5.37 Anirudh Kanisetti: Unearthing the Untapped History of South India

Does history give you goosebumps? Specifically, history that explores the minds of kings and uncovers hidden stories of little-known queens?

In this episode, Tara and Michelle venture into the ancient palaces of South India as they converse with Anirudh Kanisetti, author of “Lords of the Deccan: Southern Indian from the Chalukyas to the Cholas”. They discuss how a majority of Deccan history got left out and why it mattered enough to make him dive into translations of literature and inscriptions from 600-1100 CE, how he made friends through memes, and why making history accessible was important to him. 

Tune in to hear Anirudh Kanisetti talk about his fascination for Deccan history, and examine the politics of the Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Cholas up close! 

Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome back to Books and Beyond. So today we are very happy to explore the Declan Allesandro region of India, and an era spanning 500 years with none other than Anil ganas MP, whose debut work, Lord of the decades has won the Senate, the academy, Yuba postcard Award, and the Tartelette live Book of the Year award. And it's also being adapted into a Sunni live web series. So I'm very excited. Because I'm a history buff, and I love exploring lesser known periods of history. Yes,

Michelle D'costa  00:44

and I think all these accolades that you mentioned, are, they're very well deserved, because I haven't come across a book like this, which covers the history of South India, especially. And because I was outdated. I've always been curious about the history, and I didn't see it anywhere, you know. So we actually get to witness battles with the Chalukyas Rashtrakuta, strollers, you know, from the sixth century, to the 12th century in all its splendor. Right? It's, you know, this world where there are elephants were being used for warfare, there's this, you know, rise and fall of the great cities, and even how, you know, just basic everyday rituals of the kings, right? What do they do like all of the strategy decisions that they take to sort of, you know, be the most powerful king in that era, right. So actually added to it breathes life into these forgotten figures, you know, what not been covered in our stories of kings and queens before, and his attempt to rewrite history of, you know, actual, everyday people.

Tara Khandelwal  01:39

Yeah, so the book covers, you know, politics, conflicts, losses. And one of the most interesting things is that these dynasties, and this period of time hasn't been covered much before. But it's actually made India what it is today, right from the way that we look at, you know, the architecture, to language, to religion, to temples. And so that's what we're going to explore today with the author, himself. And this is medieval South India come to life. So So let's, let's not waste any more time. Let's go back in time. And let's enter the Deccan era with annuals welcome and yield. Welcome.

Anirudh Kanisetti  02:17

Thank you both so much for having me. And thank you for that wonderful, wonderful introduction. It's the strangest thing that I always feel as an author I don't think I'll ever get used to it is to hear people talking about my own work. And to and to, and to really see that they are beginning to see the world through my own eyes. Because writing, writing a book is such a personal process. And it I think it brings out so much of who you are, and so much of the way that you see the world around you. And when Michelle said that, that was authentic, she's always been curious about her own history. That's really why I wrote the book, as a South Indian, who wanted to not just learn about my own past, but also really talk about it. So it just feels so gratifying to hear both of you talk about to know that you both have done it. And thank you so much for taking the time and for inviting me to this podcast.

Michelle D'costa  03:08

Thank you. It's a pleasure. And you know, like, you know, when we discuss South India, you know, obviously, like even when we say North India, South India, all of that, it's still quite a very stereotypical image in our head, right? Because something is rich, it has so many places right to cover, and you have not only covered the different places, but in fact, you have covered history, which spans over 500 years, right. And so the book is actually divided into three parts. And I find that very interesting, because in the first part, you get to witness the Chalukyas, or journey, right, you know, because they went to war with the north with the south with the East West, you know, and in fact, they've even established the most oldest surviving temples that we have in the subcontinent, right, then the second one actually covers the vulnerable influence of the Tekken. Right. And they are known as the Rashtrakuta, as you know, and they actually vouched for Canada, which is very interesting, you know, because their courts actually posed a very serious threat to literary Sanskrit, which was actually the most dominant language back then. And the third part actually talks to us about the two laws, you know, like how they came to power when the Chalukyas and the Rashtrakuta, sort of, you know, didn't make it right. So I want to know, out of all the, you know, all the reigning powers in South India, why did you pick these three dynasties to explore the history of Saudi Arabia?

Anirudh Kanisetti  04:26

I think that in general, I, you said, Michelle, we don't really understand the scale of South India and how large it actually is. And I think there's a general tendency, and I think I can say with some confidence, because I'm in Delhi, because it tends to tendency to conflate at least on the north Indian Point of View to conflate South India, specifically with Tamil Nadu and Tamil Nadu specifically with Chennai, about the reality is that South India is larger. It's about the size of Western Europe. It's a it's an enormous place. Careless coastline is almost the length of Portugal's and it goes without saying that All these regions have had tremendous direct histories. And surely as a result of that, as a result of their scale, they have influenced not just each other, but also the overall trajectory of India's history. And when I was thinking about what kind of book I wanted to write, it was very clear to me that I wanted to write a history that was connected to my own, something that was something that wasn't generally known about wasn't d&d written about. But beyond all these grand ambitions and principles, the most fundamental reason why it happened was an accidental question asked at a bookstore. Soon after I moved to Bangalore in 2017, I walked into bookworm bookstore, wonderful place on Church Street, and asked them if they had any books about the history of Karnataka in English, and they did not. And I was flabbergasted that such a well regarded bookstore. And it's not that it's not that they weren't interested in Canada history or didn't want to write about Canada, because it's just that nobody in the English language world was actually exploring this period and writing about it with the kind of critical attention and nuance that it deserved. And very soon after that, I happened to get talking with Monica Lai, who at the time was working on his rebels of dance, and I think really, with that opened the gateway and really proved that there is a demand for well written, well researched software and histories. And so that's really where the whole project of, of the book began. I wasn't necessarily sure I wanted to write about these particular dynasties. But then as I began to, like, really learn about them and really understand the remarkable things that they did, it became clearer and clearer to me that they had to be front and center in the book. And I must say, though, as far as the last third is concerned, yes, it is, to an extent about the Cholas. But it is a Deccan perspective on the Cholas. Because I think once again, the tools are reduced to a very particular set of achievements that they had that kind of suit, I think our need for a particular kind of national pride today. So one very often talks about the tool expeditions to Southeast Asia. But what they were doing within the subcontinent itself, and especially within the decade is just generally not very well understood. And it also brings out I think, a very different aspect to the Cholas because it encourages just encourages us to think about Chola militarism and more broadly what medieval militarism because there is a tendency to see medieval kings as these extraordinary romantic heroes, which I can understand where that perspective comes from. But I think that as a democracy today, we should be less than autocrats and autocrats, who were certainly charismatic, who had an eye for very refined aesthetic language of power to be certain. But still, at the end of the day, men who believed they had absolute power over human lives. And as a result of that committed horrific atrocities, which would if they were alive today, earn them criticism from all and sundry. But just because they happen to be medieval kings, they tend to be seen rather as nationalist figureheads. And what I want to really do through the book was to complicate this picture and to enter and to and to ask questions about power, not just in the present day. Because we once again see this kind of resurgence of, of politicians who priests who present themselves as manly men who deserve military and autocratic power, but also to really question the way that we think about the past and the way we think about power in the past and the way that power emerges with the Jolokia as the way it matures under the Rashtrakuta as the way that it eventually turns upon itself and collapse under its own contradictions under the Western the later Western challenge as the Kalyana Jolokia, so that really was the way that I that I thought about the book and and the ideas that I wanted to explore through.

Tara Khandelwal  09:20

Yeah, what I really liked about the book is that, you know, it's a history of religion, it's in history of art, architecture, its history of everyday people, and the characters really come alive. And it's, it's quite a big feat that you've covered all of this sort of, you know, in one book, but what I want to ask is, you know, if you mentioned that there's something wrong with our history lessons, and I think as you know, millennials, this is something that Michelle and I discuss all the time, right. For example, we never taught anything that happens after the independence. There's was stretches of time that we're not focused on right, we will only talk about sort of moguls and then the In independence woman, and that took from a certain point of view. And nowadayslot more books that are coming out like EDA McCarthy's Daughters of the sun that are exploring facets that we may not have otherwise been exposed to so why do you think that our history lessons have been skewed? So much? And how do you how is your book can address that and correct that.

Anirudh Kanisetti  10:26

So I think that, fundamentally the way that we think about history as a school subject needs to be reassessed. I think there has been a tendency to see history as a tool to inculcate or national spirit to inculcate a national identity. But I think that's a very reductive way of seeing the past because I think that to reduce the lives of millions and millions of people across 1000s of years, to what lessons can I teach school kids about this thing who lived in this year and Bill tree planted mango trees on this highway is ridiculously reductive. History does not exist to confirm our biases, it exists to challenge them. Just as the world that we live in Rick is constantly frustrating and chaotic, and has so much going on the constantly makes us reappraise the way that we see things and complicates the way that we understand things. That's what history is also meant to do. I think the purpose of history is not to say that India has always been a single country, but rather to show that the emergence of the modern Indian nation state was an extraordinary historical process that involves the interactions both violent and peaceful between so many regions, both within and outside the present day boundaries of India. And that together through a number of very complex factors, and through all kinds of glories and tragedies, led to this extraordinary nation state that we live in today. And I think to to really think about an approach history, from that point of view, that looks at his history's imperfections that encourage us to think long term about how societies change how politics is change how power represents itself, and what power can cause when it's not restricted, I think will make us not just more historically aware, but also make us better citizens, by helping us understand the way that India has become the way it has come to be. And also the dangers and pitfalls of particular ways of thinking, not just about the past, but also what the present. So as much as I believe that representation is important. And I think that we should really move the curriculum into into a more varied understanding of our past that isn't necessarily confined to particularly Imperial centers, I think it's also very important to understand that this task of representation must not be a political project to achieve a particular kind of goal beyond simply creating better informed or more critically thinking citizens. I think that this applies not just to history, but also more generally, to the way that we think about education in India, is that it's seen as education is seen as essentially steps that you take to get a particular kind of certification to get you a job. But education is is meant to be much more than that education is meant not to create workers for it parks, but rather to create intelligent, empathetic, well informed young people. And I think approaching history from that perspective, is much more respectful, not just to the past, but also to the present and the future.

Michelle D'costa  13:53

Yeah, absolutely. I think like you said, you know, it's education is looked at as a means to an end. Whereas the funniest part is most of the stuff that I studied in math, I don't use it today. Right. So it's, it's funny, because what, what seems to be you know, like, a part of our curriculum is also like, okay, like, you know, that sort of ambition that we will use it in later life, but we often don't end up so yes, I do feel that we need to rethink the kind of, you know, lessons that we sort of learn. And you also mentioned that it's so problematic, especially our history as we are so problematic, that it's almost like ignoring the history of France or Germany, when you're telling the history of Europe, like Can Can someone even imagine that? Right? No, but yet in India, we have a very skewed view. Anyway. So you know, I mean, see the book is right here with me, you know, for everyone who can say it's quite a thick book, it's a lot. I mean, yes, I can understand because you're covering, you know, 500 years over here, but because you want to provide a nuanced view, right. And it was, I was very curious as to why did you decide to sort of condense this entire period in one book, and in fact, why not have it like a series maybe you know, one book on the child of chaos, the other one on Rashtrakuta as others on Last week, how were you able to sort of provide provide the nuances that you had in in one narrative?

Anirudh Kanisetti  15:08

Well, to be perfectly frank, I wasn't sure if people who read a second book, so I thought of myself as much as I could into the first one. But also more generally, because, as you said, Michelle Yeoh, it's looking, it's like ignoring 500 years of Germany's history, which is like a, it's an enormous chunk of the past where so many important things happen, as willy nilly discarded or see or seen as irrelevant, to particular to a particular kind of historical education. And it's a it's a, it's a enormous gap that leads to so many misconceptions of India's past like, I remember when when talking to a few folks about the basic idea for the book, a lot of people are taken aback that most of India's temples were built from 600 to 1100, which is actually fairly recent, we were very often we labor under the misconception that religion is some kind of unchanging, eternal thing in India rather than something that is innovative, and that constantly responds to society responds to politics, and that these temples that we see are not just these, these these kind of religious sites that have existed from time immemorial, but but areas that have been transformed through deliberate human action. That's just one example of it, of course. But the broader point that I'm trying to make is that, given that this period could help clarify so many misconceptions, given there could slot itself into what I think is a very significant very major gap and understanding of the past. I knew that I would not be able to do justice to these remarkable dynasties, you would have had to write an entire book for each of them that there is a simply so much that goes on in the in these periods that it is not possible to condense it all, even to three separate books. Given that it was always going to be in some into some extent of contents narrative, I figured, why not try and cover the entire period fit in that jigsaw puzzle, show people that this exists, and then dive into in more detail. So in my second book, for example, I want to provide a new perspective on the trollers that isn't just because and I have received a fair bit of critique because a lot of people are very surprised the trollers did fairly horrifying things that is claimed to have done very horrifying things in the decades. And I want to explain from a Chola perspective, why all those things were seen to be necessary. And not just more troller perspective, also railing from a societal perspective, what was going on below the Kings, what is going on within the temples, who are the people who are designing and sculpting the spectacular bronzes that are the greatest legacy of medieval Tamil art. So the idea really, I think, I think I have got the general idea across but just to give you a TLDR it is that I thought that the entire period was something that people deserve to know about. And that it also allowed me to make the case that people should have a curiosity about this entire area, this entire chunk of our past. Yeah,

Tara Khandelwal  18:23

I think just what you said, you know, about people not knowing when these temples were built, a lot of the things that were happening in the period that you described, have impact on us today, culturally, and we are just completely unaware, right? I mean, we share your South Korea video completely unaware that the art that you're seeing, or maybe the temples you're visiting, or even the language, the evolution of the language, or even how, you know, we practice religion, you know, the building of the temples. And you mentioned in the book that Hinduism was not always sort of, you know, as idol worship, and people do not always congregate around temples. So even the things that we are doing currently, today, they have their roots, you know, and it's a multi layered paths, and they have the roots. And some of those roots are in those 500 years. And that is I agree in that way that that is a missing piece of the puzzle that teaches us more about how you know, people used to live back then, but also how we are living today and where our culture comes from today. I think that was that was very interesting part of the book for me. And another thing that I really liked in the book is the characters, you know, because you can't I mean people and that that's the first thing we really need to write and the stories about, and I really liked that you didn't want to give this one dimensional view where you know, you have characters good or evil or is very good drivers plays a certain part in a historical narrative, but you wanted to give sort of a multi dimensional view of them, how they live their social norms, the cultural context of the time that may have prompted them to behave in this way that they were doing, the rituals that you know, they had, and even Things like backstabbing. And you have these universal plot themes that come across where, you know, the there's a child and there's a vassal. And there's manipulative forces, and all of these universal themes also coming in. So I was wondering, you know, what, what is your favorite character? historical figure in the book? And could you maybe relate an anecdote? For what for our listeners.

