118. The Premier In Our Lives

05/11/21 • 39 min

Memories of a city and its unique brand of life come from the people who make it memorable and places that work as pegs for those memories. One such person who created that space which so many Bangaloreans remember with unfaltering fondness and affection is Mr. Shanbhag, the gentle bibliophile who created a warm and welcoming space, synonymous with his personality in Premier Bookshop. Premier is remembered with great affection as a Bangalore institution by people of several generations. The impact that the bookshop and the person running it have had is reflected in the outpouring of grief and tribute across channels, from across the world when news of Mr.Shanbhag’s passing broke on 5th of May 2021. In this episode of BIC Talks a few Bangaloreans remember and pay tribute to TS Shanbhag.

Image credit- Raghav Shreyas

Image credit- Raghav Shreyas

Previous Episode

117. The Experiments of a Young Gandhi

Gandhi’s autobiography is famous for the austerity of its narration, and its veracity. Less known are his autobiographical observations made, almost incidentally, in the course of his speeches and writings.

This episode of BIC Talks features Gopalkrishna Gandhi in conversation with scholar and author Sunil Khilnani about the latest book ‘Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man’ edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi which seeks to complement The Story of my Experiments with Truth.

This book culls out, mainly from The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi some of those pertaining to his life as a young man. They tell the extraordinary story of the householder and lawyer, very fallible, vulnerable, but ready to self-correct and eager to learn from peers and those who he acknowledged as shapers of his life. This episode is an extract from an earlier BIC streams session.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is Distinguished Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University.

Sunil Khilnani is Professor of Politics and History at Ashoka University.

Next Episode

119. Learning from Epidemics Past

The enduring persistence, resurgence and mutation of many epidemic diseases have made apparent the problematic nature of the ‘epidemic disease narrative’ in the 21st century. Through the lens of the history of polio vaccination and treatment from a seemingly peripheral, Eastern European perspective, Dora Vargha aims to shift our attention to question what, when, and for whom is an end of an epidemic ‘the end’, and what happens after.

This episode of BIC Talks is in association with Science Gallery Bengaluru and was originally part of their ongoing online exhibition season - Contagion, open until the 13th of June, 2021. Do visit bengaluru.sciencegallery.com for more talks and an exhibition experience of Contagion.

Dora Vargha is historian of medicine, science and technology at the University of Exeter, based jointly at the Department of History and the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health and is co-editor of Social History of Medicine journal. She has published on vaccine development in Eastern Europe, the Cold War politics of polio, disability in communist Hungary, and epidemic narratives in current global health policies.

Jahnavi Phalkey is historian of science and the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru.