S02 E23 —The Chronicler
Journalist | Author | Marine Conservationist | Martial Artist
This is the un-edited auto-transcribed version of the episode. If you would like to listen to the episode as you read, check out the episode here —
Sudeep C 2:15
Naga, good to be here.
Naga Subramanya B B 2:18
When asked to deep about his journey, this is what he had to say.
Sudeep C 2:22
Well, that’s a it’s a tricky journey. So I wouldn’t want I don’t know if people would necessarily want to emulate my journey because it’s been a very interesting one, where to begin because I began my career as a journalist many many years ago. And as a business journalist, actually, and after studying history and university today, one factor there is a bit of a nonconformist factor, taking a business journalism with the Asian Wall Street Journal, straight after studying history as an undergraduate student. And then, several years in Indian media After working for an American newspaper with a magazine called Sunday, then I joined industry as a business editor when liberalisation began in 91, and the lead journey through the magazine to be an executive editor with the independent group, and consulting with Hindustan Times, and various other magazines and newspapers, and then one fine day, I just decided that I didn’t like media the way it was, I just went, I just told my family that
Do you mind if I check out of this life and take on a new life for a sabbatical? And we decided on moving to go where I thought that I would lead a life as an independent writer and independent researcher and tell stories that I think that Indian media was not telling often enough or not telling at all, which I hope to talk about a little later in in our conversation, and I began my life In 2004, in gore as as a researcher as a as a as an independent media person, and then I started to write books. What began as a one year sabbatical is now my life, that that’s quite
Naga Subramanya B B 4:13
the sabbatical that you are having,
Sudeep C 4:15
indeed, and I’m ready for another sabbatical. I’m now ready for a sabbatical from a sabbatical. Now I want to teach, I want to teach, at school I want to teach at universities, I want to do more marine conservation, which is a area which is which I’m very passionate about. So I mean, you call this the passionate people podcast, I think you will run out of my list of passions, Naga, Berkeley, and by the time we’re done,
Naga Subramanya B B 4:42
I can I can totally relate to that so deep so I’m extremely excited to know more about how all of this came about because I am also someone who gets bored very easily. I’m always looking for a new challenge, and I’m always looking to do something different. And I think that I think that we’re kindred spirit. Indeed,
Sudeep C 5:00
indeed, I think that’s, that’s fair to say. But it’s just not about getting bored Naga, it’s about doing something interesting and feeling engaged not just with life, but also with society feeling like you’re contributing something. For instance, when I decided to leave media at the top of my game, as the American said, people told me that I was foolish, and some other people told me that I was brave. So I think I was a bit of foolish and a bit of brave to to leave my profession when I was at the peak, you know, in a way and start afresh, but I did. So. I got because I thought there were various aspects of India that were not being addressed in general, for instance, I mean, all of us are so caught up in our lives in something that I like to call mall stupor, which, by which I mean, especially urban Indians, we’re so caught up that we are completely disconnected with the rest of the country, the country outside of cities, for instance. So I thought the There was so much of India there. And most of the conflicts that take place in India happen in that other India if you will, which we don’t pay attention to. So that is the India that I wanted to write about which I thought media were ignoring. And also publishing was ignoring. So, I started writing about the mouse rebel rebellion, I started writing about the facts about people in northeast of India, which is one seventh of our country’s landmass with 50 to 60 million people. Now, these are vast numbers, these are vast areas which we are disconnected from so I started writing about that. Then I started writing about human rights. I started writing novels, which I was very passionate about. And then me being a bit of a greedy guy, I went back to my, my early passion, which is history by writing books related to Sociology and history, writing about my people, the Bengalis. Which is a book that were published in 2017. And then, most recently, I’m delighted to say that I’ve written a book on the Battle of classic which is one of the key battles that we had in the subcontinent. One of the reasons why you and I are having this conversation is in English and not French, or Marathi is all accounted the Battle of classic, which was won by the East India Company from Great Britain. So, these are things that drive me Naga and because there are stories and need telling and the same way I thought that we are quite disconnected from what I call other India I also feel that we are increasingly disconnected from lessons of histories, because the way specially these days history is being rewritten. For a political purpose. I feel we need to be writing what I call corrective history, which is as unbiased the history as possible to peel away layers to tell the truth as we see them. Consider the blacks and whites and the gray areas. Bring our past to people in the present so that we know where we’ve come from. And we are not confused. We are not misled. We’re not misinformed. We’re not misinformed. And this, among other things is also what drives me. Absolutely. And like you mentioned, in the