Books and Authors
274 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingIn this podcast, National Books Editor Manjula Narayan tells you about books, authors and their journeys. This is a Hindustan Times production, brought to you by HT Smartcast
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Episodes
Books & Authors podcast with Kubbra Sait, author, Open Book
July 21, 2022 10:16 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MB"I felt I had the courage to own up to who I am and to my truest authentic self. And that is a superpower." - Kubbra Sait, actor and author, 'Open Book; Not Quite a Memoir', talks to Manjula Narayan about playing Cuckoo in Sacred Games, overcoming being abused as a teen, and keeping calm in the competitive Bollywood #BooksAndAuthors podcast.
Books & Authors podcast with Rajeev Shukla, politician, journalist and author, Scars of 1947: Real Partition Stories
July 15, 2022 10:10 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBScars of 1947 is a book based on the real stories of India's Independence and everything it costed to the people of both the sides. The fears, the cries of help and a lot more that has affected the lives of many. In the stories collected by Rajeev Shukla for his book "Scars of 1947" you will get to know about the deep grief of people who were affected by the Partition of India and also some great inspiring tales of love & the perseverance of the human spirit.
Books & Authors podcast with Deepti Naval, actor and author, A Country Called Childhood; A Memoir
July 09, 2022 05:03 - 57 minutes - 52.4 MBGrowing up in Amritsar in the 1960s, watching jets flying overhead during the 1965 war, being struck by Hindi film lyrics, domestic tragedies, the contrasting milieu at home and at school, fighting street sexual harassment, and memories of school friends... Actor Deepti Naval talks to Manjula Narayan about her memoir A Country Called Childhood, which recreates a vanished time in India's recent history.
Books & Authors podcast with Simon Lamouret, author, The Alcazar
July 01, 2022 12:27 - 49 minutes - 45.6 MB"Construction workers are highly invisibilized. Their world is a small world within our world and at points, I thought of the construction site as a metaphor for a growing India with its linguistic, ethnic, and religious diversity. You find Hindus, Muslims and Christians on the site sharing and collaborating to an extent but also segregated in other aspects of their lives." - Simon Lamouret, author, The Alcazar, a graphic novel based on the lives of workers on a building site in Bengaluru tal...
Books&Authors podcast Anita Bhogle, author, Equal yet Different
June 23, 2022 09:43 - 42 minutes - 39 MB"For women to stay the course, you need to have better infrastructure and better support systems because, really, that is the reason most women seem to not be able to manage. We need creches, homes for the elderly... Typically, it is (the absence of) these things that hold women back."
Books&Authors podcast with Meena Arora Nayak, author, Adbhut; Marvellous Creatures of Indian Myth and Folklore
June 17, 2022 09:52 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MB"Myth is not fictitious. It is actually truer than real life because it talks about an internal deep reality, which is truer than truth." - Meena Arora Nayak, author, Adbhut, Marvellous Creatures of Indian Myth and Folklore talks to Manjula Narayan about myth and meaning in the Books and Authors podcast.
Books and Authors podcast with Vidya Krishnan, author, Phantom Plague
June 02, 2022 14:19 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MB"Antibiotics don't work on Drug-Resistant TB, which should worry all of us. The post-antibiotic era is dawning on us." - Vidya Krishnan, author of Phantom Plague; How Tuberculosis Shaped History talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the persistence of TB that has evolved with humanity, about the abuse of antibiotics that has made it more virulent, and about the scientific racism that keeps Indian sufferers from getting the best new drugs.
Books & Authors podcast with Nasreen Rehman, translator, The Collected Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto
May 26, 2022 14:30 - 1 hour - 57.3 MB"Manto is not just a witness to history in his stories; he is an active agent of history. He is the subject of history. It is very compelling" - Nasreen Rehman, the translator, of The Collected Stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, talks to @utterflea about Manto's deep feelings for Bombay, his iconoclasm that made the Progressive Writers Group wary of him, and why his stories continue to move South Asians.
Books& Authors podcast with Seema Chishti, author, Sumitra and Anees
May 19, 2022 14:33 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MB"The personal is being made political in a very perverse way. My existence itself is anathema to a rising, sizeable force in Indian politics and that upsets me." - Seema Chishti, author of 'Sumitra and Anees' talks to Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast about her mother's recipes, her parents' inter religious marriage, and about all that India was and can be.
Books & Authors podcast with Aanchal Malhotra, author, In the Language of Remembering
May 13, 2022 11:10 - 52 minutes - 48 MB"Partition is such a perplexing event that 75 years on, you cannot assign blame to one community because there are equally heinous acts on both sides and equal misfortunes as well. So maybe everyone is to blame at some point, and no one is to blame too." - Aanchal Malhotra, author, of 'In the Language of Remembering' talks to Manjula Narayan about the inheritance of Partition on the Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors podcast with Vijay Mahajan, author, Digital Leapfrogs
May 06, 2022 05:50 - 56 minutes - 52 MB"Technology has made it possible for us to be inclusive irrespective of who we are," says Vijay Mahajan, author, 'Digital Leapfrogs' as he talks to Manjula Narayan about how technology is reshaping consumer markets in India and the social and material changes being brought about by everything from Uber to Paytm and Phonepe and streaming services like Netflix
Books & Authors podcast with Jeet Thayil, editor, The Penguin Book of Indian Poets
April 28, 2022 07:25 - 47 minutes - 43.1 MB"Indian anthologists have made it a practice to exclude young poets. This is a disservice not only to young poets but actually to the older poets. I wanted to be as inclusive as possible; I was guided by the poems and not by the poets." - Jeet Thayil, editor, The Penguin Book of Indian Poets talks to @utterflea about the definitive anthology on the Books & Authors podcast.
Books and Authors podcast with Parvati Sharma, author, Akbar of Hindustan
April 22, 2022 10:38 - 1 hour - 55 MB"Even in his life time, not everyone had a favourable view of Akbar. Many thought he was a heretic, and he was aware of this," says Parvati Sharma, author, Akbar of Hindustan. She talks to Manjula Narayan about writing an accessible popular history of the Mughal emperor that recreates family dramas, power struggles and great battles and also shines a light on a colourful supporting cast of characters that includes ambitious royal nurses, mutinous clansmen, swashbuckling homosexual noblemen, a...
Books & Authors podcast with Parul Dave Mukherji, co-editor, 20th Century Indian Art
April 14, 2022 12:52 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBI had spent a lot of time being critical of Eurocentrism when I realised that one has to move beyond this space of postcolonial critique. Ultimately, we have to take the responsibility of writing history from the global South. That's when a real dialogue can happen on equal terms." - Parul Dave Mukherji, co-editor of the mammoth '20th Century Indian Art', which looks at everything from the work of Raja Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, and Amrita Sher-Gil to contemporary street art, regional ...
Books & Authors podcast with Siddharth Sonkar, author, What Privacy Means
April 07, 2022 14:20 - 48 minutes - 44.6 MBThe fact that we are losing control over our own sense of time, how we spend our money, and the decisional autonomy that we exercise on these social media platforms is worrying. That we don't have a law in place to restrict how these platforms use our information is what is problematic." - Siddharth Sonkar, author, of 'What Privacy Means' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the idea of privacy in the Indian context, about government surveillance having a chilling ...
Books And Authors podcast with Satyabrata Rout, author, Scenography; An Indian Perspective
April 02, 2022 04:02 - 57 minutes - 52.6 MBFrom the Natyashastra to now, there has been no theorizing of theatre in India. I don't know why people didn't try," says Satyabrata Rout, author, Scenography; An Indian Perspective, which is rich in details about stage design in both traditional and contemporary modern theatre in India. On this week's Books & Authors podcast, the author talks to @utterflea about his journey, working with BV Karanth, the popular mobile theatres of Assam and the flourishing Surabhi theatres of Andhra Pradesh,...
Books and Authors podcast with Nikhil Menon, author, Planning Democracy
March 24, 2022 19:44 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBThe heady post-independence years of the 1950s when it was believed that democratic planning could take the nation from abject poverty to prosperity, India's Five-Year plans that grew out of the attempt to marry liberal democracy to a socialist economy, the role of the Indian Statistical Institute and the dynamism of technocrats like PC Mahalanobis in the now-defunct Planning Commission, and how the zeal for planning permeated everything from films to family life - Nikhil Menon, author of 'P...
Books and Authors podcast with Pallavi Nigam Sahay, author A Sip in Time
March 10, 2022 09:55 - 55 minutes - 51 MB"The idea is to mirror the flavour of snacks to tea and not to contrast it. Contrasting snacks can ruin the taste of tea, though it does work well with masala chai," says Pallavi Nigam Sahay, author A Sip in time. She talks to @utterflea about India's finest teas and pairing them with the right teatime treats on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books and Authors podcast with Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice
March 03, 2022 12:43 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MB"With Lata Mangeshkar went a huge, massive chunk of film history and film music history," says Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, 'Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice'. This book of conversations with the legend reveals her photographic memory, her magical ability to change her voice to suit specific actors, her deep understanding of the emotions in lyrics and of sound technology, and how, in the words of Dilip Kumar, her songs "are part of our lives and memory".
Books and Authors podcast with Kavery Nambisan, author, A Luxury Called Health
February 24, 2022 13:15 - 50 minutes - 46.6 MB"WHO has come out strongly against simple medicines like Ivermectin despite the fact that there is so much data showing that it is effective in treating COVID. This is because the vaccine lobby is very strong and they don't allow these medicines to get the publicity they deserve," says Kavery Nambisan, author of 'A Luxury Called Health', a memoir of her four-decade-long career as a surgeon in rural and small-town India. In this wide-ranging conversation with Manjula Narayan on this week's Boo...
Books & Authors podcast with Aloke Lal, author, Murder in the Bylanes
February 17, 2022 09:06 - 52 minutes - 48 MB"Sometimes police action during riots is cramped because of the complicity of people who are ruling or those who want to rule - that is the politicians. They would like the situation to develop in a certain manner so it is not unusual to find politicians playing a very dirty game" - Aloke Lal, author of 'Murder in the Bylanes', a memoir of his stint as Deputy Inspector General, Kanpur, in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition when it was one of the most volatile cities in north India, ...
Books & Authors with Tanuj Bhojwani, author, The Art of Bitfulness
February 10, 2022 09:36 - 1 hour - 60.1 MBOur toxic relationship with our devices, the negative impact of huge and very quick scaling up of businesses, the need to change the all-pervasive culture of lauding those sorts of practices, the banality of evil with social media exemplifying the proverb, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions', and how to stop falling prey to FOMO, bad moods and negativity brought on by our smartphones allowing us to be online all the time -- Tanuj Bhojwani, co-author, with Nandan Nilekani, of The ...
Books & Authors with GN Devy, author Mahabharata; The Epic and the Nation
February 03, 2022 08:31 - 55 minutes - 51 MB"Every civilization has its territory of fantasy. The Mahabharata seems to have drawn the boundaries of that territory for the Indian people. At the time that it got into circulation, other texts too were being composed but they were restricted to certain groups, to Buddhists, Jains, or Brahmins. The Mahabharat, however, could get into anyone's imaginative territory. That freedom to wander around was the Mahabharata's great gift from the beginning and that's why it is still appreciated in dif...
Books & Authors with Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan
January 27, 2022 12:07 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB"People who are powerful and wealthy are always complex and layered characters," says Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan, in this week's Books & Authors conversation with Manjula Narayan, about the ambitious, adventurous, charismatic and bloodthirsty medieval dynasties of southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas.
Books & Authors podcast with Rahul Rawail, author, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work
January 20, 2022 10:17 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBRaj Kapoor's passion for film making made him literally chase clouds across the country to get the perfect shot, his great ear for music that ensured that songs and the background score added to the storytelling, his ability to get just what he wanted from his actors, his willingness to teach his team, and his eccentricities. Filmmaker, Rahul Rawail, who began as RK's assistant, talks to Manjula Narayan about his new book, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work.
Books & Authors podcast with Nalin Mehta, author, The New BJP
January 13, 2022 09:31 - 56 minutes - 51.5 MB"If the ground is shifting beneath your feet at the mass level in this country, you have to figure out why it is shifting," says Nalin Mehta, author of The New BJP, a massive book that presents fresh data and insights on a range of subjects including the new caste coalitions that have changed the party and the making of a new woman-voter base.
Books & Authors podcast with Sagarika Ghose, author of Atal Bihari Vajpayee
January 07, 2022 11:30 - 1 hour - 67.3 MB"Vajpayee was a ruthless politician but he couldn't do with Modi what he did with others like Madhok and Govindacharya," says @sagarikaghose, author of 'Atal Bihari Vajpayee'. She talks to @utterflea about the first BJP Prime Minister's humour, likeability, unconventionality and great belief in Parliament on this week's Books& Authors podcast
Books & Authors podcast with Anupama Chopra, author, A Place in my Heart
December 30, 2021 04:30 - 34 minutes - 32 MB"I'm sure there are a lot of people who are not very fond of me. I'm like that proverbial Trishanku figure," says film critic and Bollywood insider Anupama Chopra in a conversation on her new book 'A Place in My Heart' with host Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors podcast with Manash Ghosh, author, Bangladesh War; Report from Ground Zero
December 09, 2021 09:19 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBThe ethnic discrimination and genocide that preceded the birth of Bangladesh exactly 50 years ago, international apathy to the carnage, factionalism among the Bengali freedom fighters, the role of the Indian armed forces in training the MuktiBahini and underwater demolition squads... Manash Ghosh, the first journalist to report on the unfolding crisis in erstwhile East Pakistan, and author of 'Bangladesh War; Report From Ground Zero' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan on this week's Bo...
Books & Authors podcast with Rukmini S, author, Whole Numbers and Half Truths
December 02, 2021 13:27 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBWhy some states need to shut down family planning departments, the possible story behind the improved sex ratio, the truth about the higher minority fertility rate, why states that show the highest rates of COVID are not the ones that are worst afflicted, the criminalisation of young love under Sec 376, the consequences of treating an FIR as the basis for crime statistics and an understanding of women's safety... @Rukmini, author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths that interprets data to presen...
Books & Authors podcast with with Adrija Roychowdhury, author, Delhi, in Thy Name
November 25, 2021 09:52 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MBThe lotus in the Kashmiri Pandit imagination, the falcon in the north Indian Muslim one, the growth of East Pakistan Displaced Persons Colony... @AdrijaRoychow, author, 'Delhi, In Thy Name' talks to @utterflea about the stories contained within the names of Delhi neighbourhoods like Pamposh Enclave, Shaheen Bagh, CR Park and Saket and what they reveal about the post-independence history of the city and the country
Books & Authors podcast with Pranay Lal, author, Invisible Empire; The Natural History of Viruses
November 18, 2021 10:24 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBVaccine hesitancy, cannibalism and immunity to prion disease, viruses and depression, the streaked tulip crisis and the potyvirus, industrial foods and poor gut health... @pranaylal, author of Invisible Empire; The Natural History of Viruses talks to @utterflea about all that on the Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with with Ramya Ramamurthy, author, Branded In History
November 12, 2021 13:22 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBOrdering a Rolls Royce through a catalogue, Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore endorsing products, companies advertising that their rivals use human waste to make soaps, the cachet of swadeshi goods in the pre-Independence era, and the business losses of Partition, @crypticcaprice, author, Branded in History talks to @utterflea on the Books and Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Neema Shah, author, Kololo Hill
November 02, 2021 13:04 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBIn August 1972, the Ugandan government under Idi Amin decreed that all Ugandan Asians must leave the country in 90 days and that they must take only what they could carry. Thousands of Indians, many of whom were born and brought up in Africa were suddenly rendered stateless. Kololo Hill is the story of one such family. Author @NeemaMShah talks to @utterflea about her debut novel that looks at immigration, the idea of home, and the things that people will do to protect those they love.
Books & Authors with Farhad Dadyburjor, author, The Other Man
October 29, 2021 09:49 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MB'The Other Man' is possibly India's first happy gay novel. Set in Mumbai, this is the story of good looking, rich and successful Ved Mehta who's about to be engaged to the perfectly suitable Disha Kapoor. And then he falls in love with Carlos. Closeted and conflicted Ved wants to make his parents happy by doing what they want. Author @FarhadJD talks to @utterflea about his funny and touching novel.
Books & Authors with Tarun K Saint, editor, the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Volume 2
October 21, 2021 04:30 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBSpeciesists on planets with three moons, pain merchants, murderous dolls in Calcutta, djinns in a future Dhaka, vengeful droids in Karachi, and othering and betrayal in Mumbai Prime - there's all of this in the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Vol 2. Editor Tarun K Saint talks to host Manjula Narayan about this collection of sci-fi and speculative fiction that transports readers to strangely familiar worlds.
Books & Authors with Mytheli Sreenivas, author, Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India
October 14, 2021 09:20 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBIndian feminists and the nation's family planning programme forced vasectomies during the Emergency and the idea of small families as a way to eliminate poverty @ProfMytheli author of 'Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Jyotirmaya Sharma, author of Elusive Non-Violence; The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa
October 08, 2021 04:30 - 52 minutes - 47.7 MBGandhi's introduction of non-violence as an Indian value by fabricating a tradition around it, his radical interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita, his exhortation to the Jews facing Hitler... Jyotirmaya Sharma, author, Elusive Non-Violence; The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi's Religion of Ahimsa talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Upinder Singh, author of Ancient India; Culture of Contradictions
October 01, 2021 14:05 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBThe idea that ancient Indians were non-violent is completely wrong." - Upinder Singh, author of Ancient India; Culture of Contradictions talks to @utterflea on godess worship and misogyny, Buddhism, the Manu Smriti and more on the Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Sid Mallya, author of If I'm Honest; A Memoir of My Mental Health Journey
September 24, 2021 05:30 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBBattling severe OCD, walking away from his father's business to strike out on his own in LA, and dealing positively with trolls, @sidmallya, author of 'If I'm Honest; A Memoir of My Mental Health Journey' talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Rajesh Kasturirangan, authors of Who Are We? An Enquiry Into The Indian Mind...
September 16, 2021 08:50 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MBCyborg India, the persistence and flexibility of caste, lynching as a form of messaging that marries social media spectacle and communal hatred, cognitive capitalism, and the idea of cosiety - @ranganaut author of 'Who Are We? An Enquiry into the Indian Mind...' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Martyn Rix, author, Indian Botanical Art; An Illustrated History
September 09, 2021 13:33 - 42 minutes - 39.4 MBZainuddin, Ram Das, Vishnupersaud and Rungiah were just some of the brilliant artists who worked with the surgeon-botanists of the East India Company to create exquisite scientifically accurate paintings of Indian flora. Martyn Rix, author of 'Indian Botanical Art; An Illustrated History' talks to @utterflea about this productive collaboration between East and West.
Books & Authors podcast with Ruth Vanita, who has translated Mahadevi Varma's My Family
September 03, 2021 10:18 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBPre-modern Indian attitudes to animals, what the Mahabharata says about cruelty to bulls, factory farming and vegetarianism, and Mahadevi Varma's stories about animals and their relationships with each other in 'My Family'... Ruth Vanita, who has translated the book talks about all that to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast
Books & Authors with Vaibhav Purandare, author of Hitler and India; The Untold Story of His Hatred for the country & Its People
August 26, 2021 13:42 - 51 minutes - 46.9 MBNazi atrocities against Indians in Germany, Subhash Chandra Bose's unfruitful meeting with Hitler, and the strange amnesia that has led to Mien Kampf being a bestseller in India, @VaibhavP21, author of 'Hitler And India' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast
Books & Authors with Nirupama Subramanian, author Murder on the Menu
August 19, 2021 08:24 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBLust, black magic, kidnapping, and murder feature in the story of P Rajagopal, founder of Saravana Bhavan. Murder on the Menu by Nirupama Subramanian shows us a man who stopped at nothing in his attempt to force a woman to marry him. Nirupama Subramanian talks to @utterflea about Murder on the Menu: The Sensational Story of the Tycoon Who Founded Saravana Bhavan.
Books & Authors with Akash Kapur, author of Better to have gone; Love, Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville
August 12, 2021 14:41 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBBuilding a utopian community, the optimism and the bitter internal battles that were fought, the triumphs, great personal tragedies and philosophical struggles of the pioneers... @akashkapur talks to @utterflea about 'Better to have Gone; Love Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville
Books & Authors with Lopamudra Maitra Bajpai, author of The Owl Delivered The Good News All Night
August 05, 2021 02:30 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBShapeshifters, women who turn into tigers, drowned worlds, a son-in-law perplexed by his shadow... 'The Owl Delivered The Good News All Night Long' is a collection of fantastic folktales from across India. Lopamudra Maitra Bajpai who edited the volume talks to @utterflea about the themes and structures of folk lore and the ways in which these tales help you to understand the world.
Books & Authors with with Coomi Kapoor, author of The Tatas, Freddiw Mercury & Other Bawas; An Intimate History of the Parsis
July 29, 2021 13:35 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MBWhy Ratan Tata and Nusli Wadia fell out, Cyrus Mistry's connection to Mughal-e-Azam, Bhikaiji Cama and other fiery Parsi women, intermarriage, orthodoxy, and dwindling numbers - Coomi Kapoor, author of The Tatas, Freddie Mercury & Other Bawas; An Intimate History of the Parsis talks to @utterflea about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.
Books & Authors with Vikram Sampath, author, Savarkar; A Contested Legacy 1924-1966
July 23, 2021 02:10 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MB"There's been a shocking lack of academic curiosity or scholarly evaluation of Savarkar," says @vikramsampath, author of 'Savarkar; A Contested Legacy', the second part of his two-volume biography of the father of Hindutva. On this week's Books&Authors podcast, he talks to @utterflea about the dialogue between Ambedkar and Savarkar and the surprising similarity of their views, about the contribution of violent revolutionary activity during the freedom struggle, and the still unacknowledged an...
Books & Authors with Pallavi Aiyar, author of Orienting; An Indian in Japan
July 16, 2021 08:47 - 51 minutes - 47.6 MB"Ladoo-loving Ganesh in India has transformed into mooli-loving Binayaka in Tokyo!" @pallaviaiyar, author of Orienting; An Indian in Japan, talks to @utterflea about Japanese versions of Hindu deities, the society's surprising lack of tech saviness, its obsession with fantastic toilets, its unacknowledged caste system, and it's surprisingly empowered women on this week's Books & Authors podcast