Tara 00:03
Hi, everyone, welcome back to Books and Beyond with bound, where we talk to some of the finest writers in India and South Asia and find out what makes them tick. Am Tara. Hi, I'm Michelle. So we have really, really exciting news. From this month onwards, Chennai live, the radio station will be airing our trending episodes, it's going to be aired on their radio station, as well as on their app. So here's a big shout out to all our fans in the South. Yeah, I
Michelle . 00:32
mean, it's such a blast on the past, right? Or like, I remember listening to FM during my school days, and it really was such a big part of our lives in the 90s. I'm so glad you like being banned get to be a part of it. Yeah. All right. We're
Tara 00:45
back on the radio. And, by the way, Spotify, you know, the end of the year. And we also found out that Spotify did an annual wrap for podcasters. And we found out that we're trending in four new countries. So that's amazing. That takes our total trending countries to 27. And our followers have also increased by 109%. Yeah, thank
Michelle . 01:09
you so much. Without y'all we would have not been here today. So today's episode is a very special one. It is a bonus episode.
Tara 01:17
Yeah. So what we decided to do is we decided to speak again to Manu Pillai, who started off our podcast with his episode, and it's one of our most listened to episodes. He's a Sahitya. For those of you who don't know, he's the Safety Academy Award winner. He has four amazing books who said it his latest one is called for false allies and covers the lives of royal princess through Raja Ravi Varma has paintings.
Michelle . 01:48
Yeah, so we actually wanted to catch up with him, right, because a lot of writers have explained to us over the seasons about how much your writing has changed during the pandemic. So we wanted to know what it was like for Manu. And because you know, most of our listeners are history buffs, we decided to do another episode with it. This is a
Tara 02:05
bonus episode where we're gonna catch up with her. We're gonna have a lot of fun, funny, interesting questions. But for a more in depth episode on money, be sure to also listen to season one, episode one.
Michelle . 02:20
Hi, Manu, welcome back. It's so good to speak to you again.
Manu Pillai 02:24
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be back with both of you again.
Michelle . 02:27
Yeah. And we actually began season one when one of your episodes and it was super hit. So we wanted to speak to you again. And now we are four seasons or and I think by the time we are out with our next season, you will have written another book already. Right, Tara?
Tara 02:42
Yeah, you know, thank you so much. You actually one of you wore the person who kicked off our podcast, we had no listeners at that point. And we recorded with you. And it's done really well. So thank you so much.
Manu Pillai 02:54
I'm glad to be of service because I know that you know, the podcasts doing doing really well. I've been listening to a number of episodes. The last one I listened to was Rajat Ubhaykar’s, which was, you know, I think it came out a few months ago. And yeah, so you know, this is wonderful to be back here. Although, considering that you you guys found me have much information the first time around. I'm very curious to see what you will ask this time.
Tara 03:17
Yeah, actually, you know, and thanks so much for listening, we wanted to know a little bit more because when we recorded we recorded in a studio, and it was before we even knew what the word pandemic even meant. And now things have changed so much, but you've still managed to put out your new book false allies, which, you know, as you say, these are research heavy books, heavy books, and it's amazing Michelle and I was speaking that you are able to, you know, work at this consistent pace. So last time when we spoke, we are asked you fiction was installed for you. And you said sometime in 2024. But I really want to know because of the pandemic Have things changed? Has your plan actually changed? What is it been like for you?
Manu Pillai 04:01
Well, it hasn't changed much because you know, for for a person who anyway, works from home as it were, the pandemic didn't upset professional matters anyway, because, for me staying at home chained to a desk was not a new thing. In fact, at some level, I welcomed it, because after my third book, Corizon madman, the Italian Brahmin came out in 2019. I'd been traveling far too much. There was this day in February, I think last year, where I was in three cities and one day I took off from Bangalore in the morning, I think spoken event and not put and then came the pony in the evening. And that's when I realize I've been traveling far too much. And I really need to get back to actually sitting down in writing and doing my work. So far from the pandemic toppling my five year plan. It allowed me to get back on track, get back into writing, and and do a whole chunk of writing last year. It's you know, first off this kind of thing is part of my PhD research and the writing of the thesis and things like that, but even so it was is useful. It was only I think, I Well, after a year into the pandemic that I started getting this h2, okay, you know, now get out and see the world and be around people. But for about a year, I was perfectly happy sitting at home, you know, and not having to go anywhere. The only thing I missed, sadly, is the the fact that your book events, readings festivals, where you actually get to see your readers, you know, you're filled, you're in a room that's filled with people, there's an audience, you can sense the pulse of the the listeners, you can sense if your answers are having any kind of impression on them. All of this, it gives you feedback, you know, and keeps you on your toes, it's always much more fun to do that. online events, you know, they're a bit tiring after a while they do they can seem a bit repetitive after a while. So that was a bit disappointing.
Michelle . 05:50
Yeah, I'm glad that the pandemic was actually productive for you. That's true. I think we've spent a lot of time indoors. And that, you know, gives you that space to really concentrate. And I also noticed that you did an in person launch, right for false allies, it must have felt really exhilarating, after a long time. So I was curious, did you all time the launch of the book, you know, so that it would happen in person? Or what was it like?
Manu Pillai 06:16
Well, that hole where, you know, I always released my books in Bangalore at gallery G, which is, it's a tradition, all my books have the first launch has been done there in Bangalore. And usually that hold holds about 200 to 300. People even, you know, the last book I launched in 2019, I think we had close to 300 people, there were people everywhere. It was such fun, and, frankly, great for people that the writers ego to see a hall full of people the same, we had to be much more circumspect, we had to restrict numbers to 50. So it was a much smaller physical event, everybody had to be double vaccinated. It was by RSVPs only, and you know, there was a lot of rules and formalities, etc. But we decided that, you know, it was worth doing it, we were taking all the precautions we could. And I'm glad to say that nobody came there with COVID. And nobody ended up leaving with COVID. We haven't heard of a single case from that event. And in a sense, it's a way to start, as I said earlier, you know, getting used to maybe going out again, maybe doing events at a smaller scale, and hoping that the pandemic eventually dissipates. It wasn't planned, the book release wasn't planned for around that time, it was just that we got lucky. I know that earlier in the year, a lot of books were delayed, because the second wave came out of nowhere. And everything that was meant to be published over the summer got pushed by multiple months. And that upset publishing schedules. It upset, the plans that authors had made, and a great many other things. But in my case, weird anyway, decided to do the release the book in September. In fact, I'm planning more in Kerala and Bombay and other cities, but probably in December in January. Oh, amazing
Tara 07:53
that that is lucky. And please let us know about the events in Bombay. You know, we'd love to it and of course, yeah, yeah. So you know, last time you, you spoke about your writing routine for the cortisone and the Mahatma. And you also mentioned that your writing routine differs from book to book. So can you tell us how different it was writing falls allies versus your other books? And what was your writing routine for this one?
Manu Pillai 08:21
Well, false allies. Since you've read the book, you'll know that it's about the princely states and mirages. And from a historians perspective, it's about breaking the cliche that the princely states were all about dancing girls and elephants. And there was serious politics going on here. There was serious business going on here. And many of the major Rajas were actually quite interesting political figures, not you know, idiotic despots who wrapped themselves in silk and lay on silk cushions and gave arbitrary orders. So, of course, I was very keen keen to make it clear that this was the argument of the book. Usually, if you look at my first book, The ivory throne, for example, it it has an introduction. But the introduction is just a sort of, it leads you into the story and it constructs the context. And then the arguments, etc. The book come much later, whereas in this case, I decided I want the argument in the first introduction itself, and the five chapters covering five principle states, each as a kind of case study, and then the conclusion, which reiterates several of the points made in the introduction. There's a time when earlier in your writing career, you're always at some level, keen to impress, you're keen to sort of make sure that your audience loves the book and all of that, which is important, it's important to keep the audience and their appetite in mind. But all the same with this book, I think I haven't gone out of my way thinking that oh, you know, everything must impress everybody, in a certain way. On the contrary, it's the argument that matters, it's the writing, of course has to be of high caliber, but it's also about the argument. In that sense, I suppose it's a slightly more serious volume. Compared to cortisone, of course completely different style cortisone was a collection of very short essays. The introduction to that was just one pattern. graphs, if you remember, whereas this is very many pages.