current context, especially, I think having an objective view of what actually happened and having that 360 degree perspective of what is the truth, and where we’re delivering the truth from is so important, not only for history, but even for the present, right, because we’re living in a world of fake news, disinformation, propaganda. So a lot of the stuff that we are consuming or people consume could be laced with propaganda sentiments, and it’s all being done to incite a particular emotion, whatever extremist sentiment that they’re trying to peddle at that particular point of time. There is one of the reasons why I do what I do is that I need to bring the disconnected India the misunderstood India or the India that is misinformed, misinformed, if you will, to bring stories to the lot drawing rooms of India to the boardrooms of India, to the classrooms of India and bring not just our past, as you said, very much a present into my storytelling. And I think I’ve been a storyteller all my life since I began as a journalist, because journalists are in a way, conveyors of other people’s stories, other people’s views, other people’s emotions, events that have happened, we offer a window to the world, if you will, or the window to other people’s worlds of from the bottom up. So from that transitioning from being hardcore journalist, if you will, where I would report I would write I would edit, and then transitioning to a writer of books. This is a great, great responsibility and I take this response, responsibility with complete passion, and to the best of my ability and after that, really, it’s up to what my Readers think of what I do or my listeners think of what I do, or my viewers think what I do. That’s what it’s all about. You have to put your passion on the line.
Naga Subramanya B B 10:08
What were those influences that shaped you, for you to be the way you are today? First question. And the second thing is, how does being a journalist work? And why did you decide to leave at the time that you did.
Sudeep C 10:20
Childhood influences I would imagine, began straightaway with my parents. They overcame the horrors if you will, of migration or displacement, because my parents have a history and what is now called what was called East Bengal and is then became East Pakistan and then became Bangladesh. So we were rooted both in the east and presently West Bengal. And they overcame the horrors of their past to ensure for me a very liberal upbringing. They did not restrict me from reading anything. They encouraged me to read. The, in fact, my birthday gifts were largely books, not things maybe not Miller to but usually 567 10, a dozen books every birthday, every every festival. So, these were great influences then I think I just carried it through school. And whatever conservatism I faced in school in day school and in boarding school, which I attended, was living by this great liberal outlet that my parents gave to me. And when I went to university, I was fortunate to encounter open minded professors who encouraged me to think and not just study books and read for memory by rote and reproduce them too. For sort of a pro forma examination process, by which I would score a bare minimum of marks of grades to get by, they would ask me to question they would ask me to take notes, do immense amounts of reading, and see the world travel, talk to people. Listen, learn to listen. Learn to see learn. To learn to feel, again, travel, travel, travel, meet people. The more you travel, the more people you meet, the more you read, the more you listen, the more you know, and the more you want to know. And I think, I mean, from that transitioning to my profession. I mean, of course, like many people, I didn’t know what I wanted to do after I graduated. But I did get a job with a bank of, in fact, with it was offered a job with what was then in the greenways bank. And my family most sort of fell apart, but I declined the job to to join the Asian was regional. I mean, I was the first journalist in the family and they didn’t know how to deal with it, but I persisted. And, to their credit, they persisted as well because they figured that if I felt strongly about something, then it was their sort of function as parents to to let me be to be there to support me.
And then a succession of interesting bosses who let you fly who let you You learn how to fly who teach you and you learn from them. And that’s how it all begins Naga, you have to give credit to your environment and the people who influenced you. Some are very negative influences, but thank heavens for the positive influences who encourage you to fly and you must fly. If you don’t, you’re grounded forever. And that’s such a tragic thing. Now, when you move from that basis of life to a profession, I found journalism enormously exciting, because it brought me I was again privileged to get a ringside view of so very many things that have happened to India, the effects of which were experiencing as we speak, for instance, the economic liberalisation, the effects of the Gulf War, which opened up compelled India’s economy to open up all the competition that follow the choices that follow the consumers and that followed the explosion in political choice that followed along with consumers choice, because we went from a congress heavy kind of politics to multiple party politics, which was an amazing thing. So you had choice not just in products, but you had choice also in politics. And I saw this as a, as a young journalists maturing in the profession. And this was an enormously a wonderful learning experience through the mid 80s, to the early 90s. Then some of the bad things that happened as well like the demolition of the Barbary Master, which which led to bloodletting to riots, a lot of agitationthrough to the reservation issues in the late 80s.
