Explore India’s Rich History: Top Book Picks from The Seen and the Unseen Podcast

"The Seen and the Unseen" is India's premier long-form podcast hosted by Amit Varma. The podcast, which has been running since 2017, features long-form conversations with intellectuals, writers, economists, historians, and thought leaders from India and around the world.

I am only sharing the books recommended related to Indian History: 

Post-Independence to Contemporary India (1970s–Present)

  1. India after Gandhi — Ramachandra Guha
  2. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh — Srinath Raghavan
  3. Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point — Gyan Prakash
  4. India Moving: A History of Migration — Chinmay Tumbe
  5. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi — Vinay Sitapati
  6. The Paradoxical Prime Minister — Shashi Tharoor
  7. The Generation of Rage in Kashmir — David Devadas
  8. Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth-Century India — Jahnavi Phalkey

Independence and Nation-Building Era (1940s–1970s)

  1. VP Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India — Narayani Basu
  2. The Man Who Saved India: Sardar Patel and His Idea of India — Hindol Sengupta
  3. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India — Akshaya Mukul

Colonial and Pre-Independence India

  1. Gandhi Before India — Ramachandra Guha
  2. Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World — Ramachandra Guha
  3. An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India — Shashi Tharoor
  4. Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity — Manu Pillai 
  5. Age Of Pandemics (1817-1920): How they shaped India and the World — Chinmay Tumbe
Ancient to Early Modern India

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Kanpur Coaching Gurus

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Memories of coaching days at Kanpur are inseparable from me. I have done a separate post on Kanpur coaching mandi only. The most remembered image of my coaching days was the advertisement of Ankush Bhatia by Pran classes, and it was pasted on each wall of Kanpur. His photo was spread at distant corners of the city, showing All India Rank 51. Never seen any local marketing campaign like this. Sometimes, I recall the rush of students from one coaching center to another for seat capture, xerox copying of assignments, and 'out-of-course' study material. The JEE course was never completed on time in the Kanpur coaching mandi. At the end of March, the mad rush to complete the course began with various test series taking place simultaneously. I could not forget that pressure till now. I will never forgive Anish, Pankaj, and Vishnoi sir for combining their individual treats into 1 party for JEE-qualified students. For information on the pre-2000 AD days of coaching mandi, check this l...
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An off beat Post about Me

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Book Review: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Goodreads ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Highly Recommended In 1945, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a decorated Soviet officer who made a small, private joke about Stalin in a letter. The state opened it, read it, and treated it as a crime. Within weeks he was arrested, stripped of rank, and fed into the camps, where he served eight years in the Gulag . The camps were designed to teach one lesson: say nothing, remember nothing, become nothing. His novel’s unflinching realism reflects these lived experiences. The novel was an unprecedented event in Soviet literary history, boldly exposing Stalin’s crimes. It explains that One Day was allowed to be published in 1962 because Khrushchev’s de‑Stalinization briefly eased censorship. Khrushchev’s approval made the book a political and literary sensation worldwide, though it was soon banned again—ironically helping Solzhenitsyn win the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature ...
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Kanpur Coaching Days

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Within a radius of one kilometer, Kakadeo is the hub of the coaching mandi for JEE, MBA, Medical, etc having at least 20-30 coaching institutes. The classes are run by individuals teaching a single subject with a completely one-man show. Few people object to the name ' mandi ' but it's like a fish market only. Coaching Mandi is the perfect name for it because the teachers are earning the butter, not bread for them. When you go for admissions, people try to admit you to their institute with false advertisements and lucrative trial offers. It's altogether a mandi in which every teacher just wants students' admission, not in JEE, but in their institute. It was an urban legend that girls were used to seduce boys for admission in a few coaching centers. I and my friends tried in vain to find such lethal hunting beauties. My encounter with coaching mandi begins with JEE preparation. Nalanda Hotel, Pamela Restaurant, Agra sweet house were my favorite places there. For othe...
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