Episode notes
At its heart, The Dark Hours of the Night is a story about girlhood under constraint, about how adolescence, desire, and freedom are shaped and stifled within the walls of a conservative household. Rabia's journey, woven together with the lives of her friends and cousins, illuminates the subtle negotiations, unspoken rebellions, and fragile solidarities that mark women's coming-of-age in a patriarchal world. The novel opens a conversation about the everyday intimacies of restriction and resistance: the ache of thwarted desire, the bonds of friendship, the weight of silence, and the difficult…
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BIC TALKS
Bangalore International Centre · Arts & Books · English
Bangalore International Centre (BIC) is a non profit, public institution which serves as an inclusive platform for informed conversations, arts and culture. BIC TALKS aims to be a regular bi-weekly podcast that will foster discussions, dialogue, ideas, cultural enterprise and more.
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22 Feb 2026 · 39 min
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The Constitution promises freedom, but really, how free are we under its design? In 2025, India's Constitution turned seventy-five: a remarkable testament to endurance and adaptability. Yet, beneath its promise of liberty lies a constant negotiation of power. Gautam Bhatia examines the Constitution not just as a legal document, but as a dynamic terrain where visions of authority clash, intersect, and contend for supremacy. Central to this story is the drift toward centralisation: power increasingly concentrated in the union executive. While certain elements of this concentration are embedded…
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10 Feb 2026 · 53 min
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8 Feb 2026 · 47 min
405. Planet of the Apps
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30 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
404. Reaching for the Stars
What does it take to dream beyond your time—and make those dreams real? Vikram Sarabhai, founder of India's space programme, imagined communication satellites that would educate people when even a modest rocket launch seemed audacious. He envisioned agricultural complexes powered by atomic energy, sea water turned drinkable, and a modern India fuelled by science and creativity. But Sarabhai was more than a scientist—he co-founded the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, the National Institute of Design, the dance academy Darpana, and India's first textile research cooperative, ATIRA. He…
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21 Jan 2026 · 33 min
403. Gandhi and Savarkar
Between Gandhi and Savarkar lies the story of India's unresolved future. The future of India has long been caught between two irreconcilable visions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not just men, but embodiments of two enduring ideologies: Hind Swaraj and Hindutva. Their contest was never merely personal; it was a struggle over what India could, and should, become. Partition was one gash on the body of the nation, its scars still visible. Can India afford new wounds? To even attempt an answer, we must return to the old antagonisms – between communities, yes, but…
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21 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 4 min
401. Played and Missed
Before the spotlights, who kept the women's game alive? In 2017, India's women cricketers came heartbreakingly close to a World Cup win at Lord's. That match lit a fire, changing how the country saw its women athletes, and laying the foundation for today's Women's Premier League – the first women's sports league to turn profitable even before a single ball was bowled. It's the first time since that iconic evening at Lord's that the Women's World Cup is set to be hosted in India. This session will celebrate those forgotten days when world cups in India were played in front of empty seats,…
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18 Jan 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
400. Lessons for Democracy
What happens when institutions bend, freedoms collapse, and silence rules? India once knew. Five decades may have passed, but the Emergency remains a stark reminder of how swiftly freedoms can be curtailed. In those 21 months, prisons filled, the press was silenced, and democratic institutions bent under the weight of authoritarian rule. The questions it leaves behind are urgent: what does this episode tell us about the fragility of democracy, and what echoes of it persist today? A new volume gathers reflections from scholars, writers, historians, journalists, and activists to probe this…
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26 Dec 2025 · 59 min
399. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 3 of 3)
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India's Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India's linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India's borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form, and how new…
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26 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 8 min
398. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 2 of 3)
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India's Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India's linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India's borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form, and how new…
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26 Dec 2025 · 51 min
397. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 1 of 3)
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India's Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India's linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India's borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself. These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form, and how new…
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