And then, and afterwards, which carried on to the 1990s. upheaval, a hope, all kinds of things and, and when I left when I decided to leave in, even though I was at the peak of a career, if you will, and I was immersed, completely immersed in journalism, to the extent that sometimes I would come home, my regular day was a 10 idea to about a 14 hour day. And I’m talking about print journalism, and not even talking about television journalism at that time. And then it was so exciting because I was in what is called convergence. So I was one of the earliest professionals in the industry, who worked print digital and elements of television for India to the group. In fact, I was an editor of India’s first digital newspaper, newspaper today.com, which is history now because it was part of the.com bubble, if you will, but it was, these were exciting times. So why did I leave? Because I felt that journalism in the early 2000s 2001 234 Finally, when I left had taken on the the shape that journalism is practice today, and I saw the disturbing trends, right then. Which is that you would kowtow to power You begin so power hungry that I saw my peers, some of my friends fall prey to that power hungriness that need to be with. politicians need to be with top businessmen and feel the need to rub shoulders with the so called high and mighty, to the extent of being so delusional, that you thought that you were actually helping to run the country, when your job was actually to inform your job was actually to uncover truths. Your job was actually to, to convey other people’s views with your own if you wish, but but do it transparently and also do it in a way that was not corrupted.
So I arrived at a crossroads if you will not go where I had to take a decision that is this a profession that I want to continue in, and as I say this advisedly I say this with full caution because journalism is practice still by some wonderful professionals, some strong professionals, men and women, young men and young women who give their lives to the profession who, who dedicate their lives to it, who are solid professionals uncorrupted, upright, and fearless and work with fortitude. These are fine people, but this is a rarity, a rare commodity in Indian media right now. So what happened with me Naga is that I’d realize it at the position I wasn’t at the level I was in. Unlike today, there was no option those days to say start a blog or to stay to say start start a digital project in the way that see a scroll is doing today or a wire is doing today. So I had to take a call and saying is this what I want to continue with or do I now try and do something independent? So I took a ethical moral call which was a bit personal And, and these are personal calls because you can’t apply them to other people and you can’t force them upon other people, they have to be applied to yourself first. And I took a call saying that it’s time for me to move on, maybe into a new way of life into a new way of writing into into a writing universe in which I would decide without fear or favor, or without kowtow into anybody. What I needed to write about, and this is the space I now inhabit.
Naga Subramanya B B 18:33
I understand the work that you’re doing began not to be so aligned with the values that you followed or your value systems, I guess. Right. And that that was one of the reasons why you wanted to make that transition.
Sudeep C 18:47
Absolutely. I mean, I couldn’t identify with the value systems that media had taken all at that point in time. I see this all with the full realization. In fact, I would encourage people to join The media, because media needs people who think fearlessly and with fortitude, who feel passionately about what they’re doing, who feel like they have a story to tell. And equally I would encourage people to take up writing. Now, neither are easy, easy vocations or easy professions. Because journalism takes a lot out of you, you have to it can be very trying. It can be very tense, because you don’t know what situation you’re going to be thrown into. Whether it is going to be a riot, whether it is you’re in a natural disaster, or whether you’ll be out in the field as we call it for three, four days a week, 10 days, two weeks in a row, like subsisting on their resources, trying to get a story out there. But that’s fine. That’s what you do. And to write books, that is probably an even more fraught vocation and profession, which needs complete passion. Now, if you want to write a book, but if you do want to write books about history, if you do want to write books about what you feel your story as a short story as a poem, as a screenplay as, as, as, as a player, as a, as a novel as a, as historical fiction as your history is I am passionate about, about politics about a biography, about somebody about a biography, not just about an individual, but about a whole community, like I’ve done for the Bengalis, and I’m happy to say that there is a now that is sort of chain of sort of a domino effect and there is a community book that is going to come on the Marathi is the Tamil the Tamils, the, you know, the, the kind of diggers you name it, the millennial is the Gujarati so on and so forth. What I’m trying to say is that it’s up to you what, what genre of writing, romantic fiction, crime thrillers, whatever you wish to pursue, it’s up to you. You have to be specific, you have to be clear in your mind. What you want to do, and whether it’s soft writing or whether it’s hard writing, you have to nevertheless be passionate, you have to sit down every day if you can, as regularly as you can focus and get that story down on paper, or, I mean using that figuratively sit and get that story down on your computer or your laptop or your tablet.
Essentially, apply yourself to what you’re doing that is absolutely crucial to any kind of writing, whether it’s media writing, or whether it’s non media writing, and I practice both and I also non media writing, I practice both fiction, as well as nonfiction. I write short stories, as well as novels. I write essays as well as what the young people call full on nonfiction in many ways, whether it’s related to conflict, the conflict resolution or a biography or autobiography, or history, everything that you do has to have absolute at application, you cannot cut corners. Your research has to be impeccable, cannot fool people, you should not try to fool people because you can get caught out. If you plagiarize, you can get caught out if your researchers study it’s work. It’s actually application. But it’s so much fun. If you are in a passion project, and you are working so hard or you know such a dedicated way with something that you’re passionate about, then you will realize that that obsession, that passion can be so much fun. And so again, I will say that I’m living a life that allows me to pursue my passion. And what a wonderful thing to be able to do that.
Naga Subramanya B B 22:40
Can you walk us through your creative process? Because I think you’re not just focusing on one particular genre or fiction or nonfiction, but it seems like you have these buffet of books that you’ve written. So how would you How would you go about, you know, maybe conceptualizing a book publishing it. So just walk us through the entire The complete nine yards of from going from having an idea for a book
Sudeep C 23:05
to actual I’ll actually go the whole 1212 yards. My I like my I like my fabric nice and long. And so the bouquet of books I have a hopefully a bouquet of books that are yet to come because right now, and it’s a good thing that you asked because I’m at this point of time in indulging in or engaging exactly what you asked because I have five firm ideas in my head fiction and nonfiction and to not quite firm ideas in my head. So I’m actually juggling right now with seven ideas which to me, I absolutely live. I’m wrapped up juggling with it. So how do I go about it? First of all, I write a synopsis, I crystallize my thoughts. And before I crystallize my thoughts, I need to do a little if I have an idea to something I’ve read or something that I’ve come across to something I read in the newspapers or A magazine, or on seen on the internet, or seen in a program a documentary, a friend has told me about it. Or it’s something that I’ve come across during research for my previous books, which is actually how three of my current future current ideas have come about from my future, I might pass research. So then research, I do more homework. So homework actually doesn’t begin. When you start writing it homework begins even before you sit and write your synopsis your proposal because the proposal is not first for the publisher, the proposal is first for yourself. You have to crystallize your thoughts. You have to be sure what you’re writing what you want to do. So you have to create that universe. You have to do your research, put it down, see how it works for you, and then you take it to a publisher. If you have already been published, it might become a little easier because you know, who to reach out to. You could pitch it to an agent. There are Quite a few that have come up in India now, or you could do the most risky thing is to write directly to publishers could even across publishers, in literature festivals, which are so many across India right now. So I would I would recommend that you attend literature festivals to learn how to listen to other writers do it methodically because it there is a method to the madness of writing, you will get a response. And then you really begin to write your book, some publishers will say, okay, you know, we really don’t know your work. But would you like to come to us when you’ve written quite a lot of the book, or you’ve written the book entirely? So it depends on where anagha you are, or one is, in a writer’s life? Are you a published writer many times over? Are you beginning with your first book? Are you beginning with the second book or like me? Are you switching genres because in that case, you’re starting a new So focus is very, very important. Your story line is very important. And it’s quite likely that this storyline is engaging and different, or you sound different or could be that you’re without sounding snobbish if you are adding to a popular genre, like romantic fiction or historical fiction, or historical nonfiction, or crime, or the so called bestsellers genres, which are Doomsday books, if you will, or this grand DiTech this grand agent, special agent who saves India and by doing some saves the universe, feel free, but you must have a focus and you see what’s happening around you and see what kind of story you want to tell and follow that particular aspect. There is no hard and fast rule.