So and this is, I think, a 550 page book. So it's a much heavier book. The other thing that was different was also that I've woven Ravi Varma into the story, the artist, which meant there was a lot of reading around him around his style around his art tradition around the paintings that he did reading up, you know, the work of art historians and things like that, which was a relatively novel territory. For me. I had worked on Ravi Varma before as a historical figure, but I hadn't really looked at his art as a source of history before. So for instance, when he the way he poses a Roger, you know, the exact pose in which Roger appears in a painting that's always planned, it isn't happenstance isn't it isn't something that's left to chance, there's actually meaning that the books that you may see in the background in the frame that has a political meaning, the temple go from that means that you may see further in the background that has a certain significance in the painting. And I realized that his portraits were not really just about likenesses of fancy people, they were actually also means to signal certain political messages, they were certain means to make certain political statements, which meant, you know, discovering that about art discovering that about Ravi Varma as art in in particular, all of that was very interesting. It was new, it meant engaging with a new set of materials, a new set of writers, a new set of scholars, plus, of course, the usual things that come into historical research, which is your multiple sources, the National Archives in Delhi, the archives, so archival sources from as far as Scotland, America, newspaper archives, local libraries, your Asiatic society in Bombay, they have a wonderful digital archive now of all their old stuff. All of this comes into the picture. And then it was yeah, that that took a while to get together.
Michelle . 11:48
Yeah. And I'm curious, you know, like, because there's this fascination with Raja Ravi Varma. And we also spoke to Deepanjana Pal, who's you know, written about his life. I want to know, you know, what about other painters in that royal era? Why why Raja Ravi Varma?
Manu Pillai 12:05
Well, there were very many other painters. I'll give you an example when Raja Ravi Varma went to the port which was around 1901. There was a local artists they called Kundan Lal. He was a very talented man, he came from a family of painters. He had even gone abroad on a scholarship and studied at the Slade school in London. So he was, you know, technically a very gifted, talented, promising young men. And yet he was always treated by the local ruler as something of an artisan whereas Ravi Varma was received as a celebrity as a nobleman as somebody who could claim higher prestige. And one of the reasons was that Ravi Varma did not come from the usual communities that painted that painted have followed various artistic pursuits. They were often considered lower in the in the caste hierarchy for example, as I said they were often treated as craftsman are artisans not really as artists in the in the sense that we know the term today. Ravi Varma because he came from the aristocracy because he was related to the tribe and core royal family. The sisters in law were the Ronnie's of tribe and CO his granddaughters became the Ronnie's of Travancore towards the end of his life, his family, his Angola ancestors were the rajas of paper and Malabar in till the 17th century. So he was very well connected in that sense, and many Rogers etc, saw him very much as a social equal. So when he was commissioned to do an artwork, it was not like the others, but they would get a fee. And that would be it. In his case, that would be a much higher fee. Plus, they would be prestigious gift necklaces of pearls, silk robes that rulers used to give to the nobleman and others, even elephants, you know, things like that were given to Ravi Varma. So it was not that he was perhaps the most talented figure in his day, there were plenty of other people who had talent as well. But he was somebody who was in some sense, a sort of complete package, he had all the advantages of a high birth of a high station on life of the fact that he got an English education moved in western circles also with great ease, he had charisma. He was therefore very much a man of high society. That meant that he wherever he went, those opened in a way they did not for other artists. Of course, he had to hustle. He had his, his his years when he had to work really hard and actively reach out and seek patronage. But even so he had certain advantages. And I chose him because there were 562 princely states and the official numbers that you see, even if you reduce it to the main princely states that's about 100 or a little over 100 princely states. And I don't want to do a general textbook, I really wanted to explore a few princely states in depth, because you know, each of these are diverse, each of these are different, and in terms of selecting states from a number as large as 100 Ravi Varma came in handy because he began his life in a princely state as a royal relative indifference to the subject. And through the course of his career, he worked not just in traveling co in Kerala, but to the quarter in Tamil Nadu Mysore in Karnataka. Baroda in Gujarat. Ooh, there put a naughty So he sort of went all over the place. And I was able by using him as a connecting thread, shortlist five very interesting and very distinct and different princely states and make my larger case. The book is not about Ravi Varma. It's just the world in which Ravi Varma operated. That is the
Tara 15:18
focus that was in that angle is so very fascinating because you can take, you know, multiple angles to look at things and it reminded me also of Amitabh OSHA's latest book, The nutmegs course, where we start with, you know, something as simple as the nutmeg and then go on. And I also really liked it, because I've studied art history. So do they interesting to see how that plays in. Last time, we had spoken a lot about, you know, all of these powerful women in your books and how you highlight them. So, you know, you do do this this time as well. So could you maybe narrate for our listeners, the tale of Jamna by?