Anirudh Kanisetti  20:26

Um, it was difficult to pick a single one, honestly. A lot of people told me the real like Donkey burger after quarter, because, once again, he can't, he seems to come from this, like really messed up family background, and to a considerable extent, a lot of his career seems to be spent and kind of overcoming the ghosts of the past. And then, at the moment of his ultimate triumph, he just dies. It's just, it's just such a it's such a marvelous example of how history isn't this linear process and is always random and shocking things that happen. But honestly, my personal favorite is so much for a Chalukya who is the primary character of the eighth and ninth chapters and also appears in the time because he had a policy he must have been a very traumatized person. He spends almost his entire life in merciless warfare that continues to become more and more brutal. He starts off as a prince, his father's almost assassinated and killed in multiple battles. And then when he comes to the throne, his family life is no better because he spent his entire career trying to keep the tools at bay and actually succeeds to a considerable extent. But in the process of doing that, in the process of trying to keep his grip on power, he commits horrible, horrifying atrocities. He attacks the great city of the horror, which is a great center of learning. he betrays his own allies on multiple occasions where he finds it convenient. And eventually, it all seems to come full circle for him. And as you know, when his protege and his son eventually go to the Tula side, and he commit suicide, he commits a ritual suicide at the end of like, it just seems like such an unspeakably tragic and dark life. And he so often overshadowed by his Chola contemporaries, but, I mean, it can't have been easy to constantly I mean, can you imagine the determination of a person like that? Can you imagine what kind of grim character the the kind of sheer grit and willpower it needs to constantly be defeated like that, to see crowds of refugees to see to see your city is burned, to have to betray those who you nurtured for decades. And then finally, to have it all come back to you. It's just I mean, what a person I, I really hope that the TV series someday gets around to do it due to addressing him. But yeah, let's see. I just find him so interesting.

Tara Khandelwal  23:18

I feel like we have so many potential Game of Thrones series and we don't need to be watching. Yeah, we just need to sort of make those happen. But yeah, Michelle, what was your what is your favorite character?

Michelle D'costa  23:32

Oh, okay. So, in fact, you know, I really liked analyzing the different kinds of personalities that these Emperor's have, because, you know, it's almost like this game of masculinity, right? Like, who's gonna kill more people than the other? So, you know, I've even given them titles. So there's one who's Vikram Aditya one, you know, from the channel kills dynasty. I've named him the king killer, because he apparently killed a lot of things. And then we also have, you know, the Roger the Roger, from the Chola dynasty, I call him the Decapitator because he actually decapitates you know, working for the crown, you know, in his head and all of that, but my favorite I would say, I think would be a mocha, Varsha Rashtrakuta, because he was a bit different and and he mostly used his intellect to sort of spread the word about the nuances of language of trade. In fact, the Arab visitors who, who visited him then even named him one of the four great kings of the world. And you know, what he did was he actually made Canada sort of more prominent, right, he actually established over Canada grammar in his court. And and there is a strip called the curvy Raja Montcalm, which was, in fact, the first text which establish a relationship between Sanskrit and Canada, which I found really fascinating. I mean, I wouldn't imagine an emperor would would sort of think of language or culture in sort of this way. So I think that's my favorite. But what about you, Tara?

Tara Khandelwal  24:56

Yeah, I think that you know, the king I forgot the name of the key And who basically was not, like didn't didn't want to use physical power, but he wanted to sort of use his diplomacy. And I find that very interesting because, I mean, there was so much violence in the books in the book. I mean, that was the reality of the time, right. And this one character was so refreshing because he sort of wanted to be sort of, you know, using modern diplomacy and going against that violent narrative. So I think that that one was I think that one of the refreshing for me yeah,

Anirudh Kanisetti  25:32

it's so it's so interesting to see both of your perspectives and I think we should really onto something materials that it's so unexpected to see like a medieval Emperor time that's that's profoundly violent, at least saying, oh, let's think about like grammar and language. And that's what I find so interesting about about these individuals is that it actually is impossible to fit them into a single bracket, they aren't monsters, villains do they do commit atrocities, and they aren't glorious heroes, even they do they do remarkable things that are simultaneously people of extraordinary culture, it's just the kind of education they receive and the way that the way they're deeply inculcated into philosophy into linguistics into literally analysis, that sort of thing and, and really understand how to use that for power. But at the same time, are also your typical manly men who like you knew or know it or more things, and this guy didn't like, I'm the man Yes, I burned most cities, I kill more people. It's it's a, I think it encapsulates very well, the contradictions of power and the contradictions of wealth and privilege. Because it I think it is a eternal rule throughout human history that very often, even though we see violence and atrocities is something that the less well we tend to do it is really, the vast majority of wars without question, are always committed by those who are the wealthiest and ostensibly the most educated, because those are also the folks who know best, how to disguise power and how to legitimize conflict and also to profit from which is, which is, which is a much more dark and scintillating understanding of power than I think the one that we've become accustomed to. And

Tara Khandelwal  27:24

I think this power struggle, you know, that we see that we saw in your book with the rise of certain dynasties and getting more territory. I mean, this is something that we've seen across, you know, these are universal themes, even though the particular cultural context and the globe languages, and all of those are very specific. But these themes are so so universal, where, you know, it is sort of like, you know, powerful men want to gain more control and that struggle, you know, and then ego battle, I think, is something that has always been there and still continues till today

Tara Khandelwal  29:00

So one thing that I really loved about the book, because I'm very interested in how religion evolution of religion, and it's not just one static thing, it there's so many factors that come into play. And what I really liked is that the book not only reads like the history of the decade, but also sort of reads like the history of religion in the decade, and the way that religion has evolved over the years. And it was a period where religion was evolving a lot with you know, Buddhism, which had a big influence in Andhra Pradesh, where you have the, you know, Bhakti devotion to Shiva, that cult sort of coming into place, and it's very interesting because the Emperor's tried to use religion to manipulate the crowd of the way they wanted. And, you know, one of the stories that I really liked is the way that the child leukemias. They come from a humble background, but they made a myth about their origin story, to legit My vision had to establish themselves as you know, the coming from the Divine, and then how they align themselves with this growing bhakti devotion to Shiva, to then, you know, manipulate people and then even, you know, the building of temples because earlier Hinduism, you know, it was not so, so much about idol worship, but the billing of temples for people to congregate, and then use that congregation to propagate your message. I thought that was really fascinating. So could you tell us, you know, I think you're the better person to explain this to our listeners, how did these emperors sort of manipulate religion to establish more power for themselves in that period?

Anirudh Kanisetti  30:40

So one of the most remarkable things I think about about the way that we see things even today is that very often they have the title Daiva in their names, and yet, it never occurs to us that that is meant to establish a link with the gods themselves.

And yet somehow, this idea, this, this question of, Why does Why do they call themselves Devi? And they are, where does it Where does it come from? It doesn't really seem to pop into our minds. But the answer is, I think, as you as you put it, quite elegant, Plato, right lies in the urge of medieval Royals, to link themselves to the gods, and to therefore present themselves as the companions of the Divine. And I wasn't able to actually get into this in in that much detail in my first book, but hopefully, I will be able to do it in a second. The way that Empress presented their actions, and this is not just in temples, but also if you look at their land grants, if you look at the way they write, the Sanskrit profess, these are eulogies, they really try to divine eyes themselves, the way they talk about destroying enemies city effortlessly, is very reminiscent of the myths of Shiva stripper on taka. And the way they will talk about, you know, their their their conquests of women in love, and so on, once again, links them to the way that they saw their divine figures. So it is not just all the way all the way and I'd like to put it as that temples, and or really religion specifically, in our world, we do have at least some conception that there is a separate secular life. And then there is religious life. That was not the case in the medieval period. To them, religion was a fundamental aspect of the way they saw the world and reality itself. So just as we understand science and manipulate the rules.

By performing particular kinds of rituals, they do manage to actually change the nature of reality. So that's why I spent a considerable amount of time in the first chapter talking about the ashram era sacrifice. In the fifth chapter, I talk about the Hiranyagarbha, where Dr. Berger, Rashtrakuta immerses himself and emerges from a golden egg symbolizing his his cosmic rebirth. And of course, to us, I mean, or at least to me, it's a bit silly to think of a grown man crouching inside a little ball and coming out and claiming to suddenly have a cosmic body. But in reality, given that we don't know how to answer Yoga, you haven't left to his left behind a journal or a diary. So to understand how he saw this, whether he was cynically manipulating this ritual, because he knew that's what people wanted, or whether he genuinely believed that in the metaphysics that he was educated with that this would actually lead to a particular kind of outcome. And that's another reason why kings go out of their way to build these extraordinary temples and just plow so much resources into building the biggest and the grandest temples because they did see it as a path they were making with the gods who in a way, are, if not their equals, then at least they saw themselves as agents of the Divine, who are destined to establish cosmic order, defined, of course, through the subjugation of women to the subjugation of enemies, through the establishment of particular ways of seeing society. But also, in a sense, we know by actually looking at medieval texts, especially the Shriver algumas There was a very clear sense that if you build a temple to Shiva as let's say, if you were to look at Raja Raja Chola, who builds a temple of Shiva as Raja Raja Ashura, the scale of the temple that he was building is described in the Shiva in the Shiva algumas. As granting the bone of allowing the donor, the man who constructs that temple, to then, you know, upon his death, to then live forever as not as the Shiva but as a being akin to Shiva. So these men also saw themselves, essentially, as gods, of course, they could bleed, of course, they could feel, of course, all those things could happen to them, but through the kinds of rituals that they are performing through giving the kinds of gifts that they gave, they saw it essentially as a way to establish themselves as divine agents. And then eventually, as I don't want to use the term gods, or at least as akin to Gods in a particular way. And I don't want to pass a judgement and say that this was because they were egotistical or megalomaniacal to some of them may very well have been, we know very well the nature of power and What power does to people. But it may genuinely also have been the way that they saw their place in the world. I mean, if you look at the super rich of today, they have some very, very strange ideas about what the world owes them, and what their place is in the world, and how they should be memorialized after death. And, of course, old medieval people, I think it's very important to remember that these these people aren't necessarily more gullible or more or more stupid than we are. Nor are they more cynical or more egotistical than we are. If you were to go back into the medieval world, you'd see people who looked exactly like you. And I felt the same kinds of emotions, but just experience the world in different ways. Because the culture within which the world was no less all encompassing than ours. It, it provided them with a particular way of seeing and and understanding and navigating the world. And eventually, 200 years from now our descendants are going to look back on us and also say, What a bunch of weird people, why are they hiring unpaid interns and then not calling it slavery? That's essentially what it is. And that is the nature of history, right? At some point, everything that happened in the past is going to look strange and otherworldly to us. But it's supposed to be like that. Because if the past was actually exactly the same as the present, if somebody tells you the past is exactly the same as the present, we aren't being honest with you at all. Hey, past is a very, very different place.

Michelle D'costa  37:43

Yeah, totally. But in fact, I was what I liked, is that, yes, while there were employees who are, you know, egotistical? And yes, like you said, they were they be all of that. We also see another side, where, for example, you know, because they were trading with the Arabs, right, they did allow a lot of Arabs to establish mosques, right. And in fact, we know that even a mocha Varsha hired Muslim officers, you know, sort of to, you know, giving them I would say equal rights like the others, right. And you've even mentioned that there is a group called bias Sera, who's sort of like a descendants of West Asian fathers and Indian mothers, which I found very interesting, which sort of shows you that things were not that closed back then as well. Right. But, you know, again, see talking about, you know, all of the flaws, you know, that we had back in history, I do think that women have not been given enough space, right? We do know that be it in religion, be it in history, it's always women who err on the side. And in fact, you've even mentioned that you found it really difficult to find information about the childcare queens, you know, be it, whichever they be or knock mother up, right. And then you also cover the women of the untapped Buddha, which is actually the harem, you know, in the palace, right, which is a woman squatters. And they had a hierarchy, which was as complex as you find in courts. Right. And what happens there is literally there were women who were monitored by others where, you know, their fertile periods were being tracked. And and it's just, it sounds really bizarre, but it was a thing of the day. And in fact, what was interesting is that only the most important connected, you know, well qualified women would be allowed the right to sort of, you know, take the generation for the you know, so I wanted to know more about especially these women in that period, and it was what were your observations? What were the roles that were sort of given to women back then

