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Is that you on stage? Is the table human? Is existence necessarily a part of (even, physical) reality? Is there only one thing (brahma)? Does poetry depict reality? How is literature different from paper? Are dance and music less reality bound? When does psychological realism begin? Is only the common (or the conventional) real? Are dreams real? Is something real only if it is either a cause or an effect? Are things dependently arisen? Could formalisms depict reality? Are n-branes things? What costumes do characters wear? How do we evoke something? Are we trapped in this saṃsāra? Does the ‘physical’ mean anything philosophically? Is it all empty at the end? Is vacuum emptiness? How is there action at a distance? Are all individuations illusory? How do theory, experiments, religious texts, & inter-subjectivity lead to reality? Are integer numbers real for crows? How do artists compete with the reality of camera? Why does Waiting for Godot need two characters? &, would you know what’s real if you were the only one left on Earth? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from theoretical physics (Prof. Debashis Ghoshal, JNU, New Delhi), philosophy (Dr. Justin P. Holder, Ashoka University, Delhi NCR) & theatre studies (Prof. Ananda Lal, ex Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Listen in…

Who writes autobiographies? Is movement a choice for you? Do you plan to go back home? Have you had to leave ‘home’, forever, with fish still frying in the pan? Are you under chronic stress? Are violent people mad? Is poetry only a matter of luxury? What does Art do to our Default Mode Network? Is there a developmental trajectory to how brains develop over a lifetime? Does your brain’s development depend on your country’s HDI? What happens when one is faced with multiple adversities? Would you cope with the next flood? Do you live far from where your food is produced? Do we always desire to move both socially and economically? What creates the concept of permanent deprivation? Are there silent stressors around you? Are shocks now normal? Are only the poor vulnerable? Are you a woman? Is displacement necessary for progress? What is a family supposed to do? Will we keep creating individuals (only) for the Market? Are societies too passive? How is Bhuj different from Latur? Are scars permanent? Might heat spikes cause hate speech? Are you already immune to awe? How is Kabir being sung today? &, how are our brains going to evolve in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from psychiatry (Prof. Vivek Benegal, ex-NIMHANS, Bangalore), economics (Prof. Sandhya Iyer, TISS, Mumbai), & literature (Prof. Sukrita Paul Kumar, ex-University of Delhi, New Delhi). Listen in...

Are you a narr-actor or a spect-actor? Are you best placed to narrate your own story? Why do those things not get talked about? Do narrations create selves? Can one perceive differently than one sees? Are certain narrators to be privileged? Are we all born into a narrative structure? Do spectators change the events? How does one live in a world with competing truths? What if ‘facts’ are absent / silent? How do we cover up and fabulate? Who experiences guilt and anxiety? What comes in between speech and silence? Does history (or power) stutter? Could rituals & folk tales be narratives? Which stories become narratives? Who counts as a human being? Is (historical) truth immaculate? What do history books in Congo talk about? What have sugar / rubber / oil done to the world? Do structures come out of processes? What happens when something false is retold? Who is the narrator of the narrator? How do the spectres speak? Do you listen to the Other? How is global politics done when things are unclear? Are spectators, actors and narrators increasingly mingling around us? So then: where are we? What time is it? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from literary studies & psychoanalysis (Dr. Arka Chattopadhyay, IIT Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar), political studies (Dr. Aparna Devare, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), & history (Prof. Saurabh Dube, El Colegio de México, Mexico City). Listen in...

How standard are you? What does it mean to be an Individual? Are you a Hutterite? Must charities be voluntary? What about orphans? Should the State tell us what to do? What might absence of State lead to (in various domains)? Is self sacrifice a virtue? Are welfare states justified in the real world? What does one need to be autonomous? Does anyone have a right to demand that other people support them? Why do most (all?) constitutions partially claw back the freedom of expression provision? How are responsibilities and rights related? What would Ayn Rand make of conscience? Is the imagined unit of Constitutions a rational Individual? Do you have personal Laws? Has the Self become modern? What does it mean to be autonomous? Is personal autonomy always embedded? Do you need the right to rebel? Does free market (read: freedom) help cultivate individual virtues? Is free trade good? Why do libertarians think that all taxation is theft? Does barter scale? How does one accord sovereignty / autonomy to local life arrangements? Do you assert your individuality only via the legal route? &, what if you want to die? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from philosophy (Prof. Neera Badhwar, ex-The University of Oklahoma, Norman), sociology (Prof. Chandan Gowda, Vidyashilp University, Bangalore), & legal studies (Prof. Sitharamam Kakarala, NALSAR, Hyderabad). Listen in...

Has it always been the Anthropocene? Do you care about the ‘powerless’ Nicobar? How old is biodiversity? Why does anyone want to be a conservationist? What is the kind of variety that we wish to preserve? What is a unit of diversity? Do different parts of the world think differently today about the ‘species vs habitat’ question? Is agency distributed throughout nature? What did Tibbles do? Are there variations even within individuals (of a taxonomic group) in an environment? What purpose do sacred groves serve? Is conservation always great for local communities? Must conservation efforts also be calibrated? Can diversity be ‘understood’ via experience? How do diversification, adaptation and extinction contribute to evolution? Do the (internal) processes of organic life themselves lead to diversity? What is it like to lose things without knowing about them? How do differing aesthetic and moral impulses influence us? Are you afraid of change? Do you like manicured lawns? What does natural selection act on? How do we classify the world? What choices do we have? What is diversity for? &, could one even think a 1000 years into the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from evolutionary biology (Dr. Anand Krishnan, JNCASR, Bangalore), philosophy & biology (Prof. Sahotra Sarkar, UT Austin, Austin) & conservation studies (Dr. Pankaj Sekhsaria, IIT Bombay, Mumbai). Listen in...

Are our brains log-normal? Why is breathing rhythmic? Why is there a hum in the universe? Do our hearts beat chaotically? Are the (stock) markets random and ‘unbounded’? What is a market? How is Mercury perturbed? What has sleep-wake cycles? Must you go up and down with the sun? What causes whirlpools in a smooth flowing river? Where do rhythms reside? Is there an equivalent of homeostasis in the markets? What is your sigh rate just now? Are you depressed? Could you move fast, vocalize, eat and breathe at the same time? Why do we hyperventilate when we are anxious? Is there phase lock-in between (say) moving and (quantized) breathing? What role do feedback loops or self organization play in regulating complex systems? Do risks become more systemic in a complex & connected world? Why are flight transportation systems more easily perturbed than bio-physical systems? In general, are emergent systems less easily perturbed? How is degeneracy different from redundancy? How do certain monks (?) go without breathing for a few hours? Do order and disorder lie on the same continuum? &, must we always build bottom-up? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from neuroscience (Dr. Sufyan Ashhad, NCBS, Bangalore), econophysics (Prof. Anirban Chakraborti, JNU, New Delhi) & philosophy (Rev. Fr. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel, JIS University, Kolkata). Listen in...

Are you a born criminal? Is genocide ever justified? Is meritocracy a ‘garbage’ concept? What are the entitlements that you have by virtue of being a human being? Do rights exist because the State exists, & vice versa? Are rights sometimes anti norms? Do nomadic and sedentary societies think differently of rights? Are rights always a product of struggle? Are you 42 and a communist? Are all rights inter-related? Can the right to dignity be limited? What gets transmitted across generations? Are the normative social structures of the past in our prefrontal cortex today? Does reservation come under the framework of equality? What are a prisoner’s rights? Does it suit us to have certain sections of people stigmatised? Must social, political & economic rights go hand in hand? Can societies be changed without economic incentives? Is West Africa still scarred by slave trade? Can historical recompensation be done forever? Do you have a present bias? When are gender points a good idea? What makes rights effective - is this scale dependent? Why is Geneva Convention not always enforceable? Which rights are non-derogable? &, what are the rights of the next generation today? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from economics (Prof. Sujoy Chakravarty, JNU, New Delhi), history (Prof. Ajay Dandekar, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR) & law (Prof. Arvind Narrain, NLSIU, Bangalore). Listen in...

How many meals do you have time for? Why do sweets make you happy? Does fruit sugar (fructose) need insulin? Why does sugar spike? Are oranges and grapes differently sweet? Has sugar always been a transnational commodity? How did Europe get sugar? How did the first sweet shops come up? How did we end up milking animals? Is time the fourth factor in nutrition? Are apples autochthonously sweet? Do sweet making techniques travel easily? What travels first – people or food? What does grinding do to grains? Where do you get your samosas and croissants? Does your tea have blood in it? Is your diet carbohydrate heavy? Might you crave ‘more’ food if you consume less sweets? What has the relatively recent non-seasonal abundance done to human bodies? Have our metabolic systems evolved to fight abundance as well as scarcity? Do all blood pressure patients need to restrict salt? How important is the sensation of sweetness? What exactly do sugar-free sweets do? What is monk fruit’s future? Is greater industrialization of our food systems inevitable? &, would sweets continue to embody the spirit of indulgence (& excess) in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from endocrinology (Dr. Hemraj B. Chandalia, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai), culinary anthropology (Dr. Kurush F. Dalal, Gyaan Factory, Mumbai) & sociology (Dr. Ishita Dey, South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi). Listen in...