Manu Pillai 15:59
Well, you know, this, I must say that this book is, is one book that I've done so far, which is relatively female light, the main figures, to a great extent are men. And you know, the five states, it's their maharajahs that are the focus, largely because it was often men in control. But you're right, I do try to point out there's one chapter on royal women and how they, you know, they're certain they're to negotiate morality, politics is character certificates that the British were trying to give them all kinds of issues like that. And of course, several of them were extremely powerful political operators, in the sense that we often think of royal women stuck in Herons, gloomily, or in a very sensuous setting. Their life is you know, like, it's like living in a gilded cage, you've got all this privilege and luxury around you. That's the word we see of royal women. And the British often put out this cliche or stereotype around them that they were just sinister figures in the shadows, intriguing, blocking and doing all kinds of wicked evil things. But a person like Janna by tells you exactly how royal women saw themselves also as political figures. Being in the harem did not mean the harem was some domestic space. The harem was also a political space. In Jamna base case, you know, she's the daughter of a village headman. She comes from a family of high pedigree, but her family lives in very modest circumstances a village headman, his daughter, at the age of 13. She's picked up and taken to Baroda because the Maharaja who's a good is is almost 40 years old, much older than her. He's, you know, been married twice doesn't have a therefore he's looking for a new wife, who might potentially give him a son. And she gets chosen and suddenly this young teenager from a place called behemoth port, becomes the Maharani of Baroda. Now, what happens is that he passes away within four years of their marriage, and she had less than 17 or less than 18 is is a widow. The problem Baroda though, is that the Maharajah and she still do not have a son, Mr. Rogers got a brother in the brothers society problematic figure, and Gianna by Duff's does something very interesting. She announces that she's pregnant. It's interesting because you know, in the 1880s, there's a British officer who actually complains that widows across India and royal families have this habit that every time a Maharaja dies without an heir, they can declare themselves pregnant. And by doing that delay the question of succession and by delaying the question of succession, they give themselves a potential say in politics, they create a space for various factions at court to realign themselves and come to new arrangements and essentially they play politics. Now what happens to Jana by is she is pregnant within a few months she she has her baby unfortunately for her the baby is a girl, which means her husband's brother becomes the next ruler, Gemma is of course she's got the option of staying on in Baroda in the harem and becoming an own entity. You know, there are plenty of royal widows in the Baroda harem she just become one of them, which she decided she didn't want to do. What she did instead was her husband had given her a lot of jewelry and money. With all this money she leaves Baroda and comes to Pune. Pune is in British ruled India. And in puni is where the journalist ah there's a new class of nationalist emerging and all of that there are these strong networks they were there. As she starts using her money to manipulate both the British and the Maharaja in Baroda, her brother in law. So she sponsors complaints against the Maharajah by bribing people on the ground in Baroda you know landlords, farmers, whoever just go and complain to the British about the maharaja. At the same time she's also manipulating the British because she's driving the British resident who's like the local representative in Baroda of the British government. She bribes his own servants his own employees to fan his animosity against the maharaja. The result is that of course there are other issues also but this enables after a few years a situation where the Mirage is deeply unpopular. There are all kinds of complaints being made against him many of which are of course sponsored by by Jamna by the British don't like him and they've decided to get rid of them and ultimately that's what