TOI Bookmark podcast with Gopalkrishna Gandhi
TOI Bookmark is a weekly podcast on literature and publishing. TOI is an acronym for the Times of India (TOI) which is the world’s largest newspaper and India’s No. 1 digital news platform with over 3 billion page views per month. The TOI website is one of the most visited news sites in the world with 200 million unique monthly visitors and about 1.6 billion monthly page views. TOI is the world’s largest English newspaper with a daily circulation of more than 4 million copies, across many editions, and is read daily by approximately 13.5 million readers. The podcasts are promoted across all TOI platforms. I have recorded more than 128+ sessions with Jnanpith, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Shree awardees, International Booker Prize winners, Booker Prize winners, Women’s Prize for Fiction, Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize, Stella Prize, AutHer Awards, Erasmus Prize, BAFTA etc. Sometimes the podcast interviews are carried across all editions of the print paper with a QR code embedded in it.
Some of the authors who have been interviewed are: Samantha Harvey, Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hoffman, Paul Murray, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Hisham Matar, Anita Desai, Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzro, Venki Ramakishnan, Siddhartha Deb, Elaine Feeney, Manjula Padmanabhan, NYRB Classics editor and founder Edwin Frank, Jonathan Escoffery, Joya Chatterji, Arati Kumar-Rao, Paul Lynch, Dr Kathryn Mannix, Cat Bohannon, Sebastian Barry, Shabnam Minwalla, Paul Harding, Ayobami Adebayo, Pradeep Sebastian, G N Devy, Angela Saini, Manav Kaul, Amitav Ghosh, Damodar Mauzo, Boria Majumdar, Geetanjali Mishra, William Dalrymple, and Annie Ernaux.
We have recorded umpteen episodes but recording a conversation with Gopalkrishna Gandhi is very precious. He is a highly admired and well reputed bureaucrat, diplomat, and former governor. He is also a writer. But it his lineage that is often brought to the fore. His grandfathers were Mahatma Gandhi (paternal) and the first and only Indian governor general of India, C. Rajagopalachari (maternal).
Mr Gandhi has written innumerable books but his recent publication The Undying Light is his memoir. It is published by Aleph Book Company. Given that he was born nearly three years before India gained independence from the British, he is able to provide a sweeping and fascinating account of modern Indian history. This is truly a life well spent. An aspect that really stood out for me in the memoir was the subtext of the interpretation of the Constitution of India. It is the longest written constitution in the world, but it is a living and breathing document. For a gentleman like Mr Gandhi, who has been able to engage with various aspects of it as an Indian Administrative Services officer, a diplomat when he was appointed as High Commissioner to South Africa, and later as Governor of West Bengal, The Undying Light is a valuable insight into how Indian citizens and its administrators rely upon this visionary document for our democratic rights.
Here is a snippet from the conversation:
I am glad you are emphasising the importance of the constitution and the place of the constitution in this book. I can’t but say here that the Preamble, a lyrical document, has been translated with rest of the Constitution into all the languages of India. But the Sanskrit translation of the Constitution starts with “We the People of India” as “Vayam Bharatasya Jahana” and the Urdu translation starts with “Hum Hind ki Awam”. There is an extraordinary lyrical voltage to “Vayam Bharatasya Jahana” and “Hum Hind ki Awam” which takes it even beyond the English, “We the People of India”. This book is about the people of India. Both as a collectivity and as so many individuals.
Listen to the conversation on Spotify:
Buy it from Amazon India or wherever books are sold:
7 May 2025
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