Anirudh Kanisetti  39:27

I have a crucial thing to remember is that I don't think there's ever been a point in history where women have just been passive observers and victims, which is something that is really taking root in modern political discourse, and I completely and fundamentally disagree with it. I think that it is a tremendous injustice to historical women to assume that just because we can't see them in the historical record that they weren't there. Like, one of the silliest things I've come across is this idea that Like biases, for example, who are descended from West Asian fathers, Indian mothers were more inclined towards their father's culture or their father's religion and that their mothers were nothing more than receptacles for giving birth to them and feeding them, which is a ridiculous way of seeing things. It I think the, or anybody who genuinely believes that probably doesn't understand their mother very well, or doesn't understand their models in raising them. Because I mean, from from the humblest family to the wealthiest and most powerful, this idea that women have always confined themselves to the roles that men have ordained for them is a massive oversimplification. It's simply not true. But at the same time, just because some women achieve positions of privilege does not mean that a society affords women an equal place in gender. One word one, I mean, just because India had a female prime minister, while before many other democracies does not mean that India has solved issues with patriarchy, or misogyny. And it's the same thing with the medieval world as well, I've very often come across these claims that, oh, you know, this lady Gargi is mentioned the Vedic Period is mentioned in the Vedas and the Upanishads. Therefore, that has proved that Vedic society was feminist, or especially in the medieval period, oh, here's this one queen who exercise power and therefore, she is proof that this society was progressive or feminist. And that's simply not the case. The reality of it is that I think when we think about feminism, especially when think about feminist ideas in in a medieval context, we have to be intersectional about understand that, yes, the privileged, irrespective of their gender, or sexuality, will inevitably be able to use their, their connections to rise to positions which are similar which people with with with with a similar sexual orientation, or similar gender would not ever be able to even dream about. Just because I'm able to talk about locum Areva and Vijay Maha Devi tells no not mean that women in general were well off in the medieval period. And that's why I also take a lot of time to point to primary sources where kings talk about women in profoundly disturbing ways. Because I think that it is, it is very important for us to understand how far we have come as a society as a society from those times, but also to understand in a lot of ways how those attitudes actually still persist, and require us to be aware of them, we must understand how far we have come, but also how far remains to go for us all. And also remember that women are not passive bystanders, they play an active and central role in shaping the past and the present and the future. And it is high time that as male historians do a little more than the bare minimum and acknowledge the role that women have played throughout time.

Tara Khandelwal  43:06

And out of all the women, you know, I know you said that the resources were limited. But had you come across sort of any, you know, maybe you could read an anecdote as an interesting story about a woman leader, that you found really fascinating.

Anirudh Kanisetti  43:24

Well, I really find the Rashtrakuta Queen Sheila Maha Devi very interesting. I wasn't really able to get into her in a lot of detail in the book, partially because of the lack of sources, and possibly also because of narrative constraints. Because tomorrow, they wanted to talk with everybody in endless detail, I simply could not. But from my calculations, I expect that she was it seems that she was much, much younger than her husband, when she got married. Her husband had only been married before he had two adult sons. But not only did she come from a foreign kingdom, she was able to once again rise to a fairly important status. And of course, this happened with other queens as well, too. But to me, Sheila is particularly interesting, because she came from the wencke region in Andhra Pradesh, which, incidentally, is where some ancestors of mine were from. So to think of somebody who probably even even very, very distantly shared some kind of connection to me, and who I could really imagine because he would look at the sculptures of Andhra in close detail, you would know that the kind of hairstyles that women there wore was slightly different from what women the Deccan were wearing. And I just I just had this like, dazzling kind of like, image in my mind of this of this young girl who is accustomed to doing things and like having her hair arranged in a particular way, arriving at this alien court, in a kingdom that has extorted her father in and basically I'm forcing him into giving her a As a bride, and then imagining her hair being bound in a different way now in the fashion of a Rashtrakuta code. And of course I can, I can never prove that this actually happened. I think logically it must have, but I can't prove that it happened. But it still just seemed, it just struck a very deep chord with me, it seemed to me that I could imagine this as a real living, breathing person, going through difficulty and then knowing that eventually she overcame it, and that her son became the Rashtrakuta emperor, tells me that she must have been a person of great strength of character. And not just that, but if you were to actually once again, I was not able to include this in great detail, but her grandson's great grandparents or granddaughter eventually become a Sanskrit poet and her descendants at on thrones not just in a decade, but also eventually in her homeland, as well as in a number of other places surrounding the document. So in a way, this, this, this young girl ended up becoming the grandmother wardrobe of many medieval decade kingdoms. And there is no way for us to reconstruct her life in any degree of detail. And partially as a result of that, I think she really stayed.

Michelle D'costa  46:20

Yeah, and just when you mentioned of the way she dyed her hair, and all of that, that was just taken back to all the descriptions in the book, right? Because you have not only covered the different kinds of bodies that were there, what tactics they use a kings Queens arts, sculpture, you know, architecture you have covered so much. In fact, I just love this description of how you mentioned how the Rashtrakuta is dope, right? For example, they're very black hair, it was fastened with with, you know, vibrant cloth bands, which were tight around their foreheads. And in fact, they had bare chest, you know, draped in triple necklaces, made of many colored beads. And in fact, your forearms, you know, up to the elbows, it was covered in iron bracelets, right. And their legs were covered in loincloth, which was tucked around their knees. And then they had a band around their waist, which held a dagger, right, which is a very vivid description of how they how they dressed up. And yes, you have mentioned all these, you know, I would say nuances for which we understand what was their culture like, right. But I also have out of this concern, when I was reading the book, I noticed that while yes, you know, every culture has these different sort of, you know, habits, the way we eat, the way we sort of dress, the way we interact with all of that, at the end of the day, reading about all of these kings, and just the way they were trying to compete with each other, right, which which shows a very typical male attitude. I want to know what, according to you is the stark difference between the Mughals and the Guptas that we have been reading about all these years in our history books, you know, versus these? Who are the Chalukya stolarz Rashtrakuta. Right. Like, I mean, yes, apart from cultural differences, do you really think there's a major difference between the north north Indian warriors and the South Indian warriors because honestly, to me at a point, I felt like they all are just bloodthirsty warriors zero fighting for power?

Anirudh Kanisetti  48:07

Um, that's a really interesting question. I'm not really sure how to answer it. But I do think that your your feeling is right, Michelle, and that yeah, it is. The nature of powerful men, or just powerful people hasn't really changed the tendency to see other people as less than less than them. The tendency to use violence to achieve your means, the tendency to see women as possessions to be bargained for trade away. And this hunger for well, for luxury presented in whatever terms, but that's essentially what it is. You can dress it up as philanthropy you can support whatever charitable foundations, but you enter the power. I think, another strangest thing is that wherever you look in human history, whichever culture you look at, powerful people just behave in very similar ways. And, and to me, the strangest thing as a historian writing on medieval autocrats, is that you look at modern autocrats and you're like, I can see very clearly the hypocrisy is, like, laid bare because they're doing the exact same things. But somehow, I think humanity does not learn his lessons from history. The same trick works again, unless people are aware and know that this is how power operates. And this really ties back to an earlier question I think Tara had asked about our curricula and the way we think about history because if we are really taught to understand the way that power presents itself, I think we will be much less credulous in the way that we are taken in by these charismatic military men because Honestly, I think that like, I think the way that we think about the Mughals is a really great example of this, because for many decades up till now, the Mughals were seen as these charismatic glamorous people, I think, you know, very, to a large extent that has not really gone away. Like just I think, last week, there was a massive auction like Google art objects that sold for hundreds of 1000s of pounds. It was just like fortunes that, you know, most Indians can't even conceive of, whether today or whether they are the subjects of vocals, but yet yet this, this aura of glamour around them persists. And now there is a backlash to that. But rather than the backlash is not about the fact that these were autocrats, who committed horrible things, in the name of power, and justified horrible things, the name of bar, or other backlash was about the religion that they followed, which is absorbed, because it absorbs all other things who happen to be of a different religion, but did the same kind of monstrous things. And the things that I write about are a great example of that. And that, yeah, then just because they were Hindus, or because they were genes didn't doesn't mean that they were any less inclined to do the same things that the Mughals did, whether it was to women, or whether it was in terms of manipulating religion, to present themselves in particular ways, whether it was at tastes for luxury objects, or whether it was a taste for war at unprecedented scales. I think that the lesson that we should take away from all this is to be more wary of power, rather than being wary of like, particular religions. Because I think the lesson that history teaches again, and again, is that it is not a particular culture, it is not a particular religion, that makes powerful people do these things. It is power itself. And what we should be suspicious of as citizens of a democracy with ostensibly equal rights given to us by the Constitution is not very wary of each other, but what we value of those rulers.

Michelle D'costa  52:06

Yeah, very well put. Yeah, and that's the irony, right? And, you know, because even I've heard of that, that line that, you know, Google's really looted us, and, you know, what we were and what they ended up sort of making us. And now when you read this, this sort of, you know, your version of history, or when you read a more comprehensive version, you do understand that no, but everyone did the same thing. All of them rooted in their own ways, right? Everyone had their own strategies. And what I find really fascinating about this is, you know, even the war tactics, right, even that has changed over the years. So one thing I know is that, you know, elephants are not used these days for war, coverage, they used to be used back then I really found that fascinating. But also it is problematic in a way, right? Because like you said, Who's more powerful, and who they feel they can sort of use in a way of who who can they manipulate, you know, to sort of make the most of it? Right. So, you said that elephants sort of were the played the role of modern day tanks, right? So they would unleash the most the probably the hugest elephant that they have, you know, just to sort of release this shock value or towards their enemies. Right. So could you please tell us what was the role of elephants back then? And of course, in today's day, it would be animal abuse. But you know, do Do you know of any other fascinating war tactics that you came across?

Anirudh Kanisetti  53:19

So I happen to think just purely as an accident of the YouTube algorithm, here's ever happened to watch a video of a temple elephant in Kerala. Just going into a rampage. And without exaggeration, one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen is the way that such an enormous animal driven past its breaking point and the kind of damage it could do to human like, just there was a little left of the person, once the elephant was done with it, like the way that it moved. It's just the way it like, slammed him down, disempower them and then trample them and apologize to the audience for the graphic language, of course, but that's exactly the same kind of use that you see elephants being put to in medieval sculpture as well like a write down to say that actually train to fight in particular ways to you know, to throw enemies down or to like leave them with their trunks to throw them or to wield weapons even and I think there's something so disturbing about an animal being trained to use a human weapon. It's, it just is such a profound, I think, perversion of the natural order. And really makes you question once again, this romanticized idea we have of medieval people as being in tune with nature. And like all these things, the reality of it is that a medieval people had the technological ability to exploit nature, they absolutely would have it says they weren't able to do it and the scale that we repeated we can, which ties back to only a point as making about you know, how we haven't fundamentally changed the species. From then to now. 

Tara Khandelwal  57:49

What I what I found was really interesting, because I've been following you for a while because I follow your podcast echoes of India, which is about Indian history. And I was very happy to see you know that you've written a book as well. So I wanted to shift tracks a little bit and ask you more about your journey from podcasting to now writing a book. And, and, you know, how, what was your journey? Like? What, how did you get sort of what is your need towards getting published? And what medium Do you prefer book or podcast?

Anirudh Kanisetti  58:33

Okay, so, um, I think I prefer books, though, of course, they have the upsides and they have their downsides. I feel like with a podcast, there's a compulsion to like, have you to have a neat little narrative package, and have a neat little package of sounds, and so on, everything needs to be condensed into these like 20 minute digestible chunks. But as the book like, you can, like the potential for storytelling is so much grander, because you actually can, if you're able to pull it off, and if you have a good editor, very importantly, then you can actually give people a narrative of 500 years of history, which is just not possible in a podcast. And as a podcast, we're like 15 hours long, in which case you lose people's attention after 15 minutes after all the work that goes into. So I don't think I prefer long form writing in general. In terms of the journey, Well, honestly, I got into podcasting as a result of a of a bad sense. We used to I used to work for a think tank in Bangalore. And we used to have these weekly research meetings on Thursdays, where I used to talk about history. And you know, even there was a public policy think tank wasn't always received very well. So I remember a few folks once jokingly said hey, why don't you want to create a History podcast called jumping to conclusions? Ouch. But also, why not do a History podcast because the think tank did do podcasting, they had a tie up with IBM podcasts. And I did a bit of searching and found that there were no Indian history podcasts. It was like one done by I think Patrick was it was in previous University at the time. But it didn't really, I think, scratched the itch that I felt that if I wanted to listen to History podcast, what would I listen to? And like, I just like, I was very, very, very lucky to have like a good set of producers at IBM when I was up in Dr. Sardo. Because I think that they really understood what I was trying to do, you know, and I said, Okay, so I've written this battle scene. And would you guys be able to make it sound like a battle? Can we put in like elephant trumpet in sounds? And can you put in like a conch shell and like, all those things? I said, Yeah, we can absolutely do that. And I still do Rambo. Like, soon after echoes of India season, I happened to meet someone who said that he was cutting vegetables when he was listening to the first episode. And at the point where you know, the king Boris makes his last stand it is Alexander. And he orders his bodyguards to like blow conch shells. And they were actual conch shells in English language History podcast, he was so strong, they almost cut his finger. And I just, that would really stay there. Because I think it it showed me the potential of storytelling with audio. And I think, honestly, one of the creative endeavors I'm most proud of, and I don't think I'll ever be able to capture that lightning in a bottle again, was, I think one of the middle episodes of season two of echoes of India, where I'm just walking through the medieval city of ordain and get, like, pulled into like, a little bit of a prank, slash gossipy scandal was going on in the court of ancestry. And he's had such a great time, writing that, recording that with a couple of friends, and then going and getting drunk afterwards. And really feeling like I'm living up to the legacy of our ancient ancestors. Because I think that that very, down to earth an irreverent perspective of Indian history, where it's not just about great and glorious kings trying to teach you some tiresome moralizing lesson, which is what our history has been reduced to. But instead just making history about like, people gossiping and doing silly things, and pranking their friends, which is what life is actually like for most of us, rather than, Oh, no Pradhan, mantri Sanders. So let us worship Him and let us do this or that or the Pradhan Mantri has told us that's not how we live our lives. That's not how historical people live their lives. So that that was something I really enjoy that causes that I could, I could be a little you know, I could be a little rude. I could be a little quirky and like poke fun at people in a way that you can't really do in nonfiction because people expect you to be very serious with nonfiction. I remember. My editor once told me that he's very glad that he removed a lot of the College Humor and fart jokes from the first draft of the decade. It would have been a very different book more entertaining, perhaps, but definitely would have sold as well. I think.

Tara Khandelwal  1:03:56

Thanks for that. And that's a very interesting journey. And I love how it happened. You know, just like space it and particularly so. Really like stories like that. And now you know, it's being made into a TV show and all of those things so that's that's really wonderful. Unfortunately

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:04:14

minus all the cart jokes in college you

Michelle D'costa  1:04:19

what do you do I mean, in the books defend on the road, you know, it is still it's not dry, like our history textbooks, right? It does read like a thriller, because you want to know what happens next who's gonna overthrow the throne and all of that anyway, but he I do like how you've mentioned that it's a collaborative process, right? Like for example, if you write the script and someone else sort of adds the audio and all of that and and pretty much with your book as well. You know, I really love reading the acknowledgement section, usually, and I liked it. You've acknowledged people like you know, the bus conductor, for example, move and who advise you on the best bus routes, right? Sometimes it's the strangers that that are like sort of help us out when we don't know anyone right in a place when you're conducting research. Or it could be the gentleman at the mythic society in Bengaluru, right who helped you to sort of look up and out of print publication, and we do know, the nonfiction, you know, relies on research, it relies on help from a lot of people. So I wouldn't know, you know, especially the relationship that you had with your research assistant or scholar who centac Sharma, you know, do you have any anecdotes that you'd like to share with us something funny that sort of, you know, happened while both of you were working on this?

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:05:22

Well saga, can I get to know each other through memes? So I think that that's, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's one of the most important things to know about that dynamic. But like, during the research process, it is very amusing because like, I don't think either of us, like fully understood the gravity of what was happening as the book was coming together. So either came in towards the ending of the process, or you were like, putting together maps, and appendices and so on. And I was like, Southern look, my bibliography is in a complete mess, I will not assign these things. Can you please help? And then in two days, he like magically fixed everything and I must say that making friends through memes is one of the unique gems of our contemporary culture. And I wouldn't give it up for the world, in fact, for a while during the pandemic, actually and a historical meme page. And it is, I mean, I keep meaning to get back to doing it, but it's never get around to it because long form writing is, it is it is a massive, massive project. But it's so many many so many good fans through just memes and through the silly in dogs And also, rather than seeing the act of writing and creating something as this, as an action done by this heroic intellectual, all by themselves, it's high time we understand that. Creation is always a community process. And the more people are involved in creating something, the richer it is, as a result, the richer the author is, as a result, I'm profoundly grateful to all the people who have happened to meet in Oakland back when you asked me a question that the right time who told me something that sent me off on this whole kind of research spiral that made me want to put in a particular thing. Nothing that I create any posts creates exists in isolation, and from our books to ourselves. We are always a tapestry of the people who touch us. And I think that's something that we should always seek to remember and acknowledge.

Michelle D'costa  1:10:54

Yeah, and in fact, just to mention, so one reason why I look at the acknowledgments is starting to see that because I do know that you know, as a writer, a lot of it, yes. While you're working in solace you there are a lot of people which contribute to your journey. So I in fact, look to it to see whether the author is gracious enough to give credit.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:11:13

Well, I'm glad I'm glad I passed that.

Tara Khandelwal  1:11:16

Yeah, so Okay, so I also want to know, you know, what made you interested in history in the first place. So a story about, you know, working at a think tank and coming up with historical facts. Interesting. But yeah, was there any sort of anecdote from childhood or what got you interested?

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:11:32

Video games, it was video games and having too much time on my hands in college that really got me deeply into ACM, and I was always interested in it. I, I wasn't very curious child, I was very lucky that the first few years of my education were actually in the US because my dad was working there. And my teachers encouraged me to read voraciously. And the US has this remarkable Public Library culture that I think is tragically dying out in India today. And that gave me an exposure to so many things, right? I love dinosaurs, I still love dinosaurs. I recently got like a Princeton Field Guide dinosaur, so proud of myself for like, maintain that passion for all these years. So I mean, I was vaguely interested in history, but I wasn't particularly taken by it. I think, partially because like all of us, my history, teachers in school tend to reduce it to like a list of dates. And, you know, this king after that King, and this king planted mango trees, and that kings built wells, rather, like, you know, the all the other stuff we've been talking about in this podcast. Versus in college, where I didn't have an attendance requirement. And we had a great land network. So ended up ended up playing a lot of games and ended up playing a lot of historical games. And most historical games are made by Europeans or by Americans, poor people in the West. So they're very west focused, and they're very focused on Western history. But if you were to play a game, where Alexander the great features, and then you look up, Alexander the Great, you'll find like 100, well researched, well written books about him, and you will learn so much about him. But I started to get curious about Alexander's, you know, the people who Alexander was conquering, and like, I want to know about them. So when I started searching for the moreas, for example, I just found like a handful of books Charles Allen's work Romila Thapar nine, George Lahiri, but these are very academic books, and I enjoyed reading them. But most people I knew didn't. So I started experimenting with blogging, I started like this, take these kind of dry academic terms, and then make them into interesting narratives. And I just found that I had a plan for 10 that led into podcasting. And that led into writing and it's all very serendipitous, but I am so glad that I happen to find it. Because I feel like I work in IT, I worked in a think tank, I work in public policy about the geo strategy. I've moved numbers from one imaginary Excel sheet to another to make somebody in some part of the world richer. But the one thing that has really brought me the most profound creative joy and made me feel like I'm really giving back to society. He's talking about history, and I'm so lucky to have found that and to receive the opportunities in the platforms to actually pursue that.

Tara Khandelwal  1:14:25

Wow, that's that's really wonderful. And that's amazing video games. So that means that you know, hopefully after the next book and the DVDs there's a video game also.

Michelle D'costa  1:14:38

Yeah, in fact, like we do whatever we consume, which made me think about it, like not just video games, movies, or whatever stories, most of them are very colonial and, and I think what you've done here is you've sort of given us an alternate history which which makes me very curious about you know, your reading tastes whether there are any books which cover ordered history like yours does, you know, especially Audit History of India.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:15:00

Oh, well, I always recommend this book to everyone who asked me this question. It's called courtly culture and political life in early medieval India by Tao, Dolly. It is an academic work. But it is it is fascinating because more than anything else, it is really that book that made me realize just what a different world medieval people lived in, like, from their ethics, to their aesthetics to their taste for luxury to their body language to the way they conducted themselves, in private and, and public. More than anything else, that poke made me realize that, okay, this is a whole other world that very few people understand as much as needed, and really convinced me to be that bridge between academia and the public. Um, aside from that, just generally speaking, I tend to read a lot of natural history. And there's some really interesting, there's a new wave of historic history books coming out of the West that are like, really, really fascinating. So there's one called medieval bodies by Jacques Hartnell, which looks at art from medieval Europe and like, tries to understand through that, how did they think about body parts how they think of the head and how they think of the heart. And it's a such a weird and wacky world that simultaneously feels familiar. And that's exactly what I want in a history and a history book. April history book is telling me if it's if it's going to agree with my biases with my preconceived notion with this narrative of heroes and villains, that our politicians have been forced feeding us for the last few decades. I'm going to be very suspicious of it. But a book that shows me a world that is like ours, but also very alien. That's gonna get my interest in we're gonna be booked. Another fantastic work that I'm reading is Toby Wilkinsons to Tonka moons trumpet, which looks at 100 objects found in the tomb of Cancun, the famous Egyptian pharaoh, but then uses them to create this kind of material History of Ancient Egypt, which is just such a fascinating concept. And there's a brilliant line in the book where he, he says that a couple of silver trumpets were discovered in a tomb and he says that we will never again hear the music that these trumpets used to play. I was like, yeah, yeah, that's

Tara Khandelwal  1:17:30

a that's a really good light. And I see really thing. And I also really, like natural sort of history books. So I have written on medieval bodies, and I'm gonna check that one out. You know, the intermingling of history and science, I think, is such a fascinating topic. So what do you read? You know, besides history, we spoken about, you know, a lot of people what do you read for fun besides history? Oh,

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:17:55

I've recently been really enjoying Abraham boogies is the covenant of water. Oh, yeah.

