Episode 499: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

08/17/22 • 58 min

2 Listeners

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer for National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine. His new podcast is Chameleon: Scam Likely.

“I want a crumpled piece of paper where there are enough ridges and valleys and lines for me to be able to navigate, and they have to be authentic. And then of course the best stories among them will have surprise and intrigue, and things that are completely unexpected happen somewhere along the way. But it's hard to anticipate all of that. You still have to have a little bit of faith.”

Show notes:

@Yudhijit
yudhijit.com
Bhattacharjee on Longform
Bhattacharjee’s National Geographic archive
Bhattacharjee’s New York Times archive
03:00 "Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls?" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2021)
06:00 "The Downfall of India’s Kidney Kingpin" (Discover Magazine • Aug 2010)
09:00 Natalie Angier’s New York Times archive
09:00 George Johnson’s New York Times archive
09:00 Gina Kolata’s New York Times archive
18:00 Bhattacharjee’s Science archive
26:00 "The Man Who Captures Criminals for the D.E.A. by Playing Them" (New Yorker • July 2018)
29:00 "My Father and Me: A Spy Story" (GQ • June 2012)
29:00 The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell (Penguin Random House • 2016)

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Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer for National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine. His new podcast is Chameleon: Scam Likely.

Show notes:

@Yudhijit
yudhijit.com
Bhattacharjee on Longform
Bhattacharjee’s National Geographic archive
Bhattacharjee’s New York Times archive
03:00 "Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls?" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2021)
06:00 "The Downfall of India’s Kidney Kingpin" (Discover Magazine • Aug 2010)
09:00 Natalie Angier’s New York Times archive
09:00 George Johnson’s New York Times archive
09:00 Gina Kolata’s New York Times archive
18:00 Bhattacharjee’s Science archive
26:00 "The Man Who Captures Criminals for the D.E.A. by Playing Them" (New Yorker • July 2018)
29:00 "My Father and Me: A Spy Story" (GQ • June 2012)
29:00 The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell (Penguin Random House • 2016)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Previous Episode

Episode 498: Hannah Goldfield

Hannah Goldfield is the food critic at The New Yorker.

“There are just only so many ways to say ‘crunchy.’ There's ‘crunchy,’ there's ‘crisp,’ there's ‘crispy,’ you can say something ‘crackles,’ and that's kind of it. It's really, really hard. And a lot of things are crunchy. It's a really specific sensation that needs to be described. But I've had moments where I'm like, I can't say crunchy again in a sentence. What am I going to do? How do I get this across?”

Show notes:

@hannahgoldfield
Goldfield’s New Yorker archive
02:00 My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan • Sony • 1997)
03:00Ruth Reichl's New York Times archive
09:00 Ratatouille (Brad Bird • Disney • 2007)
10:00 Garlic and Sapphires (Ruth Reichl • Penguin Random House • 2005)
15:00 "The Pandemic-Proof Atmosphere of the Odeon Outside" (New Yorker • Oct 2020)
15:00 "The Odeon Responds to the New Yorker" (Lynn Wagenknecht • Tribeca Citizen • Nov 2020)
22:00 "The Glorious Fish and Chips at Dame" (New Yorker • Jan 2021)
27:00 "Burmese Food and a Hopeful Vision at Yun Café & Asian Mart" (New Yorker • Sept 2020)
35:00 "How Kim Kardashian Is Bringing Buzz (and Business) to Staten Island" (Alyson Krueger • New York Times • May 2022)

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Next Episode

Episode 500: Caitlin Dickerson

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer for The Atlantic covering immigration. Her latest article, on the secret history of U.S. government’s family-separation policy, is ”An American Catastrophe.”

“Interviewing separated families, I’ve found, is just on a whole other scale of pain and trauma. I’ve watched people have really intense PTSD flashbacks in front of me. I never wanted to risk asking a family to open up in that way if I didn’t know that I’d be able to use that material. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time in a way that causes them pain.”

Show notes: