Ghachar Ghochar with Vivek Shanbhag (Part 1)

Gari art

In part one of this podcast, Vivek Shanbhag, a writer based in Bangalore, discusses his approach to how we speak, read, think and perceive our world through different languages. His latest book Ghachar Ghochar, has been translated from Kannada to English by Srinath Perur. He points out that there is emotional world which unravels itself when he writes in his native language, Konkani, which is an Indo-Aryan language spoken along the Western coast of India. He discusses how his interaction with multiple languages during different phases of his life- childhood(Konkani), work life (English) and literary pursuits (Kannada), led to a synthesized thought process which influences different scenes in his stories. Jayant Kaikini brings out the point that “criticism is a form of creative expansion” and they further discuss how english readers perceive the Indian world of writing in new ways. There are many details which work in different ways for readers from different parts of the world.

This entire podcast is spoken in Konkani. Konkani is a spoken language usually written in Devanagri script or Brahmi script, which originated in 1187 A.D. 

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