Ep 326: Pushpesh Pant Feasts on the Buffet of Life

He taught international relations for a living, and he lived Indian culture -- food, clothes, music, films, languages, the whole package. Pushpesh Pant joins Amit Varma in episode 326 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about his life, his times and this beautiful country he loves so much. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Pushpesh Pant on Amazon, Twitter and CZcams. 2. India: Cookbook -- Pushpesh Pant. 3. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande - Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen. 4. Sara Rai Inhales Literature - Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 5. Chandrahas Choudhury’s Country of Literature - Episode 288 of The Seen and the Unseen. 6. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto - Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen. 7. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life - Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 8. Devi : Tales Of The Goddess In Our Time -- Mrinal Pande. 9. Amader Shantiniketan - Shivani (translated by Ira Pande). 10. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick. 11. In Praise of Slowness -- Carl Honore. 12. Tabiyat: Medicine and Healing in India and Other Essays -- Farokh Erach Udwadia. 13. Things to Leave Behind -- Namita Gokhale. 14. Raag Pahadi -- Namita Gokhale, translated by Pushpesh Pant. 15. Roshan Abbas and the Creator Economy - Episode 239 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. The Adda at the End of the Universe - Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas). 17. Natasha Badhwar Lives the Examined Life - Episode 301 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. Lahron Ke Rajhans (Hindi) -- Mohan Rakesh. 19. India: A Sacred Geography -- Diana Eck. 20. Caste, Gender, Karnatik Music - Episode 162 of The Seen and the Unseen (w TM Krishna). 21. An Equal Music -- Vikram Seth. 22. The Wonder That Was India -- AL Basham. 23. Dhano Dhanne -- Jaya Varma and the Chandigarh Choir. 24. Ira Pande's obituary of Jaya Varma. 25. Ira Pande on Amazon. 26. Akshaya Mukul and the Life of Agyeya -- Episode 324 of The Seen and the Unseen. 27. Constantine Cavafy, André Gide and Jean Genet. 28. The Counterfeiters -- André Gide. 29. Death in Venice -- Thomas Mann. 30. Collected Poems 1954 - 2004 -- Dom Moraes. 31. From Cairo to Delhi With Max Rodenbeck - Episode 281 of The Seen and the Unseen. 32. Phir Ek Din Aisa Aayega -- Ali Sardar Jafri. 33. Zindagi -- Kiran Ahluwalia. 34. The Case Against Sugar - Gary Taubes. 35. In a Silent Way - Episode 316 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gaurav Chintamani). 36. Kishore Mahbubani on Amazon. 37. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie - Luis Buñuel. 38. Chance and Necessity -- Jacques Monod. 39. Try Anything Twice -- Peter Cheyney. 40. Rakesh Raghunathan on CZcams. 41. The Indianness of Indian Food - Episode 95 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Doctor). 42. Cooking the world's oldest known curry -- Soity Banerjee. 43. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal - Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 44. Stage.in. 45. The Slow Fire Chef on Twitter. 46. Marginal Revolution posts on books. 47. The Myth of the Holy Cow -- DN Jha. 48. Elite Imitation in Public Policy - Episode 180 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shruti Rajagopalan and Alex Tabarrok). 49. The Lady’s Dressing Room -- Jonathan Swift. 50. My Friend Dropped His Pants -- Amit Varma. 51. A Paean to the Paan -- Pushpesh Pant. 52. Vairagya Shatak (Hindi) -- Bhartihari. 53. Bhaja Govindam -- Adi Shankara. 54. Rainer Maria Rilke and Meer Taqi Meer. 55. Titash Ekti Nadir Naam -- Ritwik Ghatak. 56. Jukti Takko Aar Gappo -- Ritwik Ghatak. 57. Teesri Kasam -- Basu Bhattacharya. 58. Duniya Banane Wale -- Song from Teesri Kasam. 59. Guide - Vijay Anand. 60. Caurapañcāśikā -- Bilhana. 61. Dagar Brothers, Siyaram Tiwari, Vidya Rao and TM Krishna. 62. A Southern Music - TM Krishna. 63. The Raga-Ness of Ragas -- Deepak S Raja.. 64. NAD - Understanding Raga Music -- Sandeep Bagchee. 65. Form in Indian and Western Music -- Chetan Karnani. This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! Episode art: ‘The Feast’ by Simahina.

[@harshalthakur5625]

Wish people with such incredible knowledge and intelligence became mainstream and got the credit they deserve. Ours is a culture of making dumb people famous and glorifying stupidity. Prof. Pant is a treasure.

[@RahulThakur-lh9xl]

Wished it would never end. Thank you for this

[@colorlessMountain]

Someone find these homoerotic stories! What a great conversation!

[@DrMPJoshi]

Great one

[@tusharsingh401]

3:36:00 Food

[@LostMonk679]

43:30

[@paddyarya-fu6wr]

🌟🌟🌟🌟

[@sanjolijain1667]

Its so sad that the librarian now at the Sapru is such a shitty person and the library becoming a place of propoganda of the Current government in power, the librarian specially is a very unwelcoming person, thinks of himself as some sort of badshah with Malikana rights over the library, the library administration is equally shitty, though one could still find a brilliant collection of classics if one has the eyes and the apppetite for books. All and all, the aura of a library meant for researchers is not serving its purpose of continuous critical inquiry rather it is now occupied and filled with UPSC aspirant, majorly people without critical questions and opinions but very bereaucratic confirmist attitude towards life and the world outside. The collection there is not much used because the space meant for scholars supposed to be used by researchers is dominated by aspirants. A very sad story but a true one. Same logic applies to the trust library Dayal Singh at ITO.