happens you know they get rid of him Gianna by comes back in time to Baroda and she says that as the WHO widow as the ex Maharaja the previous Mara does. We do she has the right now to normally As a successor to the throne, the British and she come to a compromise where they will select a few candidates and she can choose whichever one she likes. What's interesting here is that so much for her having earlier manipulated the men around her white as well as brown. Now she sees a common, you know, goal with the British, which is both of them want a young boy, not somebody older, they want somebody young in their teens, so that they can manipulate the kid they can make sure that the kid grows up and remain submissive to both of them. The British want the kid to be submissive to the British Empire. She wants the kid to be submissive to her so longest so that burrow in Baroda, her power is is paramount. So she and she, along with the British they adopt Sayajirao Gaekwad, the third a boy of 12, who was still then living on a farm, a very distant guy, quad relative of the royal family living in a village near Nasik, put him on the throne. And of course, he grows up and becomes his own man learns very early on how to flout the British and ask them questions and stand up to them. In fact, his career, in the very many decades that he was on the throne, he was not at all popular with the British, who at one point even considered deposing him, because he had got that out of hand and was actively considered disloyal. But even with her when she realized that having grown up and having taken power, he was no longer submissive to her. He was no longer listening to her. She decided that she would play politics again, she went out to the British and said that he's definitely not been listening to you. And he No has been as even listening to me. And in quotes to put an end to his self sufficiency, they should essentially give her all the power in Baroda and make her a supreme authority over the maharajahs head. Of course, by then the British had decided that they didn't want that because all said and done. He still had this Victorian prudishness and her private life, gave them some jitters and they were not very pleased with what she was doing in her in her own type. And her plan did not work. But even so she was not a pushover, she had to be given a large allowance, she had her own, separate the bar, she lived in her own place, she traveled where she wanted, until her death around 1898. If I'm not mistaken, she was still a very significant force in Baroda. And that it's a way of demonstrating that a woman technically living in Pardot technically living in a harem, technically, with the entire ecosystem around her stacked against her can actually still manipulate it still control it still make efforts to to seize power. And ultimately, that's what she her life tells us that she didn't see herself as a woman as a Maharani, as somebody who's supposed to constrain her role to the domestic sphere. She said that I'm a Maharani I am a political, political person and that is my platform. That is what I want. Power is what I seek.
Tara 22:40
Thanks so much for narrating this incident. I was, you know, very, very engrossed in it. Have you considered starting a podcast? Anyway?
Manu Pillai 22:50
I get I get asked this, every now and then. But no, I have not so far. Because it was actually
Michelle . 22:55
like listening to an audiobook.
Tara 22:59
I don't know, I would listen to a podcast, wherever anyway, you know, it just made me think that it's so nice that all of these stories are coming out because you more and more see women displaying agency, especially in books like era, McCarthy's Daughters of the sun, and even historical fiction, I recently read Chithra energies book about Ronnie Gendun. And though obviously, a lot of it was fictionalized, these books gave women ambition. You know, it showed that they wanted power and show them in very different light than what we're seeing right now. That's wonderful. Yeah.
Michelle . 23:38
And, and I actually like the tug of war that you mentioned Monroe, you know, between the British and her own people, which was, which must have been really difficult to navigate. We do know that you've done a lot of reading as research for the book, but what have you read for fun? You know, what's your pleasure reading?
Manu Pillai 23:54
Well, I've I've had some pleasure reading but not as much as I would have liked. I'm currently reading Shrayana Bhattacharya’s Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh we're releasing. She's releasing the book in Mangalore later this week. And I'm sharing a space on the stage with her and helping her with the discussion and things like that. It's a very interesting book. I've been reading some fiction but frankly, if you ask me now off the top of my head, I'm not sure if I can remember any of the names because I read so much for work. There's so much reading for research, that leisure really is often fiction. There's there's this completely frivolous, but totally fun novel that I read. It's a pink cover. It's about this American president's son who falls in love with the Prince of Wales, I think is blue. Yes, yes. Something like something big something blue. Yes. But the thing is, with all this heavy reading that I'm doing during the day, before I go to bed, I do often want something lighter, something that's just easy fun. That's just refreshing that that can make you laugh out loud, even if it's completely silly and completely soppy. It really does take the edge off, you know, from all the work that's done during the rest of the day. There's Tarana Khan's book that I read, which is about a cortisone in one of these nawabi courts of northern India, which is, again, a book of fiction, I did read the Rani Jindan book as well. The Harper Collins, I think, sent me a very nice hardback edition in a box with a little bit of author and all of that very nicely done, which, which was, again, wonderful to read.
Tara 25:28
It reminds me you know, when you set the light reading, it reminds me of, you know, I do this with like, TV, TV shows all the time. So I watch a lot of sort of, like, these romantic comedies and stuff like that, and it completely just shuts your brain off. Because the rest of the time you're so serious, and you're engaging with CDs material that you you don't need, you know, that sort of just something fun to immerse yourself.
Manu Pillai 25:50
I agree completely, because in fact, I, when people ask me what I watch on Netflix, I never tell them because it's completely embarrassing, hopelessly, hopelessly lame stuff, and terrible, terrible, terrible shows. It's just as you said, it just helps unwind at the end of a long day.
Tara 26:05
Yeah, exactly. So you know, you're quite active on Instagram, and I follow you, and you have a huge following. And, you know, very interesting thing. So, you know, what effect does your social persona have on your writing, if any, at all?
Manu Pillai 26:21
I don't think much. If you see, you know, I usually post when I'm traveling, very rarely do I post selfies and things like that. Very rarely is it about me, I very, very rarely post anything from my workspace from my home. These are completely private spaces as far as I'm concerned. So you know, there's there's certain lines that are drawn there. But even so Instagram, really, I'm not very active on Twitter, Twitter's usually where I retweet things. And everybody's fighting on Twitter anyway, and calling each other names. So I'm not interested in that platform in any serious way. Instagram is much cleaner, because there's a you know, it's images, people can send you nasty messages. But because it's not visible, people don't get performative about it. So it's an it's a platform I prefer because I find it healthier. Literally, I got a random message by somebody called me. I essentially put up a noticing that I was canceling some bouquet events this month because of a personal thing. And they were like, Oh, how could you betray us this way? And there was this Magellan bird he was which was quite strong. And I thought, gosh, what is this response, and I wouldn't cancel things. If, if I, you know, if I could help it, it's just because it's an unavoidable situation. But I use Instagram even so as a form of stress relief, if you can see what I mean. Because again, much of the day, I'm seated at a desk in front of a computer screen sitting down and it's one room one place, a silent room, that's the kind of universe I inhabit on a normal day. And Instagram is my one outlet, every say one and a half hours or two hours is going on Instagram and posting something frivolous or putting up a status or just doing something on Instagram is my way of keeping things light. Because I don't like to take myself too seriously. I don't like to lose all sense of humor, I don't like to start thinking that I've somehow become this highly serious kind of figure. So Instagram helps me engage with that lighter side of things to engage with the lighter side of my own personality and all of that.
Michelle . 28:19
Yeah, no, I think oh, yeah, Instagram has its hold on us in its own way, addicted in some way or another. What's next, because we do know that you're working on something.
Manu Pillai 28:29
At the moment, I really have to get a lot of work done on my PhD, because I'm in the final stage where one has to actually sit down and write once thesis, which is not light work, that's actually pretty intense. And the kind of writing it requires is very different from the usual writing that I do. The audience is very different, the style is different, you have to be much more to the point, every word every sentence has to be carefully constructed. Because you have a fixed limit within which the PhD thesis everything that notes a bibliography, all of that has to be within that limit that has been set. So that's going to keep me occupied for the next one year. I do have something else in the works. But it will be a while before that I can resume work on that.
Michelle . 29:09
Oh, best of luck with that one. Oh,
Manu Pillai 29:11
thank you. Thanks a
Michelle . 29:12
lot. So this brings us to the most fun part of the conversation, which is our signature rapid fire round. So we have chosen the theme before the pandemic versus after the pandemic. So Manu, you have to tell us in one word, what you think about these things, basically before the pandemic versus after the pandemic. All right, so the first one is consuming cereals and films.
Manu Pillai 29:34
Steady, I think throughout both phases, the best meal you have had. This has nothing to do with the pandemic frankly but in Florence several years ago, there's this tiny little cafe that's tucked away and they have and it's very tough to get a seat there. And you get 45 minute windows I think where you can go and sit and they have this wonderful roasted chicken thing that is that was a delicious meal followed by a delicious dessert.
Tara 30:00
That sounds amazing. Okay, so moving away from the pandemic, oh, three accounts you follow on Instagram,
Manu Pillai 30:06
surely I follow this very interesting actor called Roshan Matthew, who seems to be not just appearing in interesting movies and demonstrating that he has a lot of talent, but also seems to be a very thoughtful, interesting person. I follow a number of history groups, there's a group called Karwan, which is run by a bunch of kids, I shouldn't call them kids are not being condescending, but they're really young, they're essentially 20 years old, you know, college students, if not younger, and they're doing such good work. And they're so enthusiastic about what they do. And they get such good people to come and speak on the Karwan platform. And of course, I follow a whole host of writers,
Michelle . 30:44
one royal dish, you wish you could recreate,
Manu Pillai 30:47
oh, you know, the Maharani of travel cause husband way back in the 1920s. Or so he used to go every time there was a wild man eater, a rogue elephant or something, people would call him to, you know, attack and shoot the elephant or shoot the tiger. And he would go and apparently on these trips, he would sometimes end up spending a couple of weeks, even in the forests and end up living with the local tribes that were there. This is of course in Kerala. And he The story goes came back with a kind of TL TL is this dish we make in Kerala. And he came up with came back with the kind of tale that the tribal communities in one part of tribe and call us to make, and ever since then, he introduced into the royal kitchen, this tribal dish, and it became a part of that royal kitchen and the family's tradition. And ever since then, I've been very curious about what this tribal deal was. I've never so far been able to teach.
Tara 31:38
So thank you so much, man.
Manu Pillai 31:41
I am not entirely convinced, I must say that, you know, you were probably expecting much more rapid rapid fire, whereas my rather professorial and slow, but oh, this is this is this is the aging boring person? Um, no,
Tara 31:55
not at all. And as I said, you know, if you started a podcast, I would definitely listen, because you're really good at storytelling. But yeah, thank you so much. It was so it was so good catching up with you, and congratulations on the book. And yeah, I'm happy to see you happy and well after the pandemic.
Manu Pillai 32:14
Thank you, likewise. And I hope both of you have very many more episodes, a lot more seasons coming out. And the podcast continues till you are old, becoming more and more grave and serious in life.
Tara 32:28
I really enjoyed this episode. It was very different from the others, wasn't it?
Michelle . 32:32
Yeah. I mean, for me, I think the ketchup thing was was a very different experience. I think we should do this with more authors.
Tara 32:40
Yeah. And Manu really has a way of telling stories. I mean, I know that even for last time, we both felt like we could listen and listen to him narrate historical tales all day, but unfortunately, there's a time limit to these things. But you know, this was really fun thing and stay tuned because this is a bonus episode, but we have a full roster in depth amazing interviews. Coming out season four, it's coming soon. Early next year, you're going to be surprised, delighted. We had a roller coaster over time recording it and just look out because it's going to be amazing.
Michelle . 33:18
Yeah, I mean, we are going to be covering different genres and if you know you love today's episode, please do let us know if you would like us to catch up with any of the authors that we have covered so far. Please do write to us. We are at bound India on all social media platforms.