirag Thakkar gets on a call with political commentator and writer Rasheed Kidwai to talk about one of India’s most popular political dynasties – the Scindias. With political intrigue, palace conspiracies, cut-throat rivalry, an ugly, public feud, betrayals and property wars fought in courts, and siblings that do not look eye to eye, the Scindias make tantalizing headlines. Weeks before India announced a total lockdown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, Jyotiraditya Scindia dumped the Congress overnight for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bringing down the former from power in the state. Many saw the return of the prodigal grandson as the reunion of the political dynasty of Scindias under BJP’s catch-all umbrella. Rasheed unpacks with Chirag what this moment means for Indian politics, going into the family’s political history and predicts what the Indian National Congress needs to do to revive itself. Rasheed Kidwai is a journalist, political historian, writer and columnist. He is Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, and has formerly been Associate Editor at The Telegraph. He is the author of the upcoming book 'The House of Scindias : A Saga of Power, Politics and Intrigue.' Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar. Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books.     You can follow Rasheed Kidwai on twitter @rasheedkidwai here   Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram.   You can find Rasheed Kidwai’s forthcoming book on the Scindias on all platforms soon. His other books on Sonia Gandhi, the Indian National Congress, Bollywood and politics can be found here.    Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com to get a 20 percent discount on Rasheed’s forthcoming book, others by Roli Books and by leading international art, design and illustrated books at CMYK Bookstore.              Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Ep 06 Scindias and the Pulse of Indian Politics
  4. 04/21/2021

    Ep 02 Indian Jazz and Bombay, the Ticking Time Bomb with Naresh Fernandes

    Our co-host Chirag Thakkar gets on a call with newsman, music fanatic and Bombay historian Naresh Fernandes for the second episode of Beyond the Lines to talk about Indian jazz, statues and busts, and the pressures and joys of doing journalism in India today. As early as the 1930s, Jazz found its way into Bombay’s nightclubs, bars and cultural life and had a thriving career for the next three decades, influencing its cinema and music. Our guest tells this forgotten story of Bombay’s golden jazz age in his wildly popular and award-winning book Taj Mahal Foxtrot published by Roli Books. One of the most prolific voices in Indian media today, Naresh Fernandes is an acclaimed writer, editor and journalist at scroll.in, one of India’s leading digital daily.   Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar. Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books.     Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram.   You can follow Naresh on twitter @tajmahalfoxtrot here and subscribe to scroll at scroll.in    Check out a personalized Indian Jazz playlist curated by Naresh here.         Find Naresh’s books on Bombay Jazz here and Bombay, the city here.       Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com to get a 20 percent discount on these and other books.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Ep 02 Indian Jazz and Bombay, the Ticking Time Bomb with Naresh Fernandes

About

Beyond the Lines is a podcast by Roli Books that dissects Indian books and writing, diving into culture and things that inform it, and reflects on our times. Self-confessed bookworms Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar chat up with your favourite writers, artists and creative heads on an episode each. Catch our guests tell their stories, talk about ideas that inspire them, their guilty pleasures and passions that drive them. With the right doses of the sincere and silly, the most urgent and leisurely, some gripping some ticklish, the featured guests here have enough food for thought for everybody at the table. Hosts and Executive Producers: Priya Kapoor and Chirag Thakkar. Show Producer: Aria Nanji. Produced by Roli Pulse, a digital initiative by Roli Books. Follow Roli Books @rolibooks on twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can get a twenty percent discount on all books featured in the show. Use code BTL20 at checkout on cmykbookstore.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.