But essentially, this is the nutshell of how a writer would approach a particular topic. homework, tugging on an idea homework Putting the idea down, honing the idea, pitching it to the publisher, and pitching, pitching, pitching till it’s bit. If you feel convinced enough about your idea, begin to write it if you think you need funding, see where you are in your place of work, do you have a day job? Can you follow this as a passion? Therefore Can you subsidize your writing with your day job? If so, then continue to write to do have a full work with you and then pitch that work to the publishers. If you think you don’t, then if you think you need to reach out for a grant or reach out for some kind of bursary from an organization, then do so as well. Try and sign up for writing workshops. Try and take these literary retreats, if you will, where you meet other writers. So do everything that you can in order to take your passion forward. And there is no one solution to this route. Because everyone is different. Everyone’s writing is different. Everyone has different ideas. So everyone who has to follow it in as diversity you possibly can there’s no one single route and persistence and passion is the bottom line for writing. There is absolutely no escape from that.
Naga Subramanya B B 28:11
Right. And I guess the same can be said about any any projects that you take up, right, because you mentioned being methodical. You mentioned being persistent. You mentioned making sure that you don’t cut corners. You don’t plagiarize anyone. And I guess, for any creative project that you take that one can be less but the thing is that
Sudeep C 28:29
you also have to make it fun Naga, because while I can be like this, it’s not like that I’m shutting down the rest of my life. So I like my writerly pretensions. I love going to literature festivals. I love interacting with audiences. I love I mean, I’m hoping that to our conversation I can read reach out to more people. I love being featured as a writer. I love my little glass of red wine, pretending to be a writer wearing a tweed jacket and switch and switch shoes and hobnobbing with the writers of India and writers of the world. It’s a lovely, lovely fantasy which has come true. So you know, you must live the life of a writer if you can, as well. You must enjoy yourself, be out there. And even as you do so, you must follow your other passions, because you must have a distraction. For me. It’s martial arts and scuba diving. I’m passionate about marine conservation. I’m passionate about scuba diving. So when I in fact, I’m going scuba diving at the end of this week to take a break so that I can come back and hold my ideas to present it to publishers by the beginning of next week. I do marine conservation, with fellow scuba divers. We do cleanups underwater. We do so many things. Every now and then I go to my dojo and beat the hell out of the punching bag. Get relieved, deep, deep breathing, come back and rights maybe a lovely asset. So You have to live life as well.
Naga Subramanya B B 30:03
Can you just elaborate a little bit about the non creative things that you do that help hone your creative pursuit you you just mentioned about your martial arts and and scuba diving, can this elaborate a little bit more on, you know, how you interleaved that with your writing process or your creative process needs a hobby right?
Sudeep C 30:20
Now for me writing became it transformed from a hobby to a profession, to something that I make a living from and something that I enjoy doing very much. And once this has become my life, I then need a distraction. I need ways to sort of generate calm if you will. And for me martial arts and diving and hiking or trekking, I mean, I love the outdoors, walking for hours on end going to the hills going to the sea, going to my dojo, these generate areas of focus times of absolute focus, total concentration, or complete distraction because when you when you do these things you You’re in a zone, you’re in a zone completely for half an hour, one hour and an hour and a half, two hours, and you’re within yourself. And you get reflective you you’re immersed in this sort of focus, if you will. And when you come out of it, it’s an amazing thing because your your mind is refreshed Your mind is your body is pumped up, calm, you’re focused, and then you just carry on so then it seems worthwhile to set yourself up in a room for days on end. Seven hours a day, eight hours a day, waking up at four, writing away, taking a break, doing not being able to meet people, for days on end your friends thinking that you become a prima donna, without realizing that you’re actually writing by hand these little areas to put yourself in touch with your own inner instincts with and your places of calm. You need focus and then the juices flow. If Well, I think writing needs a certain frenzy. I mean, you’re in a bit of a frenzy when you write. So I think it’s very important to come from a place of calm in order to be able to cope with the frenzy. Otherwise, you burn out, you are not able to handle it maybe. So you need these. Again, and again, like I said, this unit calm, you need focus in order to be frenzied with your writing, while you write because, again, it’s a passion project. So you need to stick with it. You can’t say I’m going to write one hour a day. Sometimes if you want to write, you can feel like you’ve got it in you, and you have to get it out there. Then for heaven’s sake, you right from 11 to three in the morning, if that is what you must do, and get a whacking from your boss The next morning, suffer it for a day, carry on, shut up and put up because this is what you like to do. So this is how it works. I mean, there is no, there’s no grid is actually writing is pretty much off the grid in many, many ways.
