This Too Is India

Each encounter opened a door, or at least a window. It invited me to talk more, read more, write more, think more and go in search of more people with more knowledge. I was no longer a mere writer. Once you are part of a broad front which involves conversations with writers, translators, artists, filmmakers, theatre persons, musicians and dancers, teachers, activists, all from a place like India, how do you go back to being just a writer?

How do we unravel the complexities of India? And how do we put back together the varied pieces of its mosaic?

Through questions, debate, dialogue, conversation—conversations and more conversations with and among as many people as possible. People who write prose and poetry and drama, translate, sing, teach, act, dance, or go out into the world to change it for the better.

Twenty figures from almost as many walks of life join Githa Hariharan to talk about matters of culture, democracy and dissent as they are lived in practice. Drawing from deep wells of experience, each conversation also affirms values essential to both cultural life and democratic politics: reason and dissent, inclusion and diversity, ethical consideration and the secular imagination.

This Too Is India brings together a galaxy of languages, texts and ideas as rich and diverse as the country itself. Within these pages, individual and collective voices describe their experiences, raise questions about and critique fault lines, and imagine an India of lived diversity and ample space for dissent.