How do you look at women? Do Goddesses follow Gods? Is the ultimate Reality an ‘It’? What’s the relationship between matter and energy? Are dualities necessarily conflictual? Is Eve inferior to Adam? Where do the Cosmos and the Body intersect? How did the sacred geography of the subcontinent evolve? Do Goddesses have an influence on the lives of men (& kings) & women? Where/how did patriarchy exist? How did Ramabai become Pandita Ramabai? What did the colonial encounter do to the archetypes of Goddesses? How did the early literary women appropriate the Goddesses? Is (only) education responsible for empowerment? Is Vishnu’s primal inner energy essentially female? Who is capable of hedonistic bloodlust? What invoked the wrath of Nanda Devi? Are male and female in a union like speech and meaning? What is evil? Or, dirty? Did women have a voice in pre-Colonial ‘India’? What are your models for feminism? How do courtesans become poet saints and Goddesses? How did the tribal women of India ‘transform a priest’? What might indigenous feminism look like? &, what is the future of the several goddesses & the little (folk) traditions? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from cultural studies (Prof. Sachidananda Mohanty, IIAS, Shimla), Dr. M.D. Muthukumaraswamy (folklore studies, Chennai) & Sanskrit studies (Dr. Bihani Sarkar, Lancaster University, Lancaster). Listen in...

Do you have neanderthal DNA? Is your body your identity? What makes the knowledge of death possible when no one alive has experienced it first hand? How does dying feel? What are your schemas for understanding death? Is death the default, & it is life that happens occasionally? Does a cell know when it ought to die? When is an organism dead? When can we not dream? Can (certain) tissues and organs regenerate? What are the biochemical reactions a response to? What does oxygen do? Does the concept of death make control over others possible? Can we reverse death itself? What is the 'location' of a person? Do all cells come from other living cells? Or, can cells be created artificially from scratch? Is the body inferior to atman? Intrinsically, is everything conscious? Why do we see matter around if it's all one consciousness? Is Higg's boson dead? Do the cells need to divide to avoid death? Is dying like falling in deep sleep, & do we therefore die everyday? How does structure and order reproduce? What did you inherit from your mother at birth? Can dead mammoths be resurrected? &, will we have the power to create varied artificial life in the future with genome writing? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from philosophy of science (Prof. G. Nagarjuna, IISER, Pune), theology (Swami Narasimhananda, Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Kozhikode), & genomic sciences (Prof. Binay Panda, JNU, New Delhi).

Are you a lobby strategist? Do you negotiate with yourself? Which taste group do you belong to? What are you allowed to see? Do you pay to publish? Do the algorithms that serve you change with you? How are counterpublics generated? Is society constantly transforming itself? What role does capital play? Does media influence human rationality? Are you able to tell real discourse and propaganda apart? Was there ‘public opinion’ (say) a 1000 years ago? Does public sphere have capitalistic roots? What happens to niche ideas in an information supermarket? Are newspapers opinion ‘takers’? Have most modern societies moved from being axiomatic to algorithmic? Can one have societies without a moral discourse? What happens to our base instincts? Do you have the ability of have your own individual opinion? However, are niche morals undesirable? Do ads serve a symbolic norm-making function as well? ‘How’ do you go after your ‘target’ audience? Is it alright if mass media becomes ‘hyper personal’? Is the public just a sum of the all the individual echo chambers? &, what is the kind of public that we want? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from philosophy (Dr. Muzaffar Ali Malla, Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), Avantipura (J&K)), social sciences (Prof. Narendar Pani, NIAS, Bangalore), & media studies (Dr. Vibodh Parthasarathi, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi). Listen in...