Right, I can totally relate to that. And, and I love the analogy that you mentioned that you need, you need some calm to get your get away from all of the, you know, the chaos and so that that comes back and that helps you go be creatively fulfilled and that you can get back to what you’re doing. I also love the part where you mentioned that writing was your passion. But now that you’re doing it full time, you need another distraction. And I guess that’s the cycle that’s always continuing. That’s fantastic. Do you just want to talk about why history is something that really moves you and what specifically about classy was something that inspired you to write a complete book around it but I’ll tell you my relationship with history and think it’s something that evolved over the last couple of years throughout school and my earlier years history Was this something that I had learned to dread right because I’m like, Who are these guys? Why the hell should I know about these people but at the end of the use all of these characters in your country’s past or the world’s past as people Between you and getting full marks in social sciences, or whatever it is, as as I’ve grown up. And as I’ve matured, I’ve understood that history is a way of looking at the past. Because understanding the past also helps you forecast the future or figure out what is going to happen in the future. And the second reason that history is important is because you have a sense of perspective, you have a sense of personality, you have a sense of who you are and where you’re coming from. And I believe that that is something that you really need to be in tune with. Because, like you said, you can be completely out of tune of what’s happening in the world and be focused on your city life, but that’s not really having like a full view of things. So I believe that understanding and learning about history, and especially Indian history, because it’s so rich, and so diverse, and it’s so vast, that you know, it really helps you understand why, why Indians are why we are the way we are. And that’s how my understanding of history is.
That’s very well put because I think a lot of us evolving. A similar way, when we realize it, once we leave this leave aside, the sort of peer pressure between who’s got sort of 80 or 100, or 65 100, or 9100. judge yourself as being historically inclined on the basis of that. And if you get low marks, you’re bored with history, and you say, Who the hell cares about Ashoka? Or who the hell cares about orange chip? Or who the hell cares about the Battle of classic?
Sudeep C 35:31
Let me give you the example of last year. One key reason is, again, in the beginning of our conversation, I mentioned the thing but we’re having this conversation in English. We could have been having this conversation in French, because the Battle of glasses that people don’t realize was the battle that, you know, we set off the domino that has brought us modern India, and made us in many ways who we are today. I’ll explain very, very quickly when the incident occurred. The British East India Company was competing with the French piece in this company in Bangalore and also in southern India. In alternative, these were the two main European powers that were battling in Europe, North America, in the Caribbean, and also in South Asia. They were already here for trading. And these were your early mercantile militarists, if you will, who were waging war as a way of doing business. Think about that. So when they were competing in Central, which was the richest province of even the crumbling Mughal Empire, and it’s been the richest province for many empires preceding them, from the Sultanate onwards in the Mughal Empire and so on and so forth. They were fighting for control of trade and influence and through that and controlling politics, so they could in turn control the commercial aspects. And when the British East India Company, a piece out. The French is in this company and demolished there is no bangle and moved north to take on the Nawab of Bengal, this young Gen called Sarah dollar. And when they did that they just didn’t they just didn’t beat the Nevada they also in the process beat their competitors in South Asia, the French and from den took over the revenue administration of bangle the diwani of Bengal, then moved west to avoid took over our then moved further west to Delhi beating the Mirage has by 18 03 and then controlling the later Mughal Empire and then you have 1857 the mutiny or the War of Independence depending on how you want to project it, and then they bring in this permanent settlement. They bring in other sort of the colonial value systems. they implement an administration in to run an empire impose English imposing orientalist hub in Calcutta,
Sudeep C 38:00
In Fort William, which is how the division first orientalist hub in the world and then we came to be brought up in the sort of Indic slash British manner, the sort of your classic brown side across India and then you have the birth of internationalism through ironically the kind of educational system that the British introduced and then you have the birth of modern Indian thinking political thought, emancipation emancipatory thought struggle to free ourselves from the British and then 1947 adopting the British system into independent India and so on and so on and so forth. And here we are Naga, you and I are speaking in English. As I said we could have been speaking in French, we could have been speaking in Marathi because the Murat has been so rapid, but classy. Let us a chain of events which brings us to the present day. Imagine that now when you take this one battle and look at it you With a lens of what it signifies, and what, what, what led to the battle and what led from the battle, then this one battle over one day over a few hours, takes on a whole different significance altogether. And there’s so many myths around blessing, you know, the India lost its independence, or Clive was the grand Robert Clive was his grand person said Roger dolla was a martyr. Yes, no, maybe both are somewhat true and both us completely untrue. So we must peel away the layers of mythology that we create, we must peel away the last of you know, history that we create for our own political conveniences because we you know, it suits us and then delve deeper peel away the onions of the peel away the onion of history, if you will peel away the layers and then come to what you can constitute as the the inner core of where it all began and understand history. Understand truth for what it was and what it is, rather than being taken for a ride by people who presume to tell you what your history really was, which is a falsehood. So you must find the truth in which is bioplastic which is why many fine works of history that have been written today, which I call corrective history, and I’m damned happy that it’s happening because it’s damn it’s about bloody time that it happened Naga
Naga Subramanya B B 40:26
I hear you any any particular reason that you know I’ve explained to you how I look at history right but I’d be curious to know any any closing thoughts you might have around? What what why you feel so strongly about history? Apart from the fact that you know collective history is coming on and it’s important for people to know the truth is there any and any other thoughts that you have?