Michelle D'costa  1:18:01

What is so much fun. Yeah,

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:18:04

it is just incredible. Because I don't accept the scratches the historical itch, but also by creating people who, once again they're like us, but not exactly like us because they live in such a different world. And then they end they act like they belong to a different world. I don't want to like give spoilers to anybody who hasn't read it in the audience, but it is it is it is a such an incredible testament to the development of medical knowledge, and also to the ability of the human spirit to find joy and companionship, even in what might seem to us to be dark and miserable times. Like, it's incredible. I just cannot recommend it enough.

Tara Khandelwal  1:18:47

I loved it so much. And I could not stop thinking about the ending. I don't want to give any spoilers. Oh, okay. Yeah, what do you think? Yeah.

Michelle D'costa  1:18:58

I think it's one of the best generational family dramas and I've read in a long time. And anybody like who loves family dramas should read the book. 

Tara Khandelwal  1:19:25

I really like the line that you you said that, you know, is very interesting, because there are people like us, but not like us. It's so similar to us, and also different. I think that is what makes it so fascinating. You know, because the because we're all human at the end of the day is just and we sort of imagine ourselves in that time period and what we would have done in that cultural context because our biology, the way we think the way we emote hasn't changed and it's just the culture around us and the things around us that do it So anyway, that brings us to our last second last section of interview which is our playground, which Michelle is our quiz.

Michelle D'costa  1:20:10

Yes, we call it the fun quiz. I'm gonna give you three options and you pick one. Okay for each question alright, the first one is apart from the Deccan what is the other untapped history of India? A northeast B union territories see pre partition India

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:20:29

the Northeast but I would also say the East Coast generally speaking, how many of us know about Odisha is history in Odisha was incredible place What about central India like what about Chhattisgarh in Jharkhand? I mean, absolutely fascinating. Things went down in their history, something that India's adivasis we very often tend to dismiss played a central role in and yet we barely know about it. So there's like any number of like, notices waiting to be dug up.

Michelle D'costa  1:20:55

Correct. Okay, the most fun part of working on the book A collating the features of the artwork, be arranging the notes and bibliography section C. Speaking to setback.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:21:07

Okay. I mean, we already know it wasn't the notes and bibliography for sure. But yeah, getting together images was actually a lot of fun because I was it was it happened at the very ending of the whole process. And I was like, almost at the finish line, and like, there was this looming satisfaction and we have like finally being done with the book. So that was an incredibly enjoyable process. Nice.

Michelle D'costa  1:21:32

Okay. One language that became popular in the decade era, a Canada B, Sanskrit C, Tamil. Great, okay, one dynasty, you wish you were a part of a Rashtrakuta is vitolas. Ch allocates? I

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:21:48

wouldn't want to be part of any royal dynasty, I would not be able to survive the pressure and the stress. I would not want to grew up thinking everybody army is going to betray me if they get a chance. So I have to respectfully say none of the above.

Michelle D'costa  1:22:04

I guess. Yeah. Okay, awesome. So now this brings us to the last round of the podcast, which is the rapid fire round. So you get to answer in one word, or one line and no thinking, okay. One word that existed in the Deccan period that isn't used now.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:22:22

But maybe one about what does that mean? It means the beloved of the earth.

Tara Khandelwal  1:22:28

Oh, wow. Okay, one skill every historian must cultivate when recording alternate histories.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:22:37

I would say independent thinking, as much as important to pay homage to earlier generations of scholars, we should always be careful and considered and forming our own opinions.

Michelle D'costa  1:22:49

Okay, one temple that you wish existed till date.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:22:53

Well, I wish that the body Surah temple and gorge was actually completed, it would have been the single tallest building of the medieval period. But unfortunately, the challenge has made sure that

Tara Khandelwal  1:23:07

one character from your book that you would like to meet in real life,

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:23:11

I would like to meet the the nameless toppity, the architect of a Kalashnikova temple, because that must have been one of the great geniuses of human history. Like, I don't think there have been a lot of people like that, who could envision imagine and execute a project of that scale with that degree of confidence. Like, what a person like, I don't like he makes you know, the Sistine Chapel look like a child scribbles? You know, it's incredible to imagine what you must have an incredible person.

Michelle D'costa  1:23:47

Awesome. Okay, one route that you wish a king hadn't taken in the technical

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:23:53

hadn't taken? That's actually a difficult one to answer because there's so many branching paths in history.

Michelle D'costa  1:24:05

I don't know, I guess I would say, yeah, like basically one thing you wish they hadn't done, like, you know, any any action or any route that they sort of took, which you think they could change history?

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:24:17

See this, don't try this is not the kind of question to ask a historian because like, this will lead to that. And, yeah, there's

Michelle D'costa  1:24:23

a lot of competition.

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:24:26

I don't think I can answer that question.

Tara Khandelwal  1:24:27

Okay, good. What's next?

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:24:30

Um, like I said, a new social history of the Chola world, which really, I think so the first time for a narrative nonfiction book will take the focus away from the royal courts and deep into the countryside. The remarkable thing about about medieval Tamil Nadu is that you have enormous wealth of inscriptions from everybody from like shepherds and like worship people all the way up to kings and emperors. And that allows us to reconnect Tucked over hundreds of years, the rise of a militarized medieval autocracy, allows us to see how it shattered and transformed the society it was part of, and how eventually it collapsed and succumb to its own contradictions. And very clearly how it left the world transformed and squeak. So that's something I'm super, super excited for. And that's going to hopefully come out next year.

Michelle D'costa  1:25:23

And we are excited as well. So this was a really interesting conversation, especially as a South Indian, like I was saying, you know, we don't often come across enough stories about South India, and I think our conversation made your book come alive even more. It's like watching a movie. So thank you so much for being so generous with your answers. It was a lot of fun. Thank Thank

Anirudh Kanisetti  1:25:41

you. Thank you, thank you for your detailed questions and for reading the book. So clearly, it's always a pleasure to be able to like talk about all this stuff with people who are genuinely passionate about the art and craft of writing and reading. So thank you and thank you, the audience for for having