What do you expect to see on windy islands? Can you soar? Are there a finite number of ways of flying? Did we glide before flying? Do birds & insects fly like planes, & vice versa? How are the lift-off forces and moments generated? Was the Wright Flyer I (which made the first sustained manned flight in 1903) actually a very bad design? Do flies fly merely by seeing? Are wings thermo-regulatory devices? Why has flying evolved several times across different species? How many times of its own weight can flying structures take? How should flying carpets be made? Does it matter to the moth what the value of ‘g’ is? How might dragonfly wingspan change with atmospheric oxygen content? Can airplanes fly like sharks swim? Why shiver? How are/would the helicopters that fly on Mars (be) different? How will a balloon inflate on Venus? Are biological flyers far more efficient than the human engineered ones – how? Do birds and insects of the same size fly similarly? How are unmanned and manned systems different? Why don’t we have faster commercial flights (given they are possible)? Can one expect to see new ways and manners of flying? Will we ‘fly’ to Mars at some point? &, is there still a lot of ground to cover? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from aeronautical engineering (Prof. Rajkumar Pant, IIT Bombay, Mumbai), & neurobiology & physiology (Prof. Sanjay Sane, NCBS, Bangalore). Listen in...

How do the disposable get marked out? Which institutions have cognitive control over you? How do you develop railways in Argentina? Who changes institutions? Is it always from ‘within’? Do institutions help us with the ‘higher order’ decisions? Are military, markets, prisons, families, religions, borders, languages, & villages coercive in the same way? Are prisons (in reality) chaotic? What’s the price of joining an institution? Is there conformity of opinion around you? Do religions evolve? How do you think of the family? Do institutionalization and socialization go hand in hand? ‘When’ do markets need to be regulated? Are cryptocurrencies really a counter-current? Does our continuous search for meaning gives Religion its power? Do universities live longer than political organizations? What are universities from the perspective of the dropout? Does the world need one anchor currency? Can algorithms be inclusive of local issues? Have institutions, thus far, been spatially bound? What would planetary scale institutions look like in the future? ‘How’ are the marginal voices to be heard? &, are nation states the best institutional form for the modern world? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from sociology (Prof. Mahuya Bandyopadhyay, IIT Delhi, New Delhi), economics (Prof. A. Damodaran, IIM Bangalore, Bangalore), & history (Prof. Srinath Raghavan, Ashoka University, Delhi (NCR)). Listen in...

How ‘deep’ would a 1,000 years be? Is all space place? How do use, identity, value, law, power, or (‘imaginative’) memory hold them together? Do we live in layers? Are all human beings historical? Are all places relational? How do ‘material’ cultures of the past enable excavation sites to be dated? Where do ghosts and Gods live? Do all humans think of a place the same way? Can power structures lead to discursive spaces becoming material ‘reality’? What is the wilderness for you? Do you follow official maps? Do you know the seating configuration of the people you are hearing just now? What was below the Mosque? Is land a fictitious commodity? Is it possible to have an affective relationship with a property without having a legal claim? When is a place abandoned? How does a community disintegrate? Could long standing customary rights co-exist with legal rights? Is Law fiction? Are most relational boundaries always in a state of flux? Do leopards also want to take it easy? & How will we interpret our linkages and places in the future – would all space be propertied, financialized & commodified? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from anthropology & film-making (Prof. Ashish Avikunthak, The University of Rhode Island, Kingston), human ecology (Prof. Asmita Kabra, Ambedkar University, New Delhi), & history (Prof. Anindita Mukhopadhyay, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Listen in...

What happened in the 6th century BCE? Can a non-human (robot? dog?) have a soul? Does God’s time move from the past to the future? Is the present, in a sense, always avant-garde? How are bureaucratic orders made to perpetuate in time? How does a common person today understand the yugas? Who has the ‘need’ to think about the future? How are different time periods squeezed into a single register in art? Why do we invoke ramrajya? Do ideal types constrain how far (& ‘how’) one can think of the future? What did women joining the Buddhist sanghas (not) cause? Could science fiction become a historical artefact? Is a ‘genius’ science fiction writer akin to a ‘genius’ scientist? Is religion all about survival? Are religion, art and politics interwoven in the pharaoh? Are the pyramids, megaliths, Stonehenge, & the Chinese burial pits for the immediate afterlife of the dead or the future of those later alive? Are genealogies often invented? Is there a part of us that ‘needs’ to believe? Do we wish that the future were pre-ordained? Do we inhabit multiple temporalities? &, when is the messiah coming (back)? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from art history (Dr. Shailka Mishra, Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad), theology (Prof. Ori Z. Soltes, Georgetown University, Washington DC), & ancient history (Dr. Meera Visvanathan, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida). Listen in...