Sudeep C 40:51
And your listeners and your and your followers something and you yourself and even for me in reflection, something that is happening in the Present day. Let’s talk about how what happened in Delhi over the sheinberg protests and the CA and DC and icy protests incidents in Jamia millia in sheinberg. You name it across the country Carola in Bombay, Calcutta Lucknow, incidents of violence in Uttar Pradesh Naga, these were happening live on live television, right. And it was already being distorted within minutes. It was being distorted within the half hour within an hour within the day within the prime time webcast or newscast in the evening. Now imagine if you can distort history that is happening in front of you and people are battling to combat that distortion and misinformation and disinformation. Imagine what you can do with things that happened 100 200 500 or 1000 years ago, imagine how easy it is to distort something that is even that far in the past or distorting how the Indian constitution came about dismissing br Ambedkar. Or the fashionable thing is now to distort the relationship between Jamal and everyone by law by Patel. And creating a fiction out of the attention, so on and so forth. Imagine if history can be distorted as it happens today, as we speak as we see as we here. Imagine, what what history can how history can be distorted and misrepresented for political purposes. When you move further back, which is why I think corrective history, real history are as real history as possible. Or if I may put it, sticking my neck out here as honest history as possible. It’s so crucial Naga for all of us, especially the Indian subcontinent, which is so diverse, in some ways fractured and so very hopeful. We deserve real history. We deserve the truth.
Naga Subramanya B B 42:59
Absolutely. I think that’s really, really well put. If the President can be distorted, then you know what, what can be done for the future of now all To be honest, I’ve never really thought about it that way. But this is a really interesting perspective to have. So, Sudeep as we as we conclude, and I just want to close with, your feelings on how it feels to be on the passionate people podcast?
Sudeep C 43:22
It is the first time been on I have actually been on a podcast before but how does it feel to be on a passionate people podcast? I, I think I’ve been pretty passionate Naga, for the last 45 minutes. Maybe I’ve given free rein to my passion, and maybe I’ve rambled a bit. But you see, this is what it’s all about you. I mean, you have to be passionate otherwise it’s just not worth it. So I’m delighted to be on the passion people podcast and thank you very much for thinking of me and giving me the opportunity to speak to you share my thoughts and hopefully share my thoughts with your listeners and more power to all of us.
Naga Subramanya B B 44:01
Fantastic. Thanks, Sudeep, thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Get in touch here :-
Sudeep C —
Twitter — https://twitter.com/chakraview (@chakraview )
Read more of Sudeep’s work —
Columns at Mint:
Buy Plassey on Amazon
Buy The Bengalis on Amazon and Sudeep Chakravarti books on Amazon
Podcast Curator — Naga Subramanya
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/naaga
Twitter — @n1n3stuff
Podcast Information:-
Interview by: Naga Subramanya B B
Recorded on: AudioTechnica ATR 2100
Produced on: Hindenburg Journalist PRO for Windows 10
Jingle Credits: Shankar from Writer and Geek, Edited by Naga Subramanya
Recorded online: Zencastr
Photo and Logo Edited on: Canva
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