PublicTexts@IIHS | India's Yesterdays | Manu Pillai & Prem Panicker

Manu S.Pillai and Prem Panicker in conversation about The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin (Westland, 2019). Watch them discuss tales from India's countless yesterdays.
Public Texts is a series of conversations with authors about their work, based on their latest work.
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[@ramakrishnasuresh4703]

You can listen to him for hours together.

[@MariamMeha]

True

[@NK-tm6tf]

True

[@lij7886]

Never heard someone talk like this before about history.. Manu is a great writer and story teller.. Me being a non reader enjoyed every second of this ..

[@KM____]

May he keep speaking - and writing.

[@johnabram4159]

Dear Manu Pillai, please we need your books in audio format. Preferably on Audible.

[@ramakrishnasuresh4703]

Manu, since you mentioned the foot soldiers of WWI, check the book 'When the war began we heard of several kings'. It talks about the sufferings of WWI Indian and other colonial soldiers fighting for a cause that was not theirs, for a king that was not theirs and a land that was not theirs. They were incarcerated in a prison camp called 'The Half moon camp' at Zossen near a Berlin suburb. These were the men who longed for their homes and loved ones. Most of them could not cope up with the unfamiliar harsh climate and died in their thousands. The beauty of the book is that it comes with a CD comprising their laments in the form shellac recordings of their voices and songs and also charcoal sketches of their hardships in the prison camp even though they were treated well by the Germans. Few letters from them since most of them did not know how to read and write. There is also a documentary called 'The half moon camp' doing the rounds. But this is not available on youtube. This only reinforces your line that all historical personages were people like us with the same follies and foibles.

[@midhunpatel]

Interesting facts

[@anupnairp]

while he is so good in reseach, for which i admire him, sad to see that he relies more on english archives, unfortunately which was only available. seems he never cared to see the other "" vernacularar"" history which was existent in india at that time. no offense meant for a person who cared for english education model, but history will survie this guy , as it always used to be :)

[@joshilayz]

as he has said when searching for archives in kerala and other places he had to listen to "sorry the texts have got ruined (due to non maintenance)"

[@NK-tm6tf]

That’s because previous Indian generation did